Changing the game

In the past two years, a new sport has exploded in popularity across Minnesota, growing from a four-team pilot league to having over 100 teams across the state. Girls flag football, a non-contact version of the American classic has taken over the Twin Cities, opening doors, building confidence and challenging the idea of who gets to call themselves a football player.

So, what is this new girls’ sport, and how has it impacted students in the Twin Cities?

Emergence in Minnesota
The Minnesota Vikings announced its partnership with Minneapolis Public Schools on May 2, 2022 and pledged $75,000 to launch a girls’ middle school flag football program. After its growing popularity driven by the middle school league, the Vikings and Minneapolis Public Schools piloted a four-team high school league in 2024, completing a 12-game season and a state tournament.

After being able to run a successful test season, emails were sent out to all Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools, as well as others throughout the state, by the Vikings, calling for schools to come together and create their own teams to compete in the Viking Flag League. Many coaches jumped on the opportunity, including Camden High School’s head flag football coach Mark Heiser.

“The Vikings had sent out an email looking for teams, so I sent that email to our athletic director at the time, Michael Anders, and I was like, we have to do this,” said Heiser. “This would be a great, great opportunity for our kids.”

In 2025, 51 teams joined, including all Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools, and created the official league, funded by another $600,000 grant from the Vikings. However, this past season, starting in April of 2026, proved just how successful and popular this sport could truly become, with the number of schools in the league doubling from 51 to a whopping 104 teams across Minnesota.

On June 8, 2026, TCO Stadium in Eagan held the second annual Minnesota High School Girls Flag Football State Championship, hosted by the Minnesota Vikings. The event hosted 13 of Minnesota’s top teams, resulting in a 45-10 win by the Rosemount Irish.

What is flag football?
Flag football is a non-contact version of American football, meaning there is no tackling, blocking, diving, or screening. Instead of using physical force to stop opponents, players wear a belt around their waist with three flags attached, with the goal of “de-flagging” one’s opponent to stop their play. Removing the physical aggression from football, flag promotes agility and speed over strength, making it more appealing for girls, though many men play as well.

Although flag football has been popular since the early 2000s with national leagues and its future in the Olympics, most public high schools did not begin to adopt the sport for their girls until around 2024. Minnesota schools specifically started proposing a girls’ flag league as an attempt to meet the balancing requirements set after Title IX investigations.

These investigations, which were reviewed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, proved many schools had an unbalanced amount of gendered sports, with the girls having fewer than the boys. This further separated after the recent adoption of boys’ volleyball in Minnesota.

The impact this sport has had on these girls has not gone unnoticed, with many coaches noting the positive impacts it has had on their students. Washburn High Assistant Flag Football Coach Jamison Whiting, who is also the Ward 11 City Council member, believes it’s one of the fastest-growing sports at the moment and a huge step for women’s sports everywhere.

“I think football is the greatest team sport that you can have, and kind of seeing this version now that it’s attributed to our girls and women is huge,” said Whiting. “And then they get to see it too. You can see it build out confidence, you can see it build out resiliency and discipline, things that you know sometimes I think get often overlooked in women’s sports.”

The future of flag football
The number of girls joining the sport, while exciting, is exceeding many schools’ expectations. Washburn High School, one of the top competing Twin Cities schools, placing fifth in the Minnesota State Girls Flag Football Tournament, has had an overwhelming number of players registering.

“This year I had to shut registration down after a week, and usually registrations are open for close to a month,” said Washburn Head Flag Football Coach Ryan Galindo. “I shut it down after a week, because we had 50 whatever girls sign up already, and we just didn’t have the capacity as coaches to coach them.”

Since flag is such a new sport in Minnesota, there are not many flag-specific coaches that can take on the number of new schools adopting the sport. Instead, many coaches are their school’s football coaches as well, including both head coaches Heiser and Galindo. This could also explain the stark difference in the number of male head coaches versus female head coaches in the Twin Cities.

“There’s definitely an assumption that football is only for boys and men,” said St. Anthony Village High Schools head coach Savannah Gilmore. “So, I think it meant a lot that St. Anthony was willing to make me head coach. I think it says a lot about how much of an impact I can make on these girls because I am a women myself.”

After two successful seasons, there is also a question about the future of flag football. Currently, flag is recognized as a pilot program, not an MSHSL-sponsored sport, and is administered by the Vikings. Since it is not yet a state sport, there is little that the girls can receive in the future for their time playing, including scholarships like other sports can offer.

At this time, the MSHSL is considering making flag an emerging sport, which would require an estimated transitional period of two to five years in which it must exist before the sport can be reviewed by the MSHSL Board of Directors to become state-sanctioned, which will hopefully bring in even more funding and players across the state to join this emerging sensation.

“It’s football, you know, the greatest sport on earth,” said Galindo. “It’s an avenue that a lot of young ladies have been exposed to by sitting there on Saturdays watching college football, or Sundays watching professional football, but now it’s tangible. They can go play this game and be great at it.”