{"id":849519,"date":"2026-04-02T15:49:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/849519\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T15:49:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:49:15","slug":"big-south-conference-adds-womens-flag-football-starting-with-2027-28-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/849519\/","title":{"rendered":"Big South Conference adds women&#8217;s flag football starting with 2027-28 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The Big South Conference will be the <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-sports\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first league in Division I<\/a> sponsoring women\u2019s flag football as its 19th sport starting with the 2027-28 year. <\/p>\n<p>Big South Commissioner Sherika A. Montgomery announced Thursday that the sport had been approved by the league\u2019s council of chief executive officers. The <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ncaa-flag-football-1d8916bc07af2307d78a7a8428188282\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NCAA added flag football<\/a> to its emerging sports for women program in January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith five full-time members formally stepping forward to launch Women\u2019s Flag Football programs, the momentum reached a defining moment \u2014 opening the door for the Big South to lead and elevate one of the fastest-growing sports in the country,\u201d Montgomery said.<\/p>\n<p>Those Big South members are Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, Radford, UNC Asheville and USC Upstate who have received support from the NFL launching its programs. The Big South will have a mix of club and varsity-level sponsorship for women\u2019s flag football in 2026-27 with a plan for the league\u2019s first varsity championship in the spring of 2028.<\/p>\n<p>Flag football for men and women will make its Olympic debut in 2028 at the Los Angeles Games, and it\u2019s one of the fastest-growing sports at the youth, high school and collegiate levels.<\/p>\n<p>About 40 NCAA schools featured women\u2019s flag football teams in 2025 with 60 projected for this spring. Nebraska will be the first power conference school with flag football as a varsity women\u2019s sport starting play in the spring of 2028.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP college sports: <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-sports\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The Big South Conference will be the first league in Division I sponsoring women\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[331,7,3131,22221,49,48,498,941,12223,1686,9,31728],"class_list":{"0":"post-849519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-high-school-sports","11":"tag-nc-state-wire","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-nfl-football","15":"tag-north-carolina","16":"tag-sc-state-wire","17":"tag-south-carolina","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-youth-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116335906875629402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}