Flag football is headed to the 2028 Olympics and is now an NCAA sport for women

Flag football will make its Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. The International Olympic Committee confirmed the sport for LA28, and the committee organizing those Games announced it through its newsroom on October 16, 2023.

The Olympic version is five on five. NBC Olympics reports the tournament will have six men's teams and six women's teams, and the games will be played at BMO Stadium, the home of LAFC and Angel City FC.

NFL players can take part. League owners voted 32 to 0 on May 20, 2025, at their spring meeting to allow it, according to NFL.com. The resolution limits each club to one player, plus its designated international player, and the league still has to work out the details with the NFL Players Association, national governing bodies and Olympic officials. Commissioner Roger Goodell called it a great opportunity for the sport.

A little over two years after the Olympic announcement, college sports followed. On January 16, 2026, representatives from all three NCAA divisions approved flag football as an emerging sport for women, effective immediately, according to NCAA.org. Division I, Division II and Division III all voted it in at the same time, at the NCAA Convention in the Washington, D.C., area.

Emerging sport status is the first step toward an NCAA championship. To be considered for one, a sport needs at least 40 schools sponsoring it at the varsity level and has to meet minimum contest and participation requirements, according to the NCAA. Because the change took effect immediately, schools that played in the spring 2026 season could count toward that threshold.

The NCAA said that as of summer 2025, at least 40 of its schools planned to sponsor varsity flag football in the 2025 to 2026 academic year, with projections of as many as 60 in spring 2026.

High school is the widest level of the sport. The National Federation of State High School Associations counts girls flag football at 3,990 high schools across the country in its participation survey of member schools. Its 2025 to 2026 survey, released August 27, 2026, counted 102,360 girls playing, up 48.7 percent in one year, which moved flag football into the ten most popular high school sports for girls.

The sport now runs at three levels: an Olympic program in Los Angeles in 2028, a college path toward an NCAA championship, and nearly 4,000 high schools.