The University of Nebraska announced plans to add women’s flag football [recently], making it the first athletic department in a Power 4 conference to introduce the sport.
The announcement coincided with the NCAA’s approval to label flag football as an emerging sport for women at the intercollegiate level.
Nebraska will play its inaugural season in the spring of 2028, with a schedule that runs from January through May. It plans to hire a head coach by this summer and recruit a roster of approximately 15 athletes for the fall 2026 semester.
The 2028 launch comes before the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, which will feature flag football for the first time.
“In a time of uncertainty and change in college athletics, creating new participation opportunities continues Nebraska’s rich history of elevating women’s athletics,” Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen said in a statement announcing the sport’s addition.
NCAA data showed as many as 60 schools with plans to participate in the sport this spring. The NCAA does not currently sponsor a championship for flag football, but its categorization as an emerging sport is a key step in the process.
If legislatively proposed and adopted, a championship can take two years or longer to develop.
NFL franchises recently voted to support the financial development of a pro women’s league. Flag football is offered at the high school level in 38 states.
See here for more on the NFL’s flag football venture, which is still in the development stage. It seems impossible at this stage for an NCAA championship in flag football to be available by the time the 2028 Olympics happen, but I won’t be surprised if there’s a roadmap and a timeline for it by then. I’d also expect that the exposure that the Olympics, and possible the fledgling NFL creation, will bring to the sport will spur a lot more interest in it. And that all sounds good to me. Bring it on, I say.