How is girls flag football, backed by the NFL, coexisting with other spring sports?

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The NFL-driven flag football movement is reshaping opportunities for female athletes, and is starting to ripple through the landscape of high school spring sports, both in Ohio and nationwide. Backed heavily by the NFL and its franchises, including the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals, girls flag football has emerged as one of Ohio’s fastest-growing sports. The league’s nationwide push to expand access to the game for girls has translated into rapid growth at the high school level, where participation continues to surge. According to Hannah Lee, the Browns’ manager of youth football, the program launched in 2021 with just six teams. This season, that number has grown to 121. “For us, it came from wanting to give girls the same opportunity that boys have had for the past 100 years,” Lee said. “Tackle football has been around for roughly a century, and this was about finally creating that pathway for girls.” With that growth has come a noticeable rise in both the quality of play and the type of athlete entering the sport — something coaches say is being accelerated by intentional recruiting and crossover participation. “You’ve got to go get them,” said Madison head coach Jay Ross, whose team won the Browns regional title on Monday and will be a No. 1 seed at this weekend’s state tournament. “We’ve had basketball players, track stars, soccer players — we’ve had cheerleaders — we’ll recruit from everywhere.” That approach has helped programs rapidly build competitive rosters, even in a relatively new sport. “If you get a chance to get that ball in their hand — the first time they score or the first time they get a flag pull — they’re hooked,” Ross said. “You just make it fun.” As the NFL’s push continues to filter down to the high school level, the sport’s rise has prompted questions about how it fits into an already crowded spring sports calendar. “You have your softball players, you have the track and field athletes … and now you’re getting the flag football,” Revere track and field coach Billy D’Amico said. “It’s become a very big thing.” Early concerns centered around whether the sport might pull athletes away from existing programs — but in many cases, coaches are seeing overlap rather than replacement. “We talked about how it’s going to — not steal — but eventually take away from girls’ spring sports,” D’Amico said. “Now, if you can do both due to the offsetting days … you might be able to share athletes in that.” At Archbishop Hoban, softball head coach Kevin Yun said the introduction of girls flag football initially raised concerns about players picking flag football instead of softball. “At first, I was worried… like flag football was taking over,” Yun said. “But no, it’s good. We just coexist, and everything has been great. No issues.” D’Amico echoed that sentiment, pointing to the broader culture of multi-sport athletes. “I’m an advocate. I coach three sports,” he said. “Some of my best athletes are kids from basketball, soccer and football.” Instead, many coaches now see flag football as an extension of that model — and an expansion of opportunity. “I think coaches are OK with it because it gives more girls an opportunity to play a sport that’s been one-sided male for so long,” D’Amico said. National girls spring sports graph While traditional spring sports have stayed relatively stable, with moderate fluctuation from year to year, girls flag football participation is surging at a dramatically faster rate nationwide. The data in the graph came from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).Jonathan X. Simmons Data from the National Federation of State High School Associations shows that while participation in flag football has more than quadrupled from 15,716 participants in 2022 to 68,847 in 2025, softball and track and field participation have remained relatively stable. Nationally, softball participation increased from 340,923 athletes in 2022 to 345,451 in 2024, but took a dip to 338,315 in 2025. Track and field participation, meanwhile, has increased steadily from 456,697 in 2022 to 513,808 in 2025. Ohio girls spring sports participation data Ohio girls' participation in spring sports has fluctuated yearly since 2021-22, but, across the board, participation has increased even with the growth of girls flag football. The data in the graph came from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).Jonathan X. Simmons That national trend was reflected in Ohio. In 2022, there were 22,372 Ohio girls participating in track and field and 15,486 playing softball. Those numbers jumped to 24,660 track athletes and 16,962 softball players in 2023 and 2024, before dipping to 23,812 track athletes and 14,745 softball players in 2025. While it might be too early to call the slight dip in softball and track participation a trend, the bottom line is clear: Flag football is creating opportunities for more girls to participate in sports, coexisting with other spring sports rather than poaching athletes. Opportunities for more athletes means a higher level of competition across the board. In just a few years that competitive jump has been evident at the high school level, where programs like Willoughby South have helped set the standard. The Rebels captured the Northeast Ohio regional title last season and remain one of Northeast Ohio’s most established programs. According to Willoughby South head coach Matt McCue, last year one of his athletes was selected to the Under Armour All-American Flag Football Team, and another earned a scholarship to play flag football at Mercyhurst University. Ross has seen similar momentum build within his own program. “We’ve got girls now going to college for it,” he said, noting his daughter recently committed to play at Heidelberg. “Hopefully that’s not the last athlete that we have coming out of Madison going to play in college.” At Browns-supported championship events last year, college scouts were already on hand recruiting players. There were even more scouts Monday at the University of Akron for this year’s Browns regional tournament. Lee explained that exposure and the chance for girls to advance their academic and athletic careers was part of the initial motivation behind the push for flag football. The idea is that girls are going to be scouted, play at the next level and may even have a shot at participating in the 2028 Olympics when flag football makes its debut on the world stage. “Hopefully, when we look out here, we’re seeing some future Olympians,” Lee said. That goal took a major step toward becoming reality last summer, when girls flag football was officially sanctioned as a varsity sport in Ohio — a milestone that not only validated the sport’s rapid growth, but also positioned it for even more expansion moving forward. That reality has played out on rosters across the region, including at Madison, where Ross actively pulls from a wide pool of athletes. That wide range of talent and skill sets helped lift the Blue Streaks to this season’s regional title. “We’ve got three or four basketball players … track athletes, soccer players,” Ross said. “You just try to get them out there, and once they play, they want to keep playing.” Scheduling flexibility has been key to making that possible. With so many other well-established sports in the spring, in addition to proms, graduation and the many other things that keep kids occupied after the winter season ends, making flag football easily accessible has allowed more and more girls to participate. “That’s probably the biggest feedback we get,” Lee said. “But we’ve tried to be flexible.” Games have typically been scheduled on Friday evenings or Sunday afternoons, creating opportunities for some athletes to balance multiple sports — something D’Amico says is becoming more common. “I think we have girls that can do that,” he said. “And I think that’s what the new flavor is going to be: flag football.” At the program level, coaches like McCue say the sport’s rapid rise has brought new challenges — particularly as younger, more experienced players enter the pipeline. “Our biggest challenge has been raising our level of play each season,” McCue said. “Competition keeps getting stronger, especially now that there are girls playing flag football before high school.” Community support has followed. At Willoughby South, attendance and energy around games have steadily increased. “The school has been incredibly supportive,” McCue said.