Football season is upon us and the National Football League is out to woo female fans. It’s launching a new line of women’s apparel, meant to be “both fashionable and sporty.”

According to The New York Times, the marketing blitz will feature print ads that say, “Who Says Football Isn’t Pretty?”

The female fan base of the NFL is huge—more than 45 million women watch NFL games each weekend, myself included.

I’m not looking forward to this season, and not just because the Bears are going to be disappointing.

I’m disappointed that Ben Roethlisberger is playing this year. The NFL suspended the Steelers’ QB for six games, since he violated the league’s personal-conduct policy.

The unsportsman-like conduct charge stems from a March incident in which he was accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old college student. The police investigated the alleged assault but never charged him.

This is not the first story of alleged sexual assault, and the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell cited a “pattern of behavior” embarrassing to the NFL.

Goodell did the right thing by suspending Roethlisberger. But it should’ve been for the entire season.

So I’m disappointed that Goodell is now reportedly leaning toward reducing Roethlisberger’s suspension to four games.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher told AP recently that the sexual assault investigation that led to a six-game suspension for Roethlisberger was a “slap in the face” that has led to some much-needed maturity.

Big Ben, it seems, could be a big baby, and didn’t see the need to behave off the field.

Cowher described how Roethlisberger used to respond to advice about his off-field behavior.

“ ‘But we’re winning games. We’re winning championships,’ ” Cowher recounted Ben as saying. “ ‘What do you mean? Isn’t that what we’re here to do?’ ”

“Yeah,” Cowher said, “but there’s more to it than that.”

“It’s the whole body of work. It’s you as a person, what kind of legacy you want to leave,” he added. “I really think he understands that now.”

I hope so. I will miss rooting for the Steelers this year but I just can’t. Roethlisberger is off the fantasy team, as is coach Mike Tomlin.

Given the way the NFL is indulging Roethlisberger and minimizing the rape allegations, it’s going to take more than a pink jersey to make me believe that the NFL takes women seriously.

The World Cup is getting lots of coverage these days. But we’re not hearing enough about the demonstrations taking place in South Africa.

There have been a “series of  strikes at almost half of the World Cup stadiums as guards are being paid less than one tenth of what they were promised when they were employed,” reports AllAfrica.com. Seems like a newsworthy event, but the camera lens is focused on the soccer stars, not the working stiffs.

Yesterday during a sports panel hosted by journalists Davey D, Dave Zirin, and artist Favianna Rodriguez, longtime activist Trevor Ngwane joined us live via Skype from South Africa. It was so cool.

Ngwane talked about the “FIFA mafia” and said he “wouldn’t wish the World Cup on any country.”

The Anti-Privatisation Forum and other groups have been protesting throughout the games.

“The government has the wrong priorities,” said Ngwane. “The government shouldn’t prioritize mega-sports and mega-sports stars.”

Ngwane listed what the South African government should be prioritizing: housing, education, health care; youth unemployment is above 80% he said.

He added that there needs to be a more sustainable basis for unity for the poor besides the World Cup.

More marches are planned for next week in J-burg. Now if we could only get some coverage of that.

Speaking of television coverage, Dave Zirin mentioned a really shocking and sad statistic: only 40,000 Africans outside of the host country are watching the World Cup on TV. The TV rights are too expensive. There are probably more Americans watching the World Cup in New York City than in Africa (outside of South Africa).

And that’s one of the problems with these big games, be it World Cup or Olympics. Corporate rights get prioritized over human rights.

It’s exciting to see the outpouring of support for human rights in light of Arizona’s sweeping new immigration law.

The protests are spilling now over into baseball. New York City Congressman Jose Serrano is calling for Major League Baseball to pull the 2011 All-Star game out of Phoenix.

“Baseball and the Latin community, it’s a close relationship,” Serrano told the Chicago Tribune. “Latinos, they will be the ones, more than anyone else, who will be stopped on the street in violation of the constitutional rights. . . . States (that) make those decisions need to know that there are consequences to those decision.”

Arizona has felt the economic consequences before. The National Football League pulled the 1993 Superbowl from Tempe due to the MLK holiday flap. A baseball spokeman estimated that pulling the All-Star game could cost Arizona $40 million.

Serrano told the Trib that he may reach out to club owners and even ask players to boycott the All-Star game. Considering that 27 percent of the baseball players on Opening Day rosters were born outside the United States, this boycott isn’t just symbolic.

The Arizona Diamondbacks rolled into Chicago to play the Cubs, and the team was met with protesters. (The Diamondback’s owner, Ken Kendrick, is a major financial backer of the Republican Party in Arizona.)

Who knows, maybe boycotting the Arizona Diamondbacks could be something that brings Cubs fans and White Sox fans together. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was blunt in his criticism of the new law.

