NIL Library / NIL-010
Girls Flag Football and the Money That Is Coming
An NFL team just spent a whole Saturday on girls flag football. I coach this sport, so here is my honest take: that is a feel-good headline, and it is also a head start that most sports parents are about to sleep through.
In May 2026, Sports Illustrated's High School On SI covered the Los Angeles Chargers' third annual Bolts on the Beach tournament in Huntington Beach. More than 600 athletes on 56 teams, from 10U all the way up to high school divisions, came in from Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura County, the Inland Empire, and San Diego. College club programs from UCLA, UC Berkeley, and Cal Poly were there too. An NFL franchise ran the whole thing on the sand.
Look at the order things are arriving in
The sport came first. Then the structure showed up around it. Girls flag football has only been sanctioned in California for three years, and the Chargers' Senior Director of Football Development, Zach Emde, says it is already the fastest growing sport in the United States and the fastest growing sport in California, with more girls playing here than in any other state.
Now the next wave is arriving. Emde pointed straight at it: Division I college scholarships and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. "Having the opportunity to play collegiately and receive a scholarship for it is really going to make this game blow up even crazier," he said. Former NFL player Manti Te'o brought his four year old daughter to the tournament so she could see, in his words, "what the possibilities are for her."
What has not arrived yet
Here is the part I keep coming back to. The brand deals have not really shown up in this sport. The endorsement money, the NIL money that follows every sport once it gets television and scholarship momentum, is barely formed in girls flag football.
That is the whole point. In the big sports, the line for a deal is already a thousand kids deep, and the money chases the same few names. In this sport, the line is short, because most people have not realized it is forming yet. The athletes in it are not early to the game, they are already elite. They are early to the part where a name starts to mean money.
A quick reality check
When I was coming up, you waited for the spotlight to find you, and for most kids it never did. These girls are in a sport that is getting an NFL team, scholarship offers, and an Olympic stage in their own city, all at once. The athletes here are quoted in the same article saying exactly what they feel. One Ventura High School quarterback told SI, "Girls get such a disadvantage out here in the sports. And I think it's awesome that an NFL team is out here sponsoring it all." A Camarillo player called the Olympic news "a dream come true."
The world is changing for this sport in real time, and the families who notice the timing get to act on it before everyone else does.
What this means for your athlete
Here is the shift I want every parent to make. Do not think of a brand deal as something that might happen someday, after the scholarship, after the cameras. Think of your daughter's name, story, and presence as something that exists right now, before a single dollar shows up.
When scholarship offers and Olympic broadcasts pull brand money into girls flag football, and the pattern says they will, that money will look for athletes people already recognize. The girls who spent these years building a clean, consistent, well documented presence will be the ones standing where the spotlight lands. The ones who waited until the money arrived will be starting from zero on someone else's timeline.
You do not need an agent for a sophomore. You need a foundation: clean photos, a real story told well, consistency, and an adult in her corner. The cheapest, lowest pressure time to build a name is before anyone is paying for it. Build the brand early, on your own terms, while it still costs nothing but intention.
Source: Sports Illustrated / High School On SI (May 19, 2026). This is education and observation, not legal or financial advice.