Yesterday, the NFL, in partnership with TMRW Sports, announced plans to create new professional flag football leagues, both for men and women. The new leagues have already secured investments from numerous former NFL players, NFL owners, and other investor groups.
The NFL wants American Football to grow in popularity across the globe. They have greatly expanded the number of international games and the number of countries in which they are played. Germany, Brazil, France, Australia, Spain, and Mexico have been added to the mix recently, and the UK is set to get more games as well.
The issue is that no major successful football leagues have grown outside of the US and Canada, in large part due to the violent nature of the game. So the NFL has changed to promoting flag football, a variation of football without pads and contact.
The 2028 Olympics, set to be hosted in Los Angeles, will feature flag football and will be the first time American Football has appeared in the Olympic Games in some form. The NFL announced that these new professional flag football leagues will align with the 2028 Olympics in terms of timing, helping develop players for the national teams while also raising the popularity of flag football in the US.
Flag football is quickly growing among the younger generations as an alternative to its more dangerous counterpart. It is now seeing greater representation in high schools and colleges across the country, and these new professional leagues will complete a newly formed and growing football ecosystem. Youth flag football is quickly growing as well, with an estimated 4.1 million players in the US, which is more than a 50 percent increase since 2020, per the NFL.
In the recent Fanatics Flag Football Classic 26, a team consisting of numerous retired and current NFL players was dominated by a team of US flag football players. This is because the two sports are inherently different. Flag football requires more speed and less size, making the two athletic profiles for both sports completely different. Not to mention that the movement skills and rules of both sports are different as well.
There is a real chance that the US Olympic football team in 2028 consists of more professional flag football players than NFL players. Even if there is pressure from the NFL to add their own players.
The greatest benefit of these new flag football leagues will be that female football athletes who have never had any serious options in terms of professional football leagues to play in will finally have an avenue to play football professionally. This couldn’t come at a better time either, since women’s sports in the US are on the rise, and this new league has a chance to continue this trend.
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