NFL to Launch Professional Flag Football League Ahead of 2028 Olympic Debut

The National Football League is moving to create a professional flag football league in partnership with TMRW Sports, aiming to debut the circuit before the sport’s first appearance at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Commissioners, owners and players gathered in Orlando for the league’s annual meetings heard details of the venture on Monday. Every club has already committed financial backing through 32 Equity, the NFL’s investment arm, authorizing up to $32 million to underwrite start-up costs. The project will field men’s and women’s divisions, with Hall of Famers and active stars among the high-profile investors.

Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Larry Fitzgerald, Joe Montana and Steve Young headline the football luminaries buying in, while Russell Wilson, Bobby Wagner and Arik Armstead represent the current generation. Serena Williams, Billie Jean King, Alex Morgan and Ilana Kloss round out an ownership group that spans multiple sports.

Mike McCarley, founder and CEO of TMRW Sports, told reporters the league could slot into a summer calendar, creating a direct runway to the NFL’s fall schedule. “The momentum behind flag football has been building for decades,” McCarley said. “What’s been missing in that pathway is a professional league … where athletes who will compete in the Olympics every four years can earn a living.”

Key structural questions remain: organizers must decide between five-on-five or seven-on-seven formats, determine whether competition will be staged in a single hub city or across multiple markets, and set an exact launch date. The only non-negotiable is the 2028 Olympic deadline.

Flag football’s inclusion in Los Angeles reflects explosive domestic growth. Roughly 4.1 million American children now play the non-contact version, a 50 percent spike since 2020, according to NFL data. Thirty-nine states sanction high-school competition, and girls’ participation surged nearly 60 percent from 2024 to 2025.

The NFL recently showcased the sport’s crossover appeal at the Fanatics Flag Football Classic, where Team USA—composed exclusively of dedicated flag athletes—defeated squads mixing retired and current NFL stars with celebrities, underscoring the technical differences between the formats.

While NFL players will be eligible for the 2028 U.S. Olympic roster, selection criteria have yet to be finalized. Team USA has captured five consecutive IFAF World Championships using specialists who train year-round for the five-on-five game.

The forthcoming league intends to give those athletes a domestic stage and a paycheck, completing what McCarley calls “the pathway from youth to high school, now to college, and in two years at the Olympic Games.”