The Pillow Fight League (PFL) was a Toronto-based semi-professional sports league centred on public pillow fights. The tongue-in-cheek women's sport was hosted in a fighting arena, much like a boxing or wrestling match.
The League was founded by PFL Commissioner Stacey P. Case, and Honorary PFL Commissioner Craig Daniels in February 2004. [1] The formal league launched at a Canadian goth bar called The Vatikan in downtown Toronto. Events were hosted in both Montreal, Quebec and New York City, [2] but the primary seat of the League remained in Toronto, Ontario.
Fights within the League featured either two or three girls, the latter referred to as a damage à trois, [3] and a codified set of rules. Fighters frequently incurred cuts, scrapes and bruises. There were also more serious injuries, including concussions, black eyes, lost teeth, [3] split lips, torn muscles, and bruised kidneys.
The League grew out of a pair of live events held by performers from Canadian burlesque troupe "Skin Tight Outta Sight" at a performance of Mr. Case's band (named for tijuana bibles) at New Year's Eve 2004 and 2005. The latter featured the first instance of live tryouts for members of the audience. [1] The events that followed in 2006 at the Vatikan launched the new League-sponsored series of events primarily focused around the pillow fighting bouts. A potential moneymaker for its founders, the League saw television rights snapped up in 2007 by reality television and sitcom producers Eddie October (executive producer of Tommy Lee Goes to College and The Roseanne Show ) and Al Berman (executive producer of The Biggest Loser and Survivor ). [4] [5]
The league ceased operation in 2011. [6]
The Canadian Football League is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a city in Canada. They are divided into two divisions: four teams in the East Division and five teams in the West Division. As of 2024, it features a 21-week regular season in which each team plays 18 games with three bye weeks. This season traditionally runs from mid-June to early November. Following the regular season, six teams compete in the league's three-week playoffs, which culminate in the Grey Cup championship game in late November. The Grey Cup is one of Canada's largest annual sports and television events. The CFL was officially named on January 19, 1958, upon the merger between the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union or "Big Four" and the Western Interprovincial Football Union.
James Lampley is an American sportscaster, news anchor, film producer, and restaurant owner. He was best known as a blow-by-blow announcer on HBO World Championship Boxing for 30 years. He covered a record 14 Olympic Games on U.S. television, most recently the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
The Sports Network (TSN) is a Canadian English language discretionary sports specialty channel owned by CTV Specialty Television, owned jointly by Bell Media (70%) and ESPN Inc. (30%), itself a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. TSN was established by the Labatt Brewing Company in 1984 as part of the first group of Canadian specialty cable channels. TSN is the largest specialty channel in Canada in terms of gross revenue, with a total of CA$400.4 million in revenue in 2013.
Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language discretionary sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then was required to divest its stake in the network following its 2001 acquisition of competing network TSN. Rogers then became the sole owner of Sportsnet in 2004 after it bought the remaining minority stake that was held by Fox.
A pillow fight is a common game mostly played by young children in which they engage in mock physical conflict, using pillows as weapons.
Réseau des sports (RDS) is a Canadian French language discretionary specialty channel oriented towards sports and sport-related shows. It is available in 2.5 million homes, and is owned by CTV Specialty Television Inc.. Its full name translates as "The Sports Network", the name of its Anglophone counterpart, TSN.
George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos is a Canadian media personality, television host and podcaster. He is one of Canada's most popular broadcasters and best known as formerly being a VJ for the Canadian music television channel MuchMusic. He was also the host and co-executive producer of the CBC Television talk show George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight from 2005 to 2014. From 2014 to 2016, Stroumboulopoulos worked for Rogers Media, anchoring Hockey Night in Canada and the NHL on Rogers. From 2009 to 2023, he was a radio host on CBC Music. Most recently, he joined Apple Music Radio as host of a Monday to Thursday live show.
North Toronto Collegiate Institute is a semestered, public high school institution with over 1,200 students located in North Toronto area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The school is operated and governed by the Toronto District School Board. From its founding until 1998, it was overseen by the Toronto Board of Education.
Stephen Brunt is a Canadian sports journalist, well known as a former columnist for Sportsnet.ca, Sportsnet, and former co-host on podcasts for Sportsnet.
Arda Ocal is a Canadian television personality, broadcaster, announcer, and writer. He previously worked in WWE under the stage name Kyle Edwards, as well as the host of Aftermath TV on Sportsnet 360 and The MSG Hockey Show on MSG Network, as well as various current sports coverage on ESPN and TRT World.
One Sports, currently rebranding to Sports5, is the sports division of TV5 Network, Inc. and jointly-operated with sister company Cignal TV. One Sports supplies and airs major sporting events in the Philippines and the world for free-to-air TV channels TV5, RPTV, One Sports channel, Cignal-exclusive channels One Sports+, PBA Rush, NBA TV Philippines and UAAP Varsity Channel, and online esports streaming channel GG Network.
Johnny Esaw, CM was a Canadian of Assyrian descent, a sports broadcaster and television network executive. He was a pioneer of sports broadcasting in Canada, best known for his involvement with figure skating, football, and international hockey.
Brian Bedol is an American television executive, entrepreneur, and founder of the sports television channels Classic Sports Network and College Sports Television. Bedol owned CSN from 1995 to 1997 and CSTV from 2003 to 2006.
Fight Network is a Canadian English language Category B specialty channel owned by Anthem Sports & Entertainment. The network broadcasts programming related to combat sports, including mixed martial arts, boxing, kickboxing, and professional wrestling.
Tim Ryan is a Canadian retired sportscaster who worked for NBC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN in the United States. He was the play-by-play announcer for the NHL on NBC from 1972 to 1975, called over three hundred championship boxing matches, and was a host and play-by-play announcer for Tennis on CBS.
TVA Sports is a Canadian French-language sports specialty channel owned by the Groupe TVA, a publicly traded subsidiary of Quebecor Media. The channel is a general-interest sports network, and the first major competitor to RDS, the only other French-language sports channel in the country.
Claressa Maria Shields is an American professional boxer and professional mixed martial artist. She has held multiple world championships in three weight classes, including the undisputed female light middleweight title since March 2021; the undisputed female middleweight title from 2019 to 2020; and the unified WBC and IBF female super middleweight titles from 2017 to 2018. Shields currently holds the record for becoming a two and three division world champion in the fewest professional fights. As of October 2022, she is ranked the world's best active female middleweight by BoxRec, as well as the best active female boxer, pound for pound, by ESPN and The Ring.
The Professional Fighters League (PFL) is an American mixed martial arts league founded by venture capitalist Donn Davis in 2017 and launched in 2018, following the acquisition and restructuring of the former World Series of Fighting (WSOF) promotion in 2017 by MMAX Investment Partners. It is the first major MMA organization in which individual athletes compete in a regular season, post-season and championship, rather than on a year-round basis.
DAZN is a British over-the-top sports streaming and entertainment platform. Founded in 2007 as Perform Group via the merger of Premium TV Limited and Inform Group, it is owned by Access Industries, the investment group founded by Sir Len Blavatnik, and is headquartered in London, England. Shay Segev is DAZN's CEO as of January 2021. The non-executive directors are Lincoln Benet, John Gleasure and Guillaume D’Hauteville.
The Philippine Premier League (PPL) was a short-lived top-flight association football league in the Philippines sanctioned by the Philippine Football Federation (PFF). It was intended as a successor league to the Philippines Football League (PFL) which ran for two seasons. The first and only PPL season had a single match day on April 27, 2019 before it was folded, after the PFF withdrew its sanction of the league.