Women + Football = Women football fans?

As I sat on the couch last Saturday evening watching the Redskins playoff game, something about the atmosphere didn’t seem quite right.

Maybe it was the crab dip I just devoured or the flat Ginger Ale I drank. Or maybe it was the strange scenario I thought of, featuring two men sipping Sangria and discussing cooking recipes while a group of women crowded around the pork rinds and yelled obscenities at the television.

Have times really changed? Have females truly become die-hard fans of the gridiron? All I can say about this new phenomenon is: Hell yes, they have. According to Yahoo Sports, 16 percent of the NFL fan base was female in 2006.

The total was even higher in classic football towns such as Green Bay and Pittsburgh where female fan totals reached 29.4 percent and 34 percent, respectively.

In Pittsburgh, female fans have become such a force that the team opened a simulated mini-camp that more than 300 women attend each summer.

Sundays used to be a time for us men to gather around the tube, watch the game and throw back some beers, while spending a few precious hours away from the women in our lives.

When game time rolled around, we could get away from hearing which uniform looked prettier, whose butt was cuter, and other such feminine inquiries that we simply could not stand to listen to.
 
Those traditional game days are a thing of the past. More men are finding themselves surrounded by those they were trying to get away from.

I’ve witnessed this miraculous change with my own eyes. The women in my family have become legitimate fanatics; from my Dallas-Cowboys-loving little sister, to my mother who loses her voice each weekend over Eli Manning’s performance.

I thought maybe my family was different (possibly cooler than yours), but recent discoveries have brought me to the realization that more females have truly become football fans.

I’m sorry if you were looking for an intense argument concerning the supremacy of men over women in the world of sports. Women have adapted to football and football has adapted to them.

Now on Sundays both men and women can sit together and enjoy the game without having to worry about whose butt looked tighter.