The National Junior College Athletic Association will add women’s flag football to the official roster of sports available to students at two-year colleges.
The game has been granted “emerging” sports status by the NJCAA board of regents, which will form a committee to create guidelines and a competition structure with the intent of starting games in the spring of 2022.
The National Football League (NFL) and Reigning Champs Experiences, a youth-sports experiences business that runs college camps, combines and youth-sports leagues, will partner with the NJCAA on the effort.
Fifteen NJCAA member colleges that declare their intent to participate in the sport over the next two years will each receive a $10,000 grant from the organization’s foundation, funded by $150,000 from the NFL.
NJCAA members who begin a women’s flag football program will have the opportunity to compete against other members, in addition to various invitational events managed by RCX. A national championship event and full sport status will be granted with the increased number of participating institutions.
“The expansion of women’s flag football as a varsity sport at the two-year college level is yet another historic achievement for women’s collegiate sports,” said Troy Vincent, Sr., NFL executive vice president of football operations. “We are excited to partner with the NJCAA in providing the opportunity for female student athletes to experience the tremendous values, life benefits and competition that come with playing football.”
RCX will help the NJCAA with marketing and providing a framework of the sport within the women’s flag football industry.
Flag football is a growing sport among women. The American Flag Football League (AFFL), a professional league, recently announced will add a new women’s division promising pay equity from the kickoff, offering women’s teams a championship prize equal to the $200,000 it awards its men’s teams.
The NFL also recently partnered with Nike on a grant initiative committing a total of $5 million to growing high school girls’ flag football programs.
Anne Stych is a staff writer for Bizwomen.
Travis Burnett
A pioneer in the flag football community, Travis helped co-found the Flag Football World Championship Tour, FlagSpin and USA Flag. Featuring 15+ years of content creation for the sport of flag football, creating and managing the largest flag football tournaments on the planet, coaching experience at the youth and adult level as well as an active player with National and World Championship level experience.
