The @NFLFlag Championship kicks off in ☝️ week!
📅July 19-21
📍HERE in Canton, OH!
📺Watch on ESPN and ABC. pic.twitter.com/vQkGhiboID
— Pro Football Hall of Fame (@ProFootballHOF) July 13, 2024
The reasons for the NFL’s effort to grow flag football are multifaceted. From a health perspective, flag provides a safer alternative to tackle football. For youth athletes, it’s a way to learn the fundamentals of the sport without being subjected to violent blows to the head and other significant injuries that come with contact.
For Joncich, that process started when she joined the Apex Predators, a youth flag football club in Las Vegas. It provided exposure to coaches equipped to properly teach the sport. Club vice president Todd Thomson has coached both tackle and flag football at the high school, club and national levels. He knows as well as anyone that there are key differences between the two versions of football — for example, that there’s no contact or linemen in flag — but there’s still some overlap.
“To get on the field playing flag, you’ve got to have footwork,” Thomson said. “Obviously, in tackle, you’re working on blocking schemes, whereas in flag, you don’t have that. But the skill set, the athleticism, all the agility training that you do in flag directly translates over to tackle.”
The NFL also wants to improve its international reach. The league increased its number of international games to raise awareness of the sport around the world and has used the International Player Pathway program to discover and develop tackle football prospects outside of North America. The NFL believes flag football can drive interest in the sport on an international level.
While playing tackle football requires expensive equipment and 22 players, flag football doesn’t require as much of an investment — the only equipment needed is a football and flags — and it can be played in five-on-five and seven-on-seven formats. That makes it more widely accessible.
“This is the easiest, fastest and most cost-effective way to grow the sport,” USA Football CEO/executive director Scott Hallenbeck said. “You can scale it very quickly. I think the NFL is already seeing that both drive fandom and just drive general participation. … It’s just great for the game overall.”
Several NFL players have expressed a desire to compete in the 2028 Olympics, but that’d require a major adjustment. The NFL Pro Bowl shifted to a seven-on-seven flag football format in 2023, but it isn’t officiated as strictly as it would be in international competition. Teaching interested players to adjust to those rules is something the NFL and USA Football have discussed.
Who would you draft to play for your flag football team? @OmahaProd
Visit https://t.co/u9u8C2UgX8 to find a league near you pic.twitter.com/wlw4DmTwCJ
— NFL (@NFL) July 15, 2024
“If a defender and an offensive player go up for a traditional end zone pass, it would be the perfect defensed play in the NFL, but if there’s the slightest contact, they’ll call the defender for a penalty,” Hallenbeck said. “It’s to the point where I’m on the international federation board and I’m like, ‘Guys, we’ve got to loosen these rules up a little bit.’ I mean, fans aren’t going to enjoy literally no contact.”
USA Football has worked with the U.S. Olympic Committee and sport performance experts to build a pathway to teach players of all ages the fundamentals, movement skills and biomechanics necessary to succeed in flag football.
Players with a background in flag and tackle football tend to be the focus — but they also draw athletes from other sports. As with any new competition, the 2028 Summer Games will serve as a high-stakes trial period for USA Football to refine its process.
IFAF has 74 member nations, and that number is expected to increase by the time the 2028 Olympics arrive. While it can be assumed that both the U.S. men’s and women’s teams will have a leg up on other countries less familiar with American football, there’s still plenty of work to be done when it comes to developing their talent pipeline. Canada, Mexico, Panama and Brazil are examples of other countries with elite flag football programs that’ll be fierce competition.
“We’re talking about now creating world-class athletes,” Hallenbeck said. “Four years scares me to death because it’s not long enough (to prepare competitive teams), but our job is to get that ready.”
The U.S. flag football national team during a training camp in May.
Despite the NFL’s efforts to grow the game internationally, football is still largely known as an American sport. But if the inclusion of flag football in the 2028 Olympics is a success, there’s a chance it could become a watershed moment for football’s worldwide presence — similar to how the 1992 Summer Games were a breakthrough for basketball via Team USA’s “Dream Team.”
The Olympics will put a spotlight on football in general. But given the men’s side of the sport is already massive, its effects could be greater for women.
“I refer to the announcement of the Olympics as rocket fuel,” Hallenbeck said. “It ignited something that was already burning and ready to take off. For a long time, girls have wanted to play football. They’ve done it here and there, but now the floodgates are truly open. … That side of things is scaling like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
The “Dream Team” had a dynamic superstar who captured a global audience in Michael Jordan. Looking ahead to the 2028 Games in L.A., those who’ve witnessed Joncich’s journey believe she could play a similar role for the women’s flag football team.
“When this is all said and done and those first Olympics happen, all these young girls are going to watch on TV and she will be that M.J.,” Thomson said. “She is the future. Barring something shocking, she’ll be the face of women’s flag football on the international stage.”
(All photos: Lester Barnes / USA Football)
Source link : https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5604787/2024/07/17/flag-football-olympics-2028-rising-popularity/
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Publish date : 2024-07-17 03:00:00
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