Ivette Ricco discusses the Female Fan with Tom Rozwadowski of the Green Bay Press-Gazette

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Ivette Ricco was a guest on VoiceAmerica Sports Network as a guest on 
The Real Lives of Football Wives

What is it really like to be the wife of a football coach or player? Join today’s discussion as our guests Carolyn Allen author of “The Coach’s Wife” and wife of Randy Allen, head football coach at Highland Park High School in Dallas, Texas along with Shannon O’Toole author of “Wedded to the Game: The Real Lives of NFL Women” and wife of John Morton, assistant football coach at the University of Southern California talk about what they discovered after surveying coaches’ and players’ wives across the country. Want to know more about football, but were afraid to ask? Also joining the discussion will be Ivette Ricco founder of FemmeFan.com the premier on-line magazine for the female fan covering sports from the female’s unique perspective. More>>

Listen to the show here http://www.modavox.com/voiceamericacms/ECardLinkFiles/_71200892635AM.html

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Femmefan.com was featured in this news article

http://www.postindependent.com/article/20070914/AE/109140038

Hear them roar
Glenwood Springs Post Independent - Glenwood Springs , CO , USA
Ricco, an avid San Francisco 49ers fan , created Femmefan.com in 2000 to help give voice to female football fans across the country. ...

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Ivette Ricco was interviewed on a radio sports talk show "Leading Off" in Altoona, Pa.(40 minutes from Penn State University), by Joe Shuta, WVAM-Altoona, PA on August 15, 2007. It was a live interview the web site and a female perspective on sports.

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Femmefan.com proves to be the San Jose SaberCats' meow as they team up to fight breast cancer

(SAN JOSE, Calif.--) Ivette Ricco started Femmefan.com to
give women a female perspective on their favorite sports
and players, and that point of view is the driving force
behind a joint promotion with the Arena Football League's
San Jose SaberCats to benefit the American Cancer Society.

"I started the site so women could receive the kinds of
information they want about sports, and I'm thrilled that
the SaberCats have seen fit to team up with us as a
vehicle to fight a predominantly feminine enemy -- breast
cancer," said Ricco, president of Femmefan, Inc.

The San Jose SaberCats are hosting Femmefan.com night on
Saturday, June 16, when they play host to the Arizona
Rattlers as part of the team's Fan Appreciation Night.

Fans can order discounted end zone seats for $20 each (a
$2 savings, with the added bonus of no ticket handling or
service charges) for the game, with proceeds benefiting
the American Cancer Society, Fight Against Breast Cancer.

"This fundraiser just makes sense for us," Ricco said. "I
started Femmefan.com so women wouldn't have to take a seat
on the sidelines and let male fans have all the fun. And
Femmefan.com night will put women right in the middle of
the fight against breast cancer during a terrific night of
sports entertainment."

Since its inception in March 2000, Femmefan.com has become
a cyberspace institution for female sports fans -- drawing
more than 2.3 million visits a month -- and a major part
of the Bay Area sports scene and community. The Web site
was revamped by students at San Francisco State University
and has thrived while imitators like NFLforHer.com and
Sports Illustrated for Women have floundered.

"We don't patronize women. We treat them like sports fans
first -- making sure we have the latest and best
information -- the kind any true fan wants. Then we
package it in a way that appeals to women, but doesn't
condescend to them," Ricco said.

Currently, the site features an exclusive interview with
Renel Brooks-Moon, the female public address announcer for
the San Francisco Giants; a Q & A with ESPN trivia guru
Howie Schwab; regular features including "Just Ask Paula"
_ a column where beginners needn't be embarrassed to ask
questions like "What's a screen pass?"; and, as always,
some beefcake.

"Hey, Sports Illustrated gets to have their cheesecake and
eat it, too, with their swimsuit issue each year, so
what's wrong with a little beefcake?" Ricco said.

But there's nothing frivolous about Femmefan.com's
partnership with the San Jose SaberCats, Ricco said.

