Will flag soccer be the following pickleball? Tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} are betting on it.

Flag soccer, the tackle-free model of American soccer, is rapidly gaining floor amongst individuals and will turn into a legit spectator sport within the coming years. Consider the current announcement that flag soccer will debut on the Olympics through the 2028 summer time video games in Los Angeles, becoming a member of such different sports activities as squash, cricket, lacrosse, softball and baseball as ones making their first look or returning to the distinguished worldwide athletic occasion.

The Olympics news is the fruits of a years-long effort to develop the game right into a severe contender, a push that has been closely supported by the tackle-oriented National Football League, plus a number of different companies and organizations.

And it’s a push with massive {dollars} hooked up to it — and plenty of heady optimism.

“Flag football is a movement,” says Jeff Lewis, founding father of the American Flag Football League, knowledgeable platform that’s set to debut subsequent yr. Lewis informed MarketWatch that tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} have gone into establishing the AFFL, although he declined to offer a particular determine.

Some 7.1 million Americans performed flag soccer in 2022, in line with analysis from the Sports & Industry Fitness Association, a rise of 8.4% versus 5 years earlier. Participants lined nearly each group and demographic: women and men, school and high-school graduates, East and West Coast residents.

The recreation is proving particularly widespread with younger ladies, say representatives with USA Football, the governing physique for each deal with and flag soccer within the U.S. and the group that might be behind the boys’s and ladies’s nationwide groups competing in 2028 Olympics.

USA Football notes that ladies’ flag soccer is now sanctioned as a varsity sport in eight states, with extra providing pilot packages. Plus, there’s a nationwide ladies’s flag soccer championship on the collegiate stage.

And flag soccer could be very a lot poised to go professional. The AFFL will launch in 2024 with a males’s division, with groups in Boston, Dallas, Las Vegas and Nashville, in line with Lewis. A ladies’s division will comply with in 2025.  

Lewis, a veteran monetary skilled, mentioned that franchise charges are going for $3 million. He’s significantly bullish in regards to the prospects for the ladies’s league, seeing flag soccer as changing into the largest ladies’s spectator sport, as measured by income, inside the subsequent decade.

In different phrases, greater than even the WNBA, which already brings in at the very least $180 million in income.

Meanwhile, the NFL’s dedication to flag is concentrated on the youth side — particularly, the NFL Flag program, which encompasses 2,000-plus youth leagues with 700,000-plus girls and boys, ages 5 to 17, taking part. (There are additionally flag leagues run independently of the NFL.)

The NFL hasn’t fully ignored the professional side, both: The league turned the Pro Bowl — its model of an all-star recreation — right into a flag soccer occasion this yr. The concept was to deal with the truth that gamers in earlier Pro Bowls have been involved about risking damage to take part in what is basically an exhibition contest. Switching to the non-tackle format solved the issue and didn’t appear to remove from the thrill, at the very least in line with league officers.

“I don’t see us going back [to tackle] in any way,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell mentioned of the Pro Bowl flag format after this yr’s recreation.

Indeed, the protection issue is vital to flag soccer’s rising reputation, particularly at a time when there’s elevated consciousness of the danger of accidents, particularly concussions, in deal with soccer. Participation in high-school deal with, for instance, is down 12.2% from its 2008-09 peak.

Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College and a sports-business skilled, goes as far as to say that selling flag is “a backup strategy” for the NFL. By that, he means if deal with soccer suffers a a lot higher decline in reputation or is even perhaps banned, the league has one other model of the sport able to showcase.

But extra probably, Zimbalist and others say the NFL sees selling flag as a enjoyable method to introduce folks to soccer normally, with the concept that it should hopefully make them watch the skilled deal with model the league embodies.

“It’s going to drive fandom” for the NFL, says Scott Hallenback, chief govt of USA Football.

That could possibly be crucial with ladies, because it’s a gaggle that has been key to the league’s progress plans. Of course, Taylor Swift’s sudden curiosity within the recreation, resulting from her budding relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce, hasn’t damage by way of creating a feminine fan base, both.

Flag soccer has different elements in its favor, say advocates. On the participant aspect, it’s a comparatively low-cost recreation to play because it requires so little gear — not like deal with soccer, there’s no purpose to make use of protecting gear.

“You just need a ball,” says Danette Leighton, chief govt of the Women’s Sports Foundation.

Well, you additionally want flags. And if you need proof that flag soccer is rising in popularity, simply communicate to David Berg, founding father of Shruumz, an Austin, Texas, firm that makes a speciality of flag soccer gear. He says gross sales have been climbing at the very least 50% yearly since he began the enterprise in 2019.

Berg provides that whereas the extent of play might be very aggressive within the higher echelons of the game, the attraction of flag soccer is that it may be appreciated by all types of individuals in any respect talent ranges.

“There are dads who play in their tennis shoes,” Berg says.

In phrases of spectator potential, significantly relating to tv networks or streaming platforms, some say one of the best factor moving into flag’s favor is that there’s merely a necessity for extra product to fill all of the slots these viewing shops have. Think how the yard recreation of cornhole has even discovered its method to TV.

“There’s a window for niche sports that never used to be,” says Zimbalist.

Pickleball is making a play for the spectator crowd, too. There’ a pickleball professional league and loads of pickleball for house viewing. But the flag soccer crowd argues that their recreation makes for higher viewing, on condition that it’s not too completely different from the NFL deal with soccer that’s an American obsession.

“It’s leaps and bounds more entertaining to watch than a pickleball match,” says Izell Reese, a former NFL participant and chief govt of RCX Sports, the corporate that runs the NFL Flag program.

Still, the actual fact that flag soccer isn’t deal with might in the end stand in its method, some say. Even fanatics admit this.

Take Odessa “OJ” Jenkins, founding father of the Women’s National Football Conference, knowledgeable ladies’s deal with league that is creating a flag league as properly. Like others, Jenkins sees flag as a “pipeline” for folks to construct that fundamental consciousness of soccer. But nothing can compete with the intensely bodily model of the game that deal with represents.

“Tackle football is the queen and king” of the sport, she says.

But for Princeton, N.J., resident Jennifer Lea Cohan, flag remains to be the model of the game her 13-year-old daughter, Milla Petrecca, appreciates. As a mom, Cohan says she likes the truth that the sport has a decrease threat of damage. Meanwhile, her daughter simply likes the aggressive side.

The solely downside? Milla’s workforce isn’t precisely the star of its league. “They’re a little win-challenged,” Cohan concedes.