“That’s no respect of human rights,” he said. “Being illegal in any country, that’s not good, period. But the immigration (service) has to be careful about how they treat people.”

“I want to see one day with Latin Americans—it can be Mexican, Costa Rican—I want to see this country two days without them to see how good we’re doing. Everyone comes to this country to work, and I don’t think they’re going to do bad stuff here. They just come here to make things happen, to make a better life. I guarantee you whoever comes to this country and they don’t have their papers, they’re straight and narrow. They’re scared to be deported.”

Guillen, who was born in Venezuela, didn’t become a U.S. citizen until after he won the World Series.

President Obama is a White Sox fan and I can only hope he’s listening to what Guillen has to say.

President Barack Obama is traveling to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics. If the International Olympic Committee has any sense, it will resist his charms (and Oprah’s) and give the games to another city.

A Chicago police officer, left, scuffles with opponents of Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics who were trying to damage an Olympic symbol being put up in Daley Plaza in Chicago, on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009.

The Olympics could be a financial disaster for the city. The range of taxpayer-linked costs runs in excess of $2.1 billion, reports the Chicago Tribune. The bid committee says much of the costs would be paid by federal tax dollars, but ultimately Chicago “taxpayers would be on the hook for any huge cost overruns.”

Huge cost overruns are a way of life for city projects. Just look at Millennium Park. The park, which is a hit locally and internationally, opened four years behind schedule. “Originally estimated to cost $150 million when plans were unveiled in 1998, the price tag ballooned to about $490 million by the time it opened in 2005,” the Tribune reported in March 2007. “Private donors covered roughly $220 million of the total, the city the remainder.”

Back then, the IOC was concerned about budgets gone wild. But now its members are going wild over Obama and Oprah in Copenhagen.

Then there’s the pesky matter of corruption, another way of life for the city. The Daley administration has been hounded by allegations of corruption for years. The Mayor has been able to rise above the fray, but some of his lieutenants are in prison. Federal investigators have found contracting irregularities and “massive fraud” in hiring practices.

Daley presides over a City Hall where people on the payroll have been accused of a dazzling displays of depravity–from nepotism to heroin dealing. All those juicy union contracts and land deals will be too much for some to resist.

Let’s hope the IOC is able to resist Obama’s overtures.

Mark Buehrle of my beloved White Sox pitched a perfect game today.

As the Trib reports, “Buehrle retired all 27 Tampa Bay batters to complete a 5-0 perfect game, the second in White Sox history.”

Check out this video of the nerve-wracking ninth inning, when center fielder Dewayne Wise made an amazing catch, depriving Tampa Bay a home run and preserving the no-hitter.

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen slipped Wise into the field at the top of the ninth. Guillen can be such a genius sometimes.

Maybe Obama, a fellow Sox fan, should ask Guillen to get health care reform through Congress. Leaving it in the hands of Cubs fans Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod is just asking for failure. Everyone knows the Cubs choke in September.

The Brachiosaurus dinosaur outside the Field Museum in Chicago is draped in a mock sweater of the Chicago Blackhawks #19 Jonathan Toews.

Tribune photo by Terrence Antonio James / May 19, 2009

Toews demonstrated why he is captain of the young scrappy Hawks: He scored Chicago’s two goals in last night’s crushing 3-2  OT defeat to the Detroit Red Wings.

Tribune sports columnist Rick Morrissey sums it up best: “Is it over? It feels over. You lose the opening two games to the methodical, crazily talented Red Wings and your survival rate is right up there with rattlesnake handlers who smoke three packs a day.”

See more dino pix here.

U.S. Olympic athletes have chosen middle distance runner Lopez Lomong as the American flag bearer at the Beijing Olympics. The Sudanese refugee spent a decade in a camp in Kenya as one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” before resettling in Syracuse, New York.

“This is the most exciting day ever in my life,” Lomong said. “It’s a great honor for me that my teammates chose to vote for me. I’m here as an ambassador of my country, and I will do everything I can to represent my country well.”

Americans aren’t the only athletes taking a stand for human rights. More than 100 athletes have signed a letter asking Chinese President Hu Jintao to respect human rights, end the death penalty, and find a peaceful solution for Tibet.

To see the letter click here.

Four cyclists on the U.S. Olympic team caused a ruckus when they arrived in Beijing Airport wearing black gas masks. Rider Bobby Lea said he and his teammates did not mean to offend anyone. The four apologized to the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee.

Here in the U.S., Tibet activists blockaded the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco while two 
others have staged a mock hanging from the Consulate building.

Just yesterday, four Students for a Free Tibet activists were detained in Beijing after
 climbing poles near the Olympic stadium and unfurling banners that
 read “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet” and “Tibet will be Free.”