"I started this site to give female sports fans their own
platform, a real alternative to male-oriented sites. So
it's only right that we build on that trust to accomplish
something more lasting that resonates with women. And I
think the fight against breast cancer is one of those
issues all women can relate to," Ricco said, "Whether
they're rookies to the issue or veteran survivors of the
disease."

"So, if you haven't clicked on www.Femmefan.com , use this
promotion as an excuse to do it. If you haven't been to
see the SaberCats, ditto. And if you've been standing on
the sidelines in the fight against breast cancer, you have
one less excuse to do so now," Ricco said.

INFORMATION ABOUT FEMMEFAN.COM NIGHT WITH THE SAN JOSE
SABERCATS:

Tickets to benefit the American Cancer Society, Fight
Against Breast Cancer for the San Jose SaberCats' June 16
game against the Arizona Rattlers, can be purchased one of
four ways:
_Ca ll Christina Samoranos with the San Jose SaberCats
place a credit card order at 408-573-5577.
_Mail an order form (available at?) to SJ SaberCats, Attn.
Christina Samoranos, 600 E. Brokaw Road, San Jose, Calif.
95112.
_Fax and order form to 408-573-5588, Subject:
Femmefan.com, Attn: Christina Samoranos.
_E-mail Christina for more information at
csamoranos@sanjosesabercats.com .

Tickets must be purchased though the SaberCats front
office by 3 p.m. Friday June 15th. The Femmefan.com offer
is not available for tickets purchased through
Ticketmaster or at the HP Pavilion box office in San Jose.

CONTACT: Ivette Ricco is available for interviews about
Femmefan.com or the San Jose SaberCats promotion by
calling 510-691-1601 or by e-mail at ivette@femmefan.com .

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The Guelph Mercury Pubdate:March 29, 2007     Page: A1        Section:NEWS    Edition:Final   Length: 614     ID:200703290003 'Puck bunnies' find home on Net; Online fans eye the off-ice lives of OHL players Byline/Source: LAURA THOMPSON MERCURY STAFF Dateline: GUELPH Photo Caption: Photo: GUELPH MERCURY The Guelph Storm's Drew Doughty fights for the puck during a recent game. Hockey players are often the focus of online admirers. Photo It's the middle of Ontario Hockey League playoffs, and while most fans are watching games from the edge of their seat, there are others who aren't interested in the hockey at all. They're not dissecting each play. They're not jeering at referees. Some may not even be following the score. What these fans are interested in is the players, and they're watching every move of their favourite ones from the stands. But fandom doesn't stop there. Recently, blogs and other online forums have cropped up as a place for admirers -- presumably young women -- to speculate about whether their favourite player has a girlfriend or what he's like off the ice. It's crush central, and Guelph Storm players haven't managed to escape the scrutiny or speculation of inquiring teenage minds. And while the athletes are curious about the online buzz, they don't take any of it too seriously. According to the Oxford Canadian Dictionary, "puck bunny" is defined as "a young female hockey fan, especially one motivated more by a desire to watch, meet, or become especially sexually involved with the players than by an interest in the sport itself." Robin Milhausen, a University of Guelph professor who researches human sexuality, said while the term is outdated -- and certainly insulting to some genuine female hockey fans -- the tradition is something that persists. "I think it has to do a lot with the sport and with the status of the male athlete. Men who excel in any sport are often an object of desire for young women." But what used to be typical groupie behaviour at games has recently found a home on the Internet. Randy Morin, a Brampton-based blogger, created the website www.talk-sports.net a year ago as a forum for sports discussion. He added pages dedicated to the OHL two months ago, including a forum to discuss the romantic status of players. "My readers wanted more forums to talk about player girlfriends, so you can say the idea was user generated," Morin said in an e-mail. He declined a phone interview. "The posts are mostly written by teenage girls that are infatuated with the sports athlete." Morin's site is one of the many online message boards that discuss the personal lives of Guelph Storm players. They blog-style site asks readers to post whether the players have girlfriends, if they're married or if they have kids. It also requests fans to leave a picture of the player, girlfriend, wife or kids. So far, no one has. The practice -- even just leaving comments -- is wide open to criticism. "What do you ppl (people) stalk these hockey players? (seeing if they have gfs (girlfriends) or not?) looosseeerrss," wrote one anonymous critic. Another online message board for the Storm at www.voy.com has kept a list of single-versus-attached players. Rookie Storm forward Brandon Buck is surprised how much personal information about players is posted online. "You think that kind of stuff is kind of private, the kind of stuff that wouldn't be talked about on a website," he said, explaining his girlfriend discovered these websites. "Everywhere you go when you get up to this level, there's going to puck bunnies. For me, I just ignore them. Different players come in every year. It's how (these fans) are. It's their character," he said. Dave Barr, general manager and coach for the Storm, said it's no surprise this kind of fandom has found a home online. "To some degree, it's been around forever," he said, adding most players don't let themselves get distracted. "Our guys are a little bit busier, to some degree, than the average teenager because . . . the hockey is taking up a lot of their time." Women seem to be increasingly looking to female-friendly websites for their sports news. Ivette Ricco, who has operated FemmeFan.com since 2000, said in 2005-06 the site received two million hits per month. Her online magazine has been described by The Associated Press as "ESPN meets People magazine." "We don't apologize for admiring men and admiring their athletic bodies," she said from Pinole, Calif. , yesterday. "We don't draw a line. It's about sports in general." lthompson@guelphmercury.com

