The National Football League -NFL- has taken another step in its flag football strategy through an agreement with TMRW Sports to develop and operate a professional men’s and women’s league, an initiative backed by franchises, investment funds, former star players, active players and major figures in American sport. The move also comes after clubs authorised 32 Equity, the franchises’ investment vehicle, to approve an investment of up to 32 million dollars to support the launch and operation of the competition.

This goes well beyond the creation of a new league, because it comes at the moment of greatest growth for flag football, just two years before its debut at Los Angeles 2028, and at a time when the discipline has already moved beyond being a minor offshoot of American football to establish itself as its own path for sporting, commercial and institutional development. “As the flag football movement continues its explosive global growth, a professional flag league completes the pathway for elite athletes to compete at every level of the game, from youth to high school and college, to the Olympic stage, and now professionally,” said Troy Vincent Sr., the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations.

The leap the NFL wants to complete with flag football

That new professional tier is supported by an investment network that shows how much weight flag football has already gained within the sports ecosystem in the United States. Among the names linked to the project are Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Steve Young, Larry Fitzgerald and Justin Tuck, along with active players such as Bobby Wagner, Russell Wilson and Arik Armstead. They are joined by leading figures in women’s sport such as Billie Jean King, Ilana Kloss, Alex Morgan and Serena Williams, as well as groups including Ariel Investments/Project Level, Bessemer Venture Partners, Blue Pool Capital, Dynasty Equity, Silver Lake, Sixth Street, Arctos Partners and 776, the fund linked to Alexis Ohanian.

The scale of that investment fits into a broader reading of the NFL’s move. Peter O’Reilly, the league’s executive vice president of club business, made it clear at the competition’s annual meeting that “flag is fundamental to our international strategy, and our overall league strategy”. In the same intervention, he added that “it’s about growing the game, giving access to the sport, to girls and boys, men and women”. That helps position the new league as part of a wider roadmap at a time when the NFL is increasing its presence outside the United States, expanding its international territories and looking for forms of entry into new markets that are more accessible than tackle American football.

Flag’s rise fits the NFL’s more international direction

The numbers explain why the league has decided to accelerate now. Flag football has around 20 million players worldwide, while in the United States it is played by around 4.1 million young people, a figure that represents growth of more than 50% since 2020. At school level, the sport is already offered in 39 states and the number of girls playing on high school teams rose by nearly 60% from 2024 to 2025. At the same time, more than 100 universities and colleges already have women’s programmes, while the International Federation of American Football -IFAF- brings together 75 national federations and the latest World Championships featured 31 countries. “Tackle football will continue as the professional game played in the NFL and its amateur pipeline from youth through college. But flag will dominate in neighbourhoods, schools and recreational leagues around the world. It’s happening in front of our eyes,” Vincent said.

The NFL has been working for years to turn that growth into a stable structure. It has done so through NFL FLAG, its main grassroots platform, which now has more than 830,000 participants and 1,800 leagues across all 50 states, but also through school programmes, partnerships with RCX Sports and GENYOUth, and a specific strategy to expand female participation. Since 2014, the NFL FLAG-In-School programme kits have helped 17 million students gain access to the sport in educational settings. Added to that is progress at university level: the National Collegiate Athletic Association -NCAA- added flag football this year to its Emerging Sports for Women programme, an important step in putting the discipline on the path toward championship status. “The momentum behind flag football has been building for decades. The pathway is there, and you see it in the communities. But what’s been missing in that pathway is a professional league,” said Mike McCarley, founder and chief executive of TMRW Sports.

From schools to the NCAA and from the Super Bowl to the business stage

The league has also brought that growth strategy onto the stage of its biggest events. During Super Bowl LX week, flag football took centre stage through the NFL Flag International Championship, a girls’ high school showcase, the relocation of the Pro Bowl Games to those dates, an exhibition game between the United States and Mexico, and a special match streamed on YouTube featuring talent from different fields. The NFL has also added global ambassadors to promote the discipline in domestic and international markets, including Steve Young, Diana Flores and Phoebe Schecter. Billie Jean King, one of the new project’s investors, summed it up this way: “The momentum behind women’s sports has never been stronger, and flag football is poised to play a major role in that continued growth.”

The other major accelerator is the Olympic one. NFL clubs approved in May 2025 the participation of league players in the flag football tournament at the Los Angeles 2028 Games, where the discipline will make its debut with six men’s teams and six women’s teams. “It’s an incredible honor for any athlete to represent their country in the Olympics, which is the pinnacle of global sport,” said Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL. The decision further strengthens the visibility of the discipline, although flag football already has established specialists outside professional American football. That point was reflected in the Fanatics Flag Football Classic, where players from the United States national team defeated teams featuring well-known names from the NFL orbit, and also in Robert Griffin III being named to Team USA’s men’s preliminary squad ahead of the World Championships in Düsseldorf.

NFL and TMRW Sports will continue in the coming months to develop the design and operational planning of the new league, with a roadmap intended to align with the run-up to the Games. “As the elite competitive tier of flag football, this league will mark a new era for the sport as the world’s best compete in a fast-paced format that aligns with the evolving media consumption of today’s sports fans,” McCarley said.