Programs

There are 11 states where flag football is sanctioned as a girls’ varsity high school sport. Women’s flag football scholarships are offered at 25 NAIA colleges, and five NCAA Division III colleges will follow suit in 2025. There aren’t currently options for boys or men beyond the club level, but there will soon be a professional option, as the American Flag Football League plans to launch the first men’s and women’s leagues in 2025. And, in perhaps the biggest news for the sport in the United States, flag football will become an Olympic sport in 2028 when the Summer Games return to Los Angeles.

The popularity of flag football is spreading rapidly across the U.S. At least eight states have officially adopted this sport, including California and New York.

Two of those states – New Jersey and Montana – added flag football leagues this year. At least 17 more states are conducting pilot programs with the intent of adding flag football leagues to their athletic offerings soon.

At the forefront of this movement is Silvia Contreras, captain of Mexico’s women’s team, who has played a crucial role in the team’s ascent to success, achieving both gold and silver medals on the world stage. As they prepare to defend their title at The World Games in Chengdu, Contreras’ journey exemplifies the dedication and growth of the sport.

Flag Football’s popularity in Mexico has surged in recent years, and Contreras notes the recognition her team has gained, “Its popularity has really grown a lot, especially in recent years. In the central part of the country, sometimes people recognize us in restaurants or on the street. It has been after our gold medal at The World Games 2022 that we have seen a bigger change and increased interest.”

Flag football's popularity is growing. And brain injury concerns might be the key to driving flag football's continued growth.

Figures from the National Federation of State High School Associations show over a million teenagers play 11-player tackle football. That’s 47 times higher than flag football participation at the high school level.

But participation rates between the two types of football are moving in the opposite direction.

While about 55,000 fewer high schoolers are playing tackle football now than they were a decade ago, high school participation in flag football has nearly tripled.

And the NFL, which advocates for youth flag football participation, says nearly 40% more 6-to-12-year-olds are playing flag football than they were in 2015.

One hundred years into the future, what if millions of people gathered every February, not to watch the Super Bowl, but to instead watch the annual world flag football championship?

Once a casual activity played at family reunions, the competitive sport of flag football is “soaring,” “exploding” and “skyrocketing in popularity nationwide,” according to mainstream news outlets.

There’s some data behind the breathless headlines: According to the NFL’s official flag football program, since 2015 the number of kids ages 6 to 12 who play flag football has risen by 38%, to more than 1.5 million.