Laura Thompson
Reporter
Guelph Mercury

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Football Fanatics and the Men who Love Them

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17662505/

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Divine Caroline launches new site.
Ivette Ricco joins Advisory Board

OUR ADVISORS
As we built the foundation for DivineCaroline, we asked all kinds of questions and reached out to these notable women to help us find the best answers. We thank each one of them for their unvarnished responses, their encouraging words and their continuing support.

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This STLtoday.com article -- "Female fans flock to football"
Female fans flock to football

By Joe Holleman

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

read article here

They don't make snacks and they don't wish they were watching "The Amazing Race."

They're football fans, and they're females.

"Sports is my reality TV," Melissa Flaherty said.

"I don't go to football parties just to make the dip. I go to watch the game," Tracee Champa said.

And while sports, and especially football, still are predominantly male-viewing attractions, the number of women hunkering down in front of TVs this gridiron season is ever growing.

In fact, a poll conducted several years ago by ESPN showed that almost 27 percent of women surveyed said college or professional football was their favorite sport to watch on television - almost twice as popular as the runner-up sport, major-league baseball.

Flaherty and Champa enjoy dining on a smorgasbord of pro and college football.

"I mean, after a New Year's Eve of partying, what else is there to do except lie on the couch and watch the bowl games?" Champa said.

Ivette Ricco, a self-proclaimed football fanatic and founder and CEO of "femmefan.com," said women are increasingly embracing football.

"I think the sport appeals to the intelligent, professional woman. Football has a lot more strategy to it than other sports and the teamwork - which is something women in the workplace understand, I think, better than men - also appeals to the female fan," Ricco said.

By the way, Ricco said her website gets about 2 million hits a month and up to 60,000 hits when surfers go to pages other than the home page.

To illustrate the strength of their devotion to football, take Flaherty's recent ritual for the Monday Night Football game on Dec. 4 when the Rams played the Chicago Bears.

Flaherty is part of a season-ticket group that shares games. ("I'm the only girl in the group," she said with pride.) And even though she didn't have tickets for the game, she still attended her regular pre-game tailgate party before heading to a tavern to watch the action.

"She's a legitimate football fan, a huge fan," said Bob Adamson of south St. Louis County, at Ed Delashmit's tailgate that night near the Edward Jones Dome - at which 100 brats, 50 hamburgers, a handful of rib-eye steaks and several pork tenderloins are consumed every home game.

"Melissa consistently picks more winners in football pools than most of the guys do," Adamson said in a respectful tone.

