Have you ever been sitting in the bleachers at a football game and find your focus drifting away from the action between the lines toward the sideline pom-pom show? Ok, that’s a given. But have you followed that up by zoning out and lapsing into a fantasy sequence where those same cheerleaders take out scissors, snip each other’s outfits down a few sizes, put on hockey helmets, and then run amok on the field trying to score touchdowns? If only you could have had that unconscious stroke of sheer genius before Mitchell S. Mortaza beat you to the punch.

The Lingerie Football League founder and chairman fi rst envisioned full-contact, fi erce and foxy football stripped down to its skivvies while taking in Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego.

“Even with strong acts like Gwen Stefani and Sting, thousands of people sitting in their expensive seats were leaving for either a drink, food or bathroom break— the point being they were visibly leaving,” remembers Mortaza.

Later, while the Buccaneers were popping the champagne, Mortaza had an epiphany. If so many fans were leaving their seats at the stadium, the mass couch exodus at homes all over the nation must be off the charts.

“From there I combined two of the greatest things that ever happened to men - tackle football and beautiful women.” Mortaza says. And thus Lingerie Bowl 1, a PPV event timed to coincide with the Super Bowl’s halftime show, was born in 2004. Five years later, the half-time spectacular goes primetime with a full fall football slate that will serve as a runway to the Lingerie Bowl.

It’s time to get acquainted with the provocative playbooks of the Chicago Bliss, Dallas Desire, Denver Dream, Los Angeles Temptation, Miami Caliente, New York Majesty, Philadelphia Passion, San Diego Seduction, Seattle Mist, and Tampa Breeze.

Each team will play a four game schedule, building the anticipation all autumn long for the Lingerie Bowl.

While beautiful, athletic women in skimpy attire running routes and tackling each other is enough to capture men’s undivided attention, the league refuses to skimp on the actual football element of the equation.

“Right now the biggest misconception is that it’s just a bunch of washed up models playing, or rather trying to play sports,” weighs in Seattle Mist’s Ms. Versatile, Katie Ryckman.

Ryckman plays wide receiver, running back, cornerback and she’s even contemplated taking a few snaps.

FROM THERE I COMBINED TWO OF THE GREATEST THINGS THAT EVER HAPPENED TO MEN-TACKLE FOOTBALL AND BEAUTIFUL WOMEN

By day she works as a marketing specialist for Microsoft. On Friday nights she doffs her business suit and slips into something a little less stuffy: a lacy bra, garters, and shoulder pads. Growing up Ryckman ran the athletic gamut: baseball, football, soccer, wrestling, and gymnastics. In college she got bitten by the rugby bug, and everybody knows mauling and scrumming and rucking in the muck are only gateway activities to prancing around in your underwear in the Lingerie Football League.

“It’s kind of a joke and I understand.

When you throw lingerie into a sports game, that’s going to happen,” she says.

But is Ryckman just toying with semantics? This is after all a game that’s biggest highlight to date was William “the Refrigerator” Perry getting mauled by a gaggle of barelydressed hotties. At Lingerie Bowl III commentator Jenny McCarthy prefaced the broadcast by crowing, “I’m going to be rooting for boobs popping out of outfits, broken nails, and hair extensions lost throughout the fi eld.” When Ryckman came into the fold, she did so as a skeptic. Initially the athletic calibre of the gals didn’t impress her too much. But as team cuts accelerated and the Mist’s roster was solidified, she changed her tune.

Also contrary to popular imagination, the tryouts didn’t consist of league brass leering at lithe and luscious lady linewomen with laser pointers. Players performed agility drills, sprinting, back peddling through cones, and plenty of other skill and endurance assessing challenges.

“When they really started to weed out the girls that were there just for looks and started to focus on the real athletes, I felt the team really come together,” says Ryckman. “It has really made me feel that I’m playing a sport and I’m not just a model.”