The National Football League wants to take their sport to international levels.
Flag football competition will be held internationally for the first time ever next week at the World Games in Birmingham, Alabama.
The World Games is an international multi-sport competition for athletes that is typically held one year after every Olympics for athletes that did not participate in it.
As flag football plays a part at the World Games next week, the NFL is eying the impact it could have on the international stage during this competition.
You may be asking, "but why? what for?"…
Well, the National Football Association recently spoke to The Associated Press about this topic, and they say that the future of the sport will be reliant on flag football when one considers where the sport is heading.
And although the Troy Vincent didn't pin-point to exactly why he thinks that there will not be any professional football a century from now, one cannot deny the fact that there's been far too many C.T.E cases which have contributed to the death of many former football players. And with flag football, a part of the sport that comes with hardly any physical contact, he believes that the sport's future will be more inclusive than ever.
“When we talk about the future of the game of football, it is, no question, flag,” NFL executive Troy Vincent told The AP. “When I’ve been asked over the last 24 months, in particular, what does the next 100 years look like when you look at football, not professional football, it’s flag. It’s the inclusion and the true motto of ‘football for all.’ There is a place in flag football for all.”
One of the many good signs the executive points-to about the future of flag football, is the green light given at the high school level throughout the country.
Troy Vincent says he's delighted to hear that there's already been six states that have officially considered flag football as a legitimate varsity sport, such as Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and the state of New York.
The executive also says that this will also be an advantage for the United States, as flag football is not only an inclusive sport, but it is mainly dominated by Americans on a global stage.
“This is not something that we dominate because it’s football, the national pastime in America,” Vincent said in the same interview. “You watch these young ladies and men play in other countries. They come to play. It’s a transitional sport. It’s a cross-functional sport. The best flag players come from soccer, lacrosse, cricket because these are men and women who have tremendous agility. It’s a fast-paced game played in space. You don’t have to play it for years and years. You can develop. You can transfer those skills that you learned in soccer, lacrosse, cricket to flag football.”
