The NFL is banking on corporate sponsorships and high-profile television rights for the event, which it has dubbed the NFL Flag Championship, as it continues to push the flag version of the sport as a way to boost youth participation and increase fan interest in football both domestically and internationally.
The event is expected to feature more than 280 teams and approximately 2,900 players and is run by the NFL's flag football partner, RCX Sports. U.S.-based teams, ages 9 and under for boys and 15 and under for girls, will qualify through regional tournaments. The event will also feature teams from Canada, Mexico, Germany, Great Britain, Australia and China competing against each other.
“Think of something like the Little League World Series. It's a summer staple, an aspirational event for young baseball players and a vibrant event from a broadcast standpoint,” said Peter O'Reilly, the NFL's vice president of club operations, international and league events. “There's something really powerful here.”
League officials also said the tournament could be a showcase and testing ground for teenage players who may represent their countries at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where flag football will be featured for the first time.
“This is the biggest stage, the widest audience, the world gets to see the best players in this age group,” said Troy Vincent, NFL vice president of football operations. “This is the future of flag. This is the future of high school, college, professional and Olympic flag sports. That's what we're seeing. We're getting a glimpse of it.”
There's no doubt that the NFL event will reach the popularity of the Little League World Series, which features players ages 10 to 12 each year. It will be held in Williamsport, Pa. But the league has put a lot of effort into the effort, including corporate sponsorship led by Toyota as a “presenting partner” of the event and broadcasting on 10 platforms including Disney-owned ESPN and ABC.
“It has our name on it,” O'Reilly said. “It's an NFL flag championship. Our young players, just like they do at the local level, [NFL] “Promoting the team's brand and jerseys and representing the team in that market. That's really what we're working on directly. … The number one priority is growing the sport as a whole and giving those efforts back into helping grow flag as a whole, because flag is such an amazing, accessible core of our sport.”
The games will be played at Tom Benson Stadium, where the NFL holds its annual Hall of Fame Memorial Game, and at Forever Lawn Sports Complex in the Hall of Fame Memorial Village, which Washington Commanders majority owner Josh Harris and co-owner David Blitzer purchased in December. An “opening night” is scheduled for July 18, with games running through July 21.
The NFL has hosted flag football events at Pro Bowl games in the past and even hosted a major event in Washington, D.C., last summer, but this will be the first time it has hosted a flag football tournament of this magnitude on its own.
“This will be the first year that we're running the NFL Flag Championship on this size and scale, so I would say we're looking at it. … We're running this entirely dedicated event for the players who are going to participate in the Flag Championship. So [it’s] “For our first year, we think it's very promising, with our engagement with ESPN, our partners, our teams. But we're also thinking about how we continue to grow going forward as we're in our first year.”
NFL leaders describe flag football as an affordable, accessible and fun version of the sport that gives girls a place to play football and boys to take up the sport without the risk of injury associated with tackle football.
A total of 27 states have made girls' high school flag football a sanctioned sport or have pilot programs in place. The NAIA has seen growing participation in women's flag football at the collegiate level, and there are efforts underway to establish it as an NCAA sport. The NFL believes a surge in youth participation in flag football could help expand the sport's fan base and help fuel a recent resurgence in boys' participation in high school tackle football nationwide after several years of decline.
“We've seen high school tackle football grow over the last year,” O'Reilly said, “and we think that when we think about our overall strategy, we think that tackle football is really complementary. So the short answer is, yes, we are seeing that, and we're definitely going to see more of it. … We see this event, the NFL Flag Championship, as a major milestone along that journey. … I think you're going to see that awareness and excitement as we think about the wider distribution over these three days.”
The NFL has said it plans to turn the Pro Bowl into a flag football game (including a skills competition) and to arrange for interested NFL players to compete in flag football at the Los Angeles Olympics four years from now. Against this backdrop, O'Reilly said the NFL wants to make the tournament one of the league's major annual events. The tournament comes during a relatively quiet period on the NFL calendar, just before teams begin full-scale training camps in late July.
“Certainly, there's an elevator pitch for what's called the 'Little League World Series,'” O'Reilly says, “but it's in the context of this sport that's growing so quickly. People are watching it in their communities, seeing the best girls and boys come together and play, and seeing how quickly it can happen and how TV-friendly it can be. That was really the driving force.” [this]. “
