NFL launching a flag football answer to the Little League World Series

The league has lined up corporate sponsorship and prominent TV coverage for what it is calling the NFL Flag Championships. The NFL continues to lean heavily into the flag version of the sport as a vehicle to spur youth participation and drive up fan interest in football both domestically and internationally.

More than 280 teams and nearly 2,900 players are expected to participate in the event, which will be operated by the NFL’s flag-football partner, RCX Sports. U.S.-based teams, ranging in age from 9 and under to 15 and under for boys and to 18 and under for girls, will qualify by advancing through regional tournaments. The event also will include teams from Canada, Mexico, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and China, which will compete against one another.

“You think about something like the Little League World Series, which has been this staple in the summer months and this destination, aspirational event for young baseball players, and the way that it’s come to life from a broadcast perspective,” said Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of club business, international and league events. “There’s something really powerful here.”

League officials also call the event a potential showcase and proving ground for teenage players who could be candidates to represent their countries at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, at which flag football will be included for the first time.

“It’s the biggest stage, widest viewership audience and the world seeing the best of the best in these age brackets,” said Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations. “This is the future of flag. This is the future of high school, college, professional and Olympic flag play. That’s what we’re seeing. We’re getting a glimpse.”

It’s no given that the NFL’s event will reach the popularity of the Little League World Series, contested annually by 10- to 12-year-old players in Williamsport, Pa. But the league is throwing its considerable weight behind the endeavor, with corporate sponsorships headlined by Toyota as the event’s “presenting partner” and coverage on 10 platforms that include Disney-owned ESPN and ABC.

“It’s got our name on it,” O’Reilly said. “This is the NFL Flag Championships. Those young athletes will be wearing, as they do at the local level as well, [NFL] team brands and jerseys and representing their team in their market. This is very much something we’re directly committed to. … The number one priority is growing the sport overall and putting these efforts back into supporting the growth of flag overall because it is such a great, accessible core of our sport.”

Games will be played at Tom Benson Stadium, where the NFL holds its annual Hall of Fame Game, and at the ForeverLawn Sports Complex at the Hall of Fame Village, which was purchased in December by Washington Commanders principal owner Josh Harris and Commanders part-owner David Blitzer. There is an “opening night” scheduled for July 18 and games running through July 21.

The NFL previously held flag football events at its Pro Bowl Games, and it staged a large event last summer in Washington, D.C. But this is its first attempt at a standalone flag-football tournament of this magnitude.

“At this size and scale,” said Stephanie Kwok, the NFL’s newly hired vice president and head of flag football, “I would say we are thinking about it as this is the first year we’re running the NFL Flag Championships. … We have this fully dedicated event where it’s all about the players who are going to be at the flag championships. So [it’s] the first year of it and, I think, really promising, all of the engagement that we see with ESPN, with partners, with the teams. But we’re very much also thinking about it as the first year and thinking about moving forward, how do we continue to grow it as well.

NFL leaders have described flag football as an affordable, accessible, inclusive version of the sport that provides a forum for girls to play football and for young boys to be introduced to the sport without the same injury risks associated with tackle football.

A total of 27 states have either made girls’ high school flag football a sanctioned sport or are running pilot programs. There is growing participation in women’s flag football at the college level in the NAIA, and an effort to establish it as an NCAA sport. The NFL believes the burgeoning youth participation in flag football contributes to broadening the sport’s fan base and perhaps could help extend a recent revival in boys’ participation in high school tackle football nationally after years of decline.

“We’ve seen high school tackle football grow over the last year,” O’Reilly said. “So we see them as really complementary when you think about the overall strategy here. So the short answer is yes, we’re seeing the results of it. More to come, for sure. … We see this event, the NFL Flag Championships, as a big milestone along the way. … I think you’re going to see that awareness and excitement, given the much broader distribution that this will have over those three days.”

The NFL has made its Pro Bowl a flag football game (along with a skills competition) and has said that it intends to make arrangements to allow interested NFL players to compete in flag football in four years at the L.A. Olympics. Against that backdrop, O’Reilly said the NFL hopes for this tournament to become one of the league’s annual tentpole events. It falls at a relatively quiet time on the NFL calendar, just before teams get their training camps going in earnest in late July.

“Certainly that elevator pitch, if you will, of kind of ‘Little League World Series’ is there,” O’Reilly said. “But then, it’s in the context of this sport that is so rapidly growing. People are seeing it in their communities and then seeing it played with some of the best girls and boys coming together and how fast and really kind of telegenic it is. That was what really drove [this].”