LONE TREE — Girls flag football is here to stay in Colorado.
The sport became officially sanctioned on Tuesday at CHSAA’s Legislative Council meeting at the DCSD Legacy Campus, passing by a vote of 57-9 with five abstentions. It will begin in the fall with two classifications as the association’s 27th sport.
In two years as a pilot program, girls flag football underwent explosive growth, capping out with about 1,300 players across 52 schools this past season. Colorado is the 11th state to sanction girls flag football.
“This is really exciting to get this to this point, because it’s something we’ve been aiming at for the last couple years,” Lakewood athletic director Michael Hughes said. “I’m thankful the membership looked at this as an incredible opportunity for our female athletes. Today was a huge step.”
With the sport now sanctioned, CHSAA’s next task will be to create a girls flag football committee, which will happen next week. A postseason format is among the first details that need to be determined, as well as where the Class 5A and 4A championships will be held. During the pilot seasons, the tournament was played at the Broncos’ Pat Bowlen Fieldhouse.
“We’ll start doing some work next week on the ins and outs of the flag football rulebook, leagues, playoff formats and those types of details,” said CHSAA associate commissioner Justin Saylor, who will oversee the sport. “We modeled this to mirror what other states are doing.”
The Broncos, who largely funded the pilot program through Denver Broncos Charities, will continue to be involved in the sport. In a statement released by the team, the Broncos vowed to “continue to support girls flag football through strategic grantmaking, seasonal programming, coaching clinics, athlete and coach recognition, and youth health and wellness initiatives.”
“This is a historic moment for Colorado and most importantly for girls in our state who have a new pathway into sports through flag football,” Broncos owner and Denver Broncos Foundation chairwoman Carrie Walton Penner said in a statement. “In addition to providing an amazing platform for empowerment, inclusion and teamwork, girls flag creates a powerful sense of belonging and community for our next generation of leaders.”
Flag football, which is offered by a handful of NAIA colleges, will be making its Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games in a 5-on-5 format. CHSAA’s format will remain 7-on-7, as it was for the duration of the pilot.
In the latest NFHS participation survey, 20,875 girls played the sport in 2022-23. In Colorado, most of the girls the sport attracted during the pilot weren’t previously planning on playing anything in the fall.
“You’re going to see this become a wildly popular sport nationwide for our female athletes, even more than it already is,” Hughes said.
The field size for the newly sanctioned sport will be different from the pilot — 80-by-40 yards as opposed to 60-by-30 yards — although the smaller fields will still be permitted for sub-varsity games and for jamboree tournaments. States play by a variety of different rules, but the National Federation of High Schools hopes to have an official rulebook written by the 2025-26 school year.
“Schools can run those jamborees if they want, and if they want to conduct games in that style where multiple games are happening at once, that will be allowed,” Saylor said.
The sport’s popularity, underscored by an emotional pitch to the Legislative Council by CHSAA commissioner Michael Krueger ahead of the vote, quelled some voters’ concerns about the sport’s readiness to become sanctioned. Last week, reps from the Patriot League and the Front Range League expressed reservations about field availability as well as the state’s ability to schedule enough officials in a fall season that’s dominated by tackle football.
The estimated financial impact on schools will be around $10,000 annually, according to multiple athletic directors, although that cost could be offset with grants from the Broncos.
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