Pennsylvania adds girl’s flag football to growing roster

Growing up as a 4 sport athlete in high school, PIAA’s assistant executive director Lindsay Barna said she always wanted to give back to the kids. After working in the media business for the majority of her life, when a spot at the PIAA opened up, she jumped at the chance.

Barna was on her school’s cross country team, track and field, soccer, cheer, and did competitive gymnastics at a local gym. She said being an athlete helped shape her into the person she is today, and she wanted to give that opportunity to others.

“I feel like being an athlete well rounds you, and you just learn so many things about yourself and teamwork,” Barna said. “It kind of puts you on the right step forward towards the future.”

Barna said it’s not only about playing a sport and learning teamwork, but it could also introduce young girls to different career paths, possibly becoming a coach or official. 

Statista did a study and recorded that in the 2023 and 2024 season, 3.24 million girls played sports at the high school level. For boys, participation was at 4.6 million. 

Sports have always been an outlet for individuals to hone their skills, Barna said, but oftentimes the same opportunities are not offered to both girls and boys. 

In 1973, after Title IX was passed, Billie Jean King founded the Women’s Tennis Association. 

Today, all four major tennis tournaments offer equal prize winnings regardless of gender and sex. 

Social Media coverage of female sports increased by 18% in 2022.

In 2024, the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game between Louisiana State University and Iowa State University was the most viewed college basketball game ever televised on ESPN with 12.3 million views. 

CNBC claimed female sports could bring in over $1 billion in revenue in 2024. 

And for Pennsylvania, this rise in participation and popularity surrounding female athletes means adding girl’s flag football to the roster. 

“It’s giving an opportunity for more individuals and girls to get involved, and opening more doors for them to get involved,” Barna said. 

In a decision made by the PIAA on Sept. 18, 2024, Pennsylvania became the 14th state to sanction girls flag football at the high school level. 

Barna said over the last decade, girl’s flag football has seen a 63% increase in participation from 2019 to 2023 across the U.S. 

“This just creates more pathways for girls,” Barna said. “It might open new doors for girls that have never competed before, or another door for girls to compete in.”

Coming out of COVID, the NFL had an initiative to encourage schools to get involved and offer flag football for girls. In 2022, the Philadelphia Eagles launched girl’s flag football with 16 teams. Now, there are over 65 teams. 

And they’re not the only group with increasing girls opportunities in sports. The Pittsburgh Steelers have also increased the number of girls signing up for flag football. Barna said that thanks to the help from both the Eagles and the Steelers, they’ve been able to highlight the sports and get more schools interested. 

Director of Lehigh Club sports, Bobby Hermes, said while there was intended interest for a flag football intramural team this semester, due to lack of officials and referees by student volunteers and work studies, they were unable to get it up and running.

Despite Lehigh not having an intramural team, Hermes applauded the PIAA sanction.

“It’s just great,” Hermes said. “I think it will bring a lot more people into the sport.”

While there’s no current flag team at Lehigh, Hermes said the PIAA sanctioning it might increase interest in starting one at Lehigh. 

Participation in sports has been growing for years, not only in girls’ sports, but across all athletic fields. 

Eric Neidig got his two boys, now 20 and 21, into flag football when they were young. He enrolled them on a team where they played for a few years and said they enjoyed it. 

But when the program fizzled out in 2014, he and his wife decided to start Greater Lehigh Valley Athletics, a nonprofit organization that offers an NFL flag football program.

“We started it basically because of our children,” Neidig said. “But even though they have aged out, we still continue to do it because it is a good service to the community, and people really enjoy it.”

The program offers flag football to all kids ages 5-14. When the program started 10 years ago, there were only 162 kids. 

Now, they have over 1000 participants. 

“When we first started playing it was kind of a learning process and then we just kept building and building,” Neidig said.

By the time his kids were 12 years old, the program was winning tournaments. They played in regionals, and even traveled to Florida for nationals. By the time his kids were 13 and 14 years old, Neidig said they were one of the best programs in the country. 

And while participation among girls has stayed steady at 5% over the years in Pennsylvania, the past two seasons, they’ve been able to field two all-girl rosters. 

“It’s amazing to see how competitive they can be, especially with flag becoming so popular,” Neidig said. “You can see there’s more girls gravitating and it’s just getting bigger and bigger.”

In order for a sport to be sanctioned by the PIAA, they’re required to have 100 teams registered at the high school level. 

As of April 2024, there are 101 teams playing girl’s flag football in Pennsylvania. 

“In the tournaments you’d have maybe four girls teams, now there are 15 teams in each age group in the girls division,” Neidig said. “You can just see it’s getting much more popular.”

While Barna said flag can be a fun sport, it also offers new opportunities. Barna said being an athlete keeps individuals well-rounded and teaches people about teamwork and sportsmanship. 

However, there’s still work to be done. Barna said the biggest obstacle about getting flag football sanctioned for girls at the high school level was getting the word out. 

Schools are able to reach out to the PIAA and express their interest in starting a team, and Barna and other PIAA employees point them in the right direction. 

The PIAA officially took over jurisdiction on July 1, and the National Federation of State High School Associations rule book was released in the following weeks, helping coaches, teams and officials prepare. 

The first PIAA women’s flag football championship will take place in May 2026. 

“I think it’s going to be very positive for this area,” Neidig said. “Just another outlet, especially for females to play something different and just see how big it can actually get.”