Cardinals to be first NFL team to produce, air HS girls flag football game weekly

In the wake of the Flag Championships held in July, the NFL and the Arizona Cardinals have announced the next in growing flag football.

The Cardinals, its stadium sponsor State Farm, and television station Arizona’s Family announced a partnership to produce and air a high school girls flag football game of the week for eight weeks during the season, they said in a press release Friday.

The games will air on Arizona’s Family Sports beginning on Sept. 17 for the Hamilton High School (Chandler, Ariz.) game against Xavier College Prep (Phoenix). All games will take place on Tuesday or Thursday nights through Nov. 7.

“We firmly believe that local sports act as the connective tissue of a community,” said Arizona’s Family VP and GM Debbie Bush in a statement. “This opportunity allows us to shine a light on young women across Arizona who are truly trailblazers in the sport of flag football while inspiring a new generation of young girls to believe that they can play too.”

This is a continuation of flag football progress in Arizona. The state is one of 11 to offer girls flag as a sanctioned high school sport; last season, 57 girls participated. More than 100 schools will be offering the sport this year, according to the press release.

The Cardinals run camps and programs around the state and established a two-year partnership with Positive Coaching Alliance while pledging $70,000 to support girls’ flag football in efforts to address gender inequity in youth sports. In 2022 and 2023, the Cardinals hosted a Game of the Week, with flag football games played at State Farm Stadium during halftime.

This season will be an expansion from one game per season to eight.

“The growth of flag football has been explosive not only in our state and our country but worldwide,” Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill said in a statement. “As an organization, we are proud to help grow the interest even more and shine a spotlight on those competing at such a high level in our own community.”

The NFL is prioritizing efforts to ramp up flag football participation ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, during which the sport will be played at the Games for the first time. In July, the league hosted 2,800 athletes at Hall of Fame Village for the NFL Flag Championships, a tournament in which each team was represented by its NFL counterpart from its hometown.

Former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III, an announcer for some ESPN broadcasts during the tournament, said in an interview with USA TODAY High School Sports that the efforts of the league and broadcast partners in recent years give it a chance to grow both flag and traditional football.

“Now the NFL and ESPN have poured so many resources into it, I undoubtedly believe there’s going to be a flag football professional league here soon as we gear up for the 2028 Olympics. And that makes it a much more inclusive sport,” Griffin said. “It grows the actual game of American football and makes it to where it becomes global.”