Flaherty, 40, is a graphic designer at a MADCO Printing & Advertising Co. in south St. Louis. She developed her athletic affections in her hometown of Boston, but has managed to embrace St. Louis teams - although she admits she leaned toward the Patriots and the Red Sox in their recent victories against the Rams in the 2002 Super Bowl and the Cardinals in the 2004 World Series.

"Growing up in Boston, sports were big in my family," Flaherty said. "But the Pats really didn't give us much to be excited about until 1986, when they went to the Super Bowl."

Flaherty moved to St. Louis in 1989 and started following the Rams when they came to St. Louis in 1995.

"What can I say, I just like sports. Who needs reality TV when you have reality right there in the game? I listen to sports radio most of the day. That's how much of a sports geek I am.

"And I love football season because I like sitting around and talking about football. Sometimes it's tough, as a woman, going to a sports bar because guys think you're there for other reasons. I just want to be some place where you can have a serious discussion about the game," she said.

Champa, who is the webmaster for Barnes-Jewish Hospital, echoed Flaherty's feelings about serious football appreciation.

"Guys are amazed by it, like the only thing you'd be capable of is making the chili cheese dip," Champa said. "I love football because of all the intricacies and the strategy."

Champa, while admitting that she is always trying to find someone who "just happens to have a free ticket" for a Rams game, usually spends football Sunday at her father's house in Kirkwood.

"I wear my Grant Wistrom jersey and he usually wears the Marshall Faulk jersey I gave him and we watch the Rams game and whatever one is on after that," she said.

Champa, 29, said her love of football began when she was a small child.

"I grew up in Roxana and we had great high school teams in the 1980s and '90s. And anyone who grew up in a small town will tell you that on Friday night in the fall, you go to the high school football game."

Her father, Gary Champa, said both Tracee and her sister would go with him to Roxana games.

"And as they got older, they'd start asking questions about things, like what is 'intentional grounding' or why did they run this play," he said.

Champa said she continued to follow football when she went to Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

"It was the big social event, and that's what is was for most women. But I actually watched the games."

Ricco said that experience mirrors what she has learned since starting her website in 2000.

"In the 1970s, more women started going to college and, for those who went to major colleges with football programs, they got introduced to the game on a social level. It was what you did on a Saturday. And many of them, after being exposed to it, started to enjoy it," Ricco said.

On that note, newly elected U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill was a guest last month on a local sports radio station and impressively held forth on a variety of sports topics, especially sports at Mizzou, her alma mater.

"My dad told me I could go to college anywhere I wanted," McCaskill said. "But then he said 'If you go to (the University of) Kansas, you have to pay for it yourself."

Champa, when asked for some parting advice to other women wishing to pick up football, did not hesitate:

"Keep an eye on the defensive line, because defense wins football games."

jholleman@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8254

 

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Stats and studs

By Rochelle Hentges
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, September 18, 2006

When Kathy Landrum first started watching the Steelers 30 years ago, she wanted to show her team spirit just like one of the guys. But to do that, she had to dress like one of the guys.

Landrum, 53, of Ebensburg, remembers the men's T-shirts, sweaters and jerseys that would fall to her knees.

But now, at Hometowne Sports for Her, women can find Steeler-themed pastel shirts, tiny pink jerseys and bra-and-panty sets.

Women fans are finally being paid attention to, Landrum said as she tried on a light-yellow Steelers sweater, at the sporting goods spinoff store in the Station Square Freight House Shops.

Female fans always have been a large part of Hometowne's customer base, making up about a third of the customers, said manager Shawna Kocik. But it's just been in the past few years that the women's clothing lines have taken off, she said.

"When I first started (five years ago), there was hardly anything," she said. "There was a couple of golf shirts and a sweatshirt."

And it's not just the fashion women are snatching up.

In 2002, more than 50 millions women watched professional sports, with almost a third of all women loyally watching at least one NFL team, according to the research firm Scarborough Sports Marketing.

"They're just as passionate and just as loyal as the male fans, and they're just as knowledgeable," said Steelers spokesman Dave Lockett.

