Handing off the NFL’s Super Bowl commercial to flag football scored huge growth for the sport, but it took a whole team of athletes, coaches, schools, leagues and brand partners to push it over the goal line.
Back in February, the National Football League and its creative agency partners at 72andSunny gave roughly 115 million viewers a look at Mexican flag football quarterback Diana Flores as she evaded league players’, celebrities’ and even her own mother’s attempts to take her flag.
“It’s about telling the right stories, it’s about these incredible women athletes, it is about our youth and bringing in young fans … it really is about everyone that we’re trying to bring into the fold,” NFL svp of global marketing, Marissa Solis, told Adweek in February.
It was the right ad at the right time. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), flag football participation at schools in the U.S. increased from roughly 6,600 players in 2010 to nearly 22,000 this year. Almost 21,000 of those players are girls, up from 16,000 just last year and 11,000 prior to the pandemic in 2019.
The ad didn’t air by coincidence. In 2021, Nike announced a $5 million multiyear grant initiative with the NFL to provide one-time $100,000 donations of uniforms, socks, sports bras and accessories to state athletic associations offering girls flag football. As all 32 NFL clubs partnered with local flag football programs through the NFL FLAG program, brands including Visa and Gatorade lent their support nationally and regionally.
“It was a great commercial and Diana did a great job,” said Roman Oben, who played in the NFL for more than a decade and now serves as the league’s vp of football development strategy.
This year, the league hosted its first All 32 Summer Invitational tournament in Washington, D.C., featuring flag football affiliates of every NFL club. With memorabilia from Flores’ Super Bowl flag football ad now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the NFL followed it up with another spot during fall flag football season featuring U.S. flag football quarterback Vanita Krouch, Minnesota Vikings wide receiver and NFL flag football ambassador Justin Jefferson, YouTube fixture Deestroying, hip-hop star Quavo and NFL alum Michael Vick and his daughter Jada—a flag football quarterback who received a full scholarship to play at Reinhardt University in Atlanta.