Pennsylvania on Wednesday approved flag football as an official girls’ high school sport as NFL teams in the state encourage more female athletes to participate in the sport.
With approval from the Pennsylvania High School Athletic Association, the state agency that governs high school sports in the state, flag football will become an official girls’ sport in the nation’s fifth-most populous state starting in the 2025-26 school year.
As part of the sanctioning process for girls flag football, the PIAA required at least 100 teams from within the state to participate, a threshold that was met in April with 65 schools participating in the Philadelphia Eagles flag football league and 36 in the Pittsburgh Steelers league.
“This is a significant day not only for the Eagles and Steelers, but for the sport of football and the state of Pennsylvania,” Eagles owner Jeff Lurie said in a statement. “When we launched our Women’s Flag Football League in 2022, we set an ambitious five-year goal to have the sport sanctioned in the state, and now, three seasons later, we are here, two years ahead of schedule. The organic growth of the sport is a credit to the participants, administrators, coaches, officials and parents who have helped raise the profile of women’s flag football.”
“We thank PIAA leadership for recognizing a sport that has the power to open new paths and opportunities for girls of all ages and in every community.”
Allowing interscholastic athletics statewide would pave the way for school districts to adopt flag football as a sport, allowing schools to compete for state championships and ultimately building a talent pipeline for college and beyond.
According to the National Association of State High School Associations, 42,955 girls will participate in flag football in the 2023-24 school year, a 105% increase from the previous year.
At a girls flag football game sponsored by the Eagles last year, team president Don Smolenski reflected on the sport’s growth and the club’s involvement.
“If you get into it at this age, you can become a lifelong fan at this age,” he said, “and the more people that play the sport and enjoy it and learn the lessons that it has to offer, that’s good for the sport and good for the NFL as a whole.”
The move brings Pennsylvania to a growing list of states that have incorporated girls’ flag football into their high school athletic programs, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New York and Tennessee.
Interest in flag football, a sport that ends when a player isn’t tackled and the flag is pulled from the ball carrier’s belt, reached a fever pitch this summer when the International Olympic Committee announced plans to make flag football an official Olympic sport for both men and women at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.