Team AFC and Team NFC play during the NFL High School Girls Flag Football Showcase, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025 in Orlando, Fla. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Content Services for the NFL)

As representatives from the Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals, National Football League and Pro Football Hall of Fame gathered for an Ohio High School Athletic Association press conference on Thursday at the NFL Flag Championships in Canton, it was no mystery that OHSAA was going to announce that Ohio would become the 17th state to sanction girls high school flag football.

OHSAA executive director Doug Ute said his organization would sponsor a girls high school state flag football championship tournament starting in spring 2026.

According to representatives present, girls flag football has exploded in popularity in the Cincinnati and Cleveland areas since being pushed by the two NFL franchises earlier in the decade. The Browns, for instance, claimed that its program associated with Northeast Ohio Flag Football went from 30 teams in 2023 to 88 teams in 2025. OHSAA claims the number went from 20 statewide three years ago to 80 today. The Browns also said that they signed up three Columbus high schools to a pilot program. The Bengals reported that there are 20 high schools participating in Southwest Ohio. In Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Steelers helped the sport to get sanctioned by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association this year.

Around these parts the closest participating school is Marlington, out of the Eastern Buckeye Conference. In their first season, the Dukes had more than 30 girls participate and were able to field two teams.

Ute said he expects the growth of girls high school flag football to take off in a similar way that girls wrestling did. He noted that there were only a few hundred girls wrestlers in the state a few years ago and now the number is 5,500.

As a club sport, girls high school football already had its first state championship sponsored by the Browns and Bengals in May at Massillon Paul Brown Tiger Stadium. Hamilton Badin won the inaugural title with a win over Willoughby South.

Since the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association carved out a pathway to getting the flag football championship sanctioned by OHSAA, there should be avenues for local schools wishing to pursue this but at this stage a lot more planning and catching up needs to be done in the Youngstown metro area and in the Ohio River valley. It remains to be seen if this region’s NFL teams will extend their reach to assist.

The sport has no doubt taken off outside of the confines of high school athletics as the sport has been added by 100 college club and varsity programs. It also will debut as an Olympic sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

Under USA Football high school flag football rules, the field length is 70 yards including two 10-yard end zones. The width used is 25 yards. Games run on a 40-minute continuous clock with two 20 minute halves. The clock only stops for injuries, half-time and timeouts. Ohio seems to be using a 5 on 5 game, but other states have tweaked that up to nine players a side.

In looking over schedules for Ohio’s girls flag football teams, there does not seem to be any set days of the week where games are played. Many times two games in a day against different opponents are played.

There will invariably be questions on how this will fit into the landscape of other spring sports going forward. As it is, sometimes softball, tennis and track teams are threadbare in this area. Although no area teams play lacrosse, does it stop the growth of that sport in its tracks? If the sport takes off like the Browns, Bengals and OHSAA are predicting there could be tough choices being made about how to balance this sport with everything else. (Oh and don’t forget about continuing official shortages too).

This should also be viewed with some level of cynicism as well because the NFL is in the business of increasing its customer base and has been aggressive in recent years in pursuing female fans. It also benefits from creating an atmosphere where future mothers feel safe around football so their sons will be more likely to play the game.

And perhaps the NFL is also looking at what the NBA did with its WNBA investment and what Major League Baseball is starting to do with its Athletes Unlimited softball involvement. If the game takes off and can be professionalized at some point, I am sure the NFL wants to be on top of that.

Make no mistake, whereas the recent OHSAA additions of bowling and girls wrestling were born out of an organic push, this flag football one has tons of money behind it.

Perhaps this will coexist nicely in a crowded high school athletics environment and show the way for a future where state sanctioning organizations are more comfortable taking chances on sports they traditionally would not.

Or maybe it will end up being a niche thing in most areas outside of big cities as athletic directors and school districts really weigh in on how many sports is enough.

Time will tell.