The women will turn out to support their team in finger-numbing, bone-chilling weather just as much as the men, and they can tell you Joey Porter's position just as readily as Ben Roethlisberger's, Lockett said.

"They value not just the quarterback and receiver, but they value the linemen as well," he said. "I think they appreciate their athletic ability."

Female Pirates fans have their own "Ladies' Night" at PNC Park, where every Wednesday night home game comes complete with free manicures, massages and hors d'oeuvres.

"We are trying to reach out to the female fans as well as expand those numbers," said Pirates spokesman Brian Warecki.

Ladies' nights occasionally feature jewelry exhibits and yoga classes, but that doesn't mean that the female fans in Pittsburgh conform to the stereotypical airhead who tags along to the game with her boyfriend.

These women are serious sports fans, and there are millions of them nationwide with money to spend and devotion to give to franchises that are no longer ignoring them.

"I strongly believe that the female fans have a different perspective of sports than men -- sports what I call beyond the score," said Ivette Ricco, who runs femmefan.com, an ESPN-meets-People magazine style Web site that has expanded its monthly visitors from from 10,000 in 2004 to more than 2 million currently.

"I don't think women are so involved in the numbers in the game. They enjoy more of the human aspect," she said.

Besides news stories, the site designed for women offers blogs, lifestyle features on players, downloads of songs like "If Chicks Ran the NFL," and a self-explanatory, photo feature called "Locker Room Lookers."

"I don't make any apologies for that," Ricco said. "Because men have no problem mixing sex with their sports."

And the women who follow the game aren't ignoring the, uh, view. Sex and sports have been a winning combination for male fans, and marketers aren't afraid to play up the athletes as sex symbols for the ladies, either.

Fox Sports created an entire bracket for its "NFL's Sexiest Man" contest. The hunky Brett Favre, of the Green Bay Packers, won after more than 73,000 presumably female voters weighed in.

At Mike Feinberg Co. in the Strip District, women make up about half of all customers, manager Marsha Hellman said.

"We've always had a large female crowd, now there's just more things catered to them," she said. "We carry pink shirts, pink bottle coolers, even pink bibs for babies."

The store has four Steeler-themed purse styles, various earrings, belly-button rings and pink ski head bands.

Still, in the 'Burgh, women don't need to dress like little girls.

"They love the black and gold," Hometowne's Kocik said. " The manufacturers make a lot of pastels, but here, the black and gold are the first to go."

Locker Room Lookers

Pittsburgh is considered to have one of the best city skylines in the country, but the view from the stands isn't lacking, either. Vote for your favorite boy toy, er, we mean athlete, at www.tribpm.com.

The only native Pittsburgher to make the hottie list. Can yinz believe that?

Stats by sex

Sources: NBA, NASCAR, Cleveland Indians, Nielson Media Research, Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Pirates

Rochelle Hentges can be reached at rhentges@tribweb.com or 412-380-5670.

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Associated Press

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Footballs are flying, but these days watching sports is not reserved only for a bunch of cretins swilling beer at the local sports bar.

Women are taking their rightful place along the 40-yard-line, and teams and marketers are sitting up and taking notice. And there are sites popping up all over the Internet geared toward educating and entertaining female fans.

Here are some examples:

Femmefan.com: Edgy, entertaining but not condescending, femmefan.com is run by San Francisco-based Ivette Ricco, a longtime football fan whose site is frequently updated.

Popular features include articles about athletes' off-the-field lives, sports song downloads and "Locker Room Lookers," a photo gallery where visitors are more likely to find David Beckham in a Speedo instead of soccer shorts.

Girlsgarage.com: A multimedia site devoted to all things car racing for female fans. There are articles, a dictionary of racing terms, opinion columns in a section called "Back Seat Drivers," a section for children and lots of ads, including a link to Amazon.com's sale of "The Woman's Guide to NASCAR."

GradysLadies.com: The Web site dedicated to the women only fan club for Cleveland Indians center fielder Grady Sizemore. The site is currently on hiatus in honor of a fan club founder who was killed this summer.

