Out-RAGE-ous
The original Rage Regina goes to war with the Lingerie Football League
Autumn McDowell
Sports Editor
Rage is in the air.
On March 7, it was announced that Regina would be the hometown of a Lingerie Football League team aptly named “Rage.” Although many people were displeased by this announcement, no one was more upset by the chosen name than the owners of the original Rage Regina.
Two University of Regina students, Leah Mazur and Alyshia Chobot, developed their company last May in order to enhance the cultural scene in Regina.
“We started as just a website, [RageRegina.ca], that just had a calendar of all of the arts events going on in Regina because we felt that there wasn’t just one place where you could go to get that, and then we expanded,” Mazur explained. “We are doing band interviews and also planning our own events, then we started up our company which we just registered for a month ago.
“We will be offering services to businesses to plan events for them. If they want us to plan an entertainment event or if they want us to outsource for any of there departments, we can do that. We will also be planning events and offering promotional services to artists both touring and local.”
Both Mazur and her business partner Chobot felt having an organization was necessary in order to promote the ever-growing arts and culture community in Regina.
“A lot of touring bands don’t know which venues to play in in Regina,” Chobot said. “It is helpful for them to have.”
While the two young entrepreneurs believe in empowering young women, one could argue that the Lingerie Football League is promoting the opposite.
The controversial league has been the buzz around Regina for the past few weeks, with some even arguing that the league casts women as sex objects and condones rape culture.
Both Mazur and Chobot do not want the negative attention that has surrounded the LFL to be cast on their positive company, something they fear will ultimately be done due to the name confusion.
While the Regina LFL name was apparently chosen out of 7,320 possible name submissions that were sent into the league, the original Rage Regina had more thought put into their name selection, rather than basically picking from a hat.
“Originally it was an acronym for Regina Arts and General Events and then we just decided to get rid of that,” Chobot explained. “We actually tried to register that, but you can’t, so we just put it as Rage Regina and it just stuck. ‘All the Rage’ in the arts community [became the] phrase we went off of.”
Mazur and Chobot admitted they were just in the process of registering their business name when the debacle came up. Although Mazur and Chobot don’t necessarily have anything against the LFL, they do not want people to get the two extremely separate companies confused with one another.
“[The LFL] can do whatever they want,” Mazur said. “We just don’t want to be associated with them.”
“A lot of people in the arts community do call us the ‘Rage Regina girls’ when we host events or we help plan them and they will say, ‘Oh, thanks to the Rage Regina girls’ and we just don’t want to have that [confusion],” Chobot said. “‘Oh, what? The lingerie girls planned our event.’”
“It’s kind of a weird situation too because we have totally different audiences. They are sports and we are arts and culture, so it is really different and it is a weird clash.”
While many people have reached out to offer help and reassurance to the original Rage Regina girls, Mazur and Chobot are still skeptical about what they will be able to do in this situation.
“We do have support from the community,” Mazur said. “But it is from people in the arts who probably wouldn’t have gone to the games anyways, so they probably don’t care and visa versa.”
Both Mazur and Chobot are unfortunately well aware that, should they decide to fight for the rights to the name and pursue a name change by the LFL, they would be engaging in an uphill battle against a national organization.
“I think that [a name change] will probably be difficult,” Chobot admitted. “Regina is such a small city and people are aware of the Lingerie Football League and it’s a national organization.
“It is probably going to be very large, so I think that it is going to be hard for us to differentiate ourselves via our name if we have it the same.”
Although, in an ideal world, the LFL would change its name to be something other than Rage, Mazur and Chobot admit they don’t expect that to happen.
“I mean, we like our name,” Chobot said. “But, I think that just because we are new and starting up and trying to get out there, that it probably wouldn’t be too late to re-brand, but we would be fighting against a national organization, so that would be difficult.”
“We don’t want to [change our name],” Mazur added. “But, we will probably have to. We have had people ask us [about starting a petition], but we don’t really know if it is worth it.
“I just think that [the LFL] just don’t care. We are too small, they are a big organization.”
With the fate of their company’s name still up in the air, the original Rage Regina girls have been trying to speak with the organizers of the LFL to discuss the name, but have had limited success.
“We have heard that they will not be getting in contact with us,” Chobot said. “We tried to get in contact with them and we had some sources say, ‘We talked to them and they will not be calling you back.’”
The Carillon also reached out to the LFL for a comment on the name but received no response.
