Flag Football History: How the Sport Became a Global Sensation
One of the biggest reasons flag football is growing exponentially is because of accessibility. Flag football is played by boys and girls, men and women, and players of all ages and ability across the globe. Flag football owes much of its popularity to regular football. The fundamental principles of football apply to flag football with one exception: There’s no contact. In 2024, over 2.4 million kids participated in flag football, making it the fastest-growing sport in America. Recently, flag football was added to the Olympic games. The first flag football Olympic games will be played in 2028 in Los Angeles in the summer Olympics. Below is a description of the evolution of flag football.
Origins of Flag Football
Flag football started in the military during World War II as an alternative to tackle football. It was considered a safe diversion from the risks associated with football, where players were regularly injured because of the rough nature of the sport.
Flag football encapsulates many of the concepts of tackle football with one major exception: There’s no intentional contact. Play stops when a defender pulls a flag out of the ball carrier’s belt, which is wrapped around their waist. Flag football has all the other elements of regular football including running, passing, kicking, intercepting passes, and guarding offensive players.
The early version of flag football didn’t include belts. Soldiers used towels or cloths tucked into their waist as their flags. The idea behind flag football was to avoid injuries to the military personnel while allowing them to play a popular game they were familiar with. Flag football was initially called “Touch and Tail” football and the first documented game is believed to have occurred at Fort Meade, an Army base in Maryland, in 1940.
The basis for flag football was touch football. Touch football, where a defender ends a play by touching the ball carrier with either one or two hands, started in the early 1900s when football was going through a safety crisis. In 1905, several universities wanted to abolish football because of the brutal nature of the sport. The uprising led to a new set of rules for regular football, which included adding a one-yard buffer between the offensive and defensive line, limiting the number of players on each team to 11, and reducing the game from 70 to 60 minutes. Before the team size was regulated, football sometimes had 15 players on each side. The University of Missouri developed touch football as an option to replace tackle football when its status was uncertain. Touch football gained popularity in the ‘20s and ‘30s in secondary schools and colleges. The definition of “touch,” however, was never formally defined. Some of the games got rough because players would push and grab instead of touching. It was also sometimes difficult to know if a runner had been touched. Flag football eliminated that ambiguity and created an environment where rough play wasn’t possible.
Early Development & Growth
When the war ended, flag football returned home with the soldiers. Recreational leagues started to pop up in communities in the 1950s that were also played in neighborhoods. Below is a timeline for the development of flag football.
Flag-a-tag-belt: In 1953, a physical education teacher named Porter Wilson wanted to create a safer environment for his rowdy students, who would sometimes grab and shove their opponents instead of touching them. Wilson did this by giving his players flags that they put into their belts. The flags helped keep the bumping and pushing down. Wilson’s invention, which was called the flag-a-tag-belt system, helped fuel the popularity of flag football.
National Touch Football League: In 1965, the National Touch Football League was founded in St. Louis. The NTFL was an early governing body for flag football. It helped create an organized national presence for flag football. St. Louis is considered the birthplace of flag football.
Women’s Flag Football: In 1971, the Northeast Women’s Football League (NWFL) started the first known women’s flag football league through the Philadelphia Park System.
National Championship: In 1971, the first championship game for the NTFL was played in St. Louis.
Women’s Tournament: In 1974, the first sanctioned flag football tournament for women was held in Ohio, according to the International Women’s Flag Football Association.
National Football League: In 1994, the NFL held its first flag football clinics, which introduced the rules and strategy to children. The NFL’s support increased interest in flag football.
World Championship: In 2002, the International Federation of American Football sponsored the first flag football World Championship, which was won by the Swedish women and Austrian men.
Olympics: In 2023, flag football was approved as an Olympic sport.
Professional Flag Football: In 2024, the American Flag Football League (AFFL) introduced men’s professional flag football.
Current State of Flag Football
The growth of flag football has been phenomenal. It’s played by 20 million people in over 200 countries. Flag football participation is expected to exceed regular football participation soon, according to the International Federation of American Football (IFAF). Girls’ participation in high school rose 105% from 2022 - 2023 to 2023 - 2024. Around 500,000 girls between the ages of 6 and 17 played flag football in the United States.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has 65 teams that play flag football either as a club or varsity sport, with more schools expected to add teams in 2026. Flag football, also called 7-on-7 football, is a sanctioned high school sport in 17 states. It’s a great alternative for small secondary schools that don’t have the financial resources and student population to support regular football.
Flag football is only going to get bigger and better as awareness increases and as local communities start investing more resources into the sport.