The Female Fan blog on ivillage.com: Sports fan Betsy Berns plans a Monday morning blog to help women who don't know as much about football as they'd like — or need to impress a significant other.

The blog has explanations of terminology such as two-point conversion, tailgating tips and weekly interviews with players and their families. See http://femalefan.ivillage.com/entertainment

© 2006 Naples Daily News and NDN Productions. Published in Naples, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.

 

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click here for the article!

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The Thursday July 27, 2006 issue of The Repository (Canton, Ohio) featured an article in their Hall of Fame special edition, page 22, titled “Women are football fanatics, too” written by Repository staff writer Charita Goshay.

In the article I am quoted.
“I learned about the basics of football by spending Sunday afternoon with my boyfriend (now husband of 42 years), his brother and his father”. Ivette Ricco is President and CEO of www.Femmefan.com, The SportsZone for the Female Sports Junkie. “I realized at a very young age that helping cook an Italian meal was not nearly as much fun as hanging out with the men in the living room and watching the NY Giants”.
”Ricco says the best way to learn the game is to sit and watch it with someone who is patient and can explain the basics.”
“I’ve never heard women complain that they don’t understand baseball or basketball, and I think part of that is that women feel there is some “mystique” to football”.
“Her web site has a spot called “Talk the Talk” to explain the basics – the most basic of which is “downs”. “Once she knows how that works, the rest will fall into place”.

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Women's fan site gets set to party Women sports fans set to party
Daily Review Online - CA,USA
... Francisco 49ers score a touchdown during football season, Ivette ... becoming president of her own female sports Web ... site targets women who are avid sports fans. ..

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Ivette was a guest on ESPN Radio, Austin Texas, “The Big Show” on Monday April 25, 2005.

She spoke with, Hugh Lewis , Jon Madan and Dave Tepper about www.Femmefan.com and the female fan.

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Ivette Ricco made a guest appearance on “The Stevens & Medley Morning Show”, 94.7 WARW – Washington D.C. on Thursday February 3, 2005.

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Ivette Ricco made a guest appearance on Atlanta ’s number one sports station

Tuesday September 14, 2004 at 9:30 AM EST.

www.790thezone.com

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Femmefan was recently featured in:

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Femmefan has been featured in several football and female fan - related newspapers articles. Typically the media becomes interested in football's female fans as the Super Bowl approaches.

In 2002 Femmefan.com was issued a media pass for the San Francisco Forty Niners Training Camp, a true accomplishment for the website.

In January 2003, Christena T. O'Brien of Wisconsin's Leader-Telegram interviewed Ivette Ricco for her story, "They're No. 1. We mean the fans, of course. And, increasingly the faces of football followers are female"

"Female football fans around the nation are proving they're a group not to be taken lightly. They attend or tune in to games and buy team apparel for themselves, their cars and homes. More importantly, they understand the rules of a National Football League game, can argue plays, recite player rosters and talk trash with the best of them."

"But women haven't always been as serious sports fans, said Ivette Ricco, a longtime football fan and creator and president of Femmefan.com, a Web site she launched in 2000 to give fans a look at sports - from a woman's perspective."

"She learned about football from her husband and other male family members as they watched the New York Giants. She later followed the New York Jets, and after a 1969 move to California, she supported the San Francisco 49ers."

"There are a variety of reasons why women are hooked on the sport," Ricco said, "It could be the fact that men are an important ingredient, and most women learn about football from the men in their lives. It also could be about the mental and strategic aspect of the game or simply the excitement."

Ivette Ricco was also featured on the sports radio program, Sports from the Hot Tub.

As Femmefan.com continues to gain recognition, and as the female sports fan continues to evolve and her voice is heard, Femmefan will continue to play a prominent role as the "spokesperson" for the female fan.

On-Line Articles:

Looks Who's Watching the Super Bowl
Philadelphia Inquirer

Super Bowl Draws Females
Amarillo Star

Contact Femmefan