By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK (Reuters) -National Football League teams voted in favour of a resolution allowing their players to compete in flag football at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, the NFL said on Tuesday.
The league itself had long been on board with players competing in the Games, while multiple athletes – including two-time MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes – said they wanted to play.
The plan cleared a key hurdle on Tuesday, as team owners gave their blessing at a league meeting in Minnesota.
“It’s an incredible honour for any athlete to represent their country in the Olympics, which is the pinnacle of global sport,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.
“I know first-hand that the inclusion of flag football in the Olympics has sparked a tremendous amount of excitement among NFL players interested in the chance to compete for their country on the world stage.
“We are thrilled that they will now have that chance.”
The league, NFLPA, Olympic entities and the sport’s global governing body IFAF will now be left to work out the fine details, including injury protection measures, standards for field surfaces, as well as players’ workload and schedule management.
The move could see a major injection of star power into the flag football competition, with the potential to bring U.S. sport’s biggest names to their home Games in a country where the NFL reigns supreme in popularity.
NFL players would be expected to go through a tryout or qualification process in order to compete for their national team – like any other Olympic hopeful – the league said.
The NFL has ramped up its promotion of the sport, a non-contact format of American football, since the IOC approved it for the LA28 programme in 2023, with an eye toward drawing more women into an arena long dominated by men.
The Olympics will also go a long way towards boosting the NFL’s longstanding international ambitions, as the league has moved to globalise the game.
Six men’s teams and six women’s teams are expected to compete in flag football at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, with 10 players per team competing in a five-on-five format.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York and Rory Carroll in Los AngelesEditing by Toby Davis)
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