{"id":417730,"date":"2026-01-16T21:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/417730\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T21:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:38:07","slug":"nebraska-athletics-adding-varsity-womens-flag-football-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/417730\/","title":{"rendered":"Nebraska Athletics adding varsity women\u2019s flag football team"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Nebraska Athletic Department announced Friday that it will add flag football as a women\u2019s intercollegiate varsity sport. The Huskers\u2019 announcement follows a decision revealed<\/a> Friday by the NCAA that it would add flag football to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program.<\/p>\n

The NCAA said flag football has been one of the fastest-growing sports in the country at the youth, high school and collegiate levels. It\u2019s also being added as a sport for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Nebraska is the first Power Four Conference school to announce the addition of women\u2019s flag football. In the announcement Friday, the athletic department said it will field a team to play an inaugural competitive flag football season in the spring of 2028 with the season running from January to May. The department will \u201cimmediately begin the process of searching for a head coach and building a roster this spring, with plans to have a coach hired by summer and recruit a roster of approximately 15 players by the start of the fall 2026 semester.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a banner day for Nebraska Athletics and for women\u2019s sports,\u201d Nebraska Director of Athletics Troy Dannen said in the announcement. \u201cIn a time of uncertainty and change in college athletics, creating new participation opportunities continues Nebraska\u2019s rich history of elevating women\u2019s athletics. Flag football is one of the nation\u2019s fastest growing sports and has exploded in popularity at the youth, high school and collegiate level. There is also great synergy in our first season in 2028 aligning with the inclusion of flag football at the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the athletic department, sports in the Emerging Sports for Women program must be sponsored at the varsity level by at least 40 schools, based on the NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates data, and must meet their sport’s minimum competition and participant requirements, in order to be \u201clegislatively considered for an NCAA championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

If legislation is adopted, the NCAA governance structure works to establish a championship. The Huskers said that process can take two years or longer to work through logistics such as budgeting, site selection and other details.<\/p>\n

Nebraska hosted a women\u2019s flag exhibition game last season as part of the Husker Games weekend, with a group of intramural athletes from UNL taking on Midland University\u2019s varsity flag football team.<\/p>\n

The addition of a women\u2019s flag football team to Nebraska\u2019s list of athletics would give the Huskers 25 intercollegiate programs, with 15 women\u2019s teams and 10 men\u2019s teams. Flag football is the first sport Nebraska has added since beach volleyball began in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations to the University of Nebraska and the NCAA for taking this significant step in support of women\u2019s flag football,\u201d Big Ten Conference Commissioner Tony Petitti said in the announcement Friday. \u201cWe are happy to see Nebraska provide additional opportunities for student-athletes to compete at the highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Huskers will hold a press conference on Wednesday, Jan. 21 in the Hawks Championship Center Media Room to make the official announcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of Nebraska Athletic Department announced Friday that it will add flag football as a women\u2019s intercollegiate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-417730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}