Please Do Not Ruin Girls Flag Football With Fake Grassroots Campaigns
athletic · September 2, 2026
I knew this moment would arrive.
Girls flag football is growing. That means the opportunists are coming.
I knew this moment would arrive.
Girls flag football has spent years fighting for legitimacy, access, resources, recognition, and opportunity. Athletes played when there were not enough teams. Coaches built programs without much infrastructure. Parents drove ridiculous distances. Organizers created events before there was enough money to make those events attractive to everybody else.
Now the sport has momentum.
And momentum attracts attention.
Some of that attention is exactly what girls flag football needs.
Some of it is not.
My concern is simple:
Please do not ruin girls flag football with fake grassroots campaigns.
Grassroots Is Not a Marketing Word
We need to stop treating "grassroots" like a cool word to put on a flyer.
Grassroots means something.
It means you were there when building the sport was inconvenient.
It means developing athletes before those athletes could generate impressions.
It means helping coaches who do not have large followings.
It means supporting programs that may never become national brands.
It means caring about the ecosystem when nobody is watching.
A company cannot suddenly discover girls flag football because participation numbers are exploding, attach "grassroots" to a campaign, hire a few influencers, sponsor a tournament, and pretend it built the movement.
That is marketing.
Marketing is not inherently bad.
Just call it what it is.
When Growth Becomes a Market
For years, the primary question was:
How do we grow the game?
That question is changing.
Now we also need to ask:
Who benefits from the growth?
Those are two very different questions.
More events do not automatically mean more opportunities.
More sponsors do not automatically mean better development.
More social media exposure does not automatically mean stronger programs.
More organizations entering the space does not automatically mean the ecosystem is healthier.
Sometimes growth creates opportunity.
Sometimes growth creates extraction.
That distinction is becoming increasingly important.
Girls flag football is no longer simply a sport people are trying to establish. It is becoming an ecosystem with athletes, events, sponsors, media, technology, recruiting services, training programs, apparel, rankings, and businesses competing for attention.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that.
The problem begins when organizations benefit from the credibility of a community while contributing very little back to it.
Girls flag football needs to recognize that difference before the people who actually built the sport become spectators inside the industry growing around them.
Money Changes the Ecosystem
This happens in emerging markets all the time.
First, passionate people build something.
They operate with limited resources.
They solve problems because the problems need solving.
They create relationships.
They establish trust.
They develop the culture.
Then everybody else realizes there is money there.
Suddenly, organizations with bigger budgets arrive.
New tournaments appear.
New showcases appear.
New rankings appear.
New media platforms appear.
New "national" organizations appear.
Everybody suddenly wants to "grow the game."
That phrase sounds wonderful.
But somebody needs to ask:
Where were you when growing the game was expensive, difficult, and mostly thankless?
That question is not designed to keep newcomers out.
Girls flag football needs investment.
It needs technology.
It needs media.
It needs sponsorships.
It needs better recruiting infrastructure.
It needs coaching education.
It needs facilities.
It needs businesses willing to invest serious resources into female athletes.
Bring all of it.
But investment should strengthen the ecosystem, not simply monetize its momentum.
Do Not Manufacture Community
Community cannot be manufactured by a marketing department.
You cannot purchase authenticity.
You cannot create grassroots credibility by recruiting a handful of recognizable people, putting them in branded shirts, shooting some content, and declaring that you represent the movement.
Real communities have history.
They have relationships.
They have disagreements.
They have people who remember when there were 12 girls at practice and somebody was begging for another team just so they could play a game.
Those people matter.
Local coaches matter.
High school coaches matter.
Parents matter.
Officials matter.
Tournament directors matter.
Trainers matter.
Athletes matter most.
The people closest to the athletes should not become background characters once corporations, investors, sponsors, and larger organizations decide the sport is worth their attention.
Ask Better Questions
Parents and coaches should start asking harder questions when organizations enter this space.
Do not only ask what the event costs.
Ask what the organization actually contributes.
- Who benefits financially?
- Where does the money go?
- Who has decision-making power?
- Are local coaches involved?
- Are athletes receiving meaningful development?
- Are opportunities accessible to athletes without large social media followings?
- Are organizations collecting athlete data?
- What happens to that data?
- Are recruiting claims legitimate?
- Are partnerships real?
- What remains after the cameras, sponsors, or funding leave?
Those questions are not anti-business.
I own businesses.
I believe businesses should make money.
I also believe businesses should create enough value to justify the money they extract from a community.
If your business grows because girls flag football is growing, girls flag football should be stronger because your business exists.
That should be the standard.
Stop Confusing Exposure With Development
Girls flag football is particularly vulnerable to another dangerous word:
Exposure.
Put enough athletes on a field.
Invite a few recognizable names.
Record some video.
Post highlights.
Add rankings.
Call it exposure.
Charge accordingly.
But exposure to whom?
For what purpose?
What happens afterward?
Can the athlete measure what she gained?
Did she receive meaningful evaluation?
Did she improve?
Did she develop relationships?
Did the event create legitimate recruiting opportunities?
Did anyone help her understand what comes next?
Exposure without infrastructure can become nothing more than content production where the athlete pays to become the content.
Read that again.
The athlete pays.
The organization gets the content.
The organization gets the engagement.
The organization grows its database.
The organization strengthens its brand.
The organization potentially attracts sponsors.
What did the athlete get?
That is the question parents should be asking.
Exposure can absolutely have value.
But "exposure" should never become the magic word used to prevent families from asking what they are actually buying.
Protect the Girls Who Built This
There are athletes playing right now who helped make girls flag football valuable before they will ever financially benefit from its growth.
Remember them.
There are coaches who built programs from scratch.
Remember them.
There are parents who organized teams, transported athletes, raised money, bought equipment, and advocated for recognition.
Remember them.
There are local organizations that created opportunities before major sponsors knew girls flag football existed.
Remember them.
There are people who were promoting girls flag football when the algorithm did not care about girls flag football.
Remember them too.
Growth should not erase history.
The people who carried the sport when it was small should not suddenly become irrelevant because somebody with a larger marketing budget discovered the opportunity.
New Organizations Are Welcome
I want to make something very clear.
This is not gatekeeping.
I do not believe somebody needs ten years in girls flag football before contributing.
Quite the opposite.
Come in.
Build.
Invest.
Innovate.
Sponsor athletes.
Create technology.
Develop coaches.
Improve recruiting.
Fund programs.
Create scholarships.
Tell these athletes' stories.
Help take the sport somewhere it has never been.
There is plenty of room.
Just do not arrive pretending you planted trees when you showed up after the forest was already growing.
Respect the people who did the early work.
Partner with them.
Listen to them.
Invest in them.
Build alongside them.
Most importantly, create something that still has value after your campaign ends.
Girls Flag Football Has a Chance to Do This Differently
Other youth sports have already provided plenty of warnings.
When youth sports become heavily commercialized, access can become increasingly dependent on money.
Development becomes fragmented.
Parents struggle to determine which opportunities are legitimate.
Athletes feel pressure to attend everything because somebody convinced them that missing one event could mean missing their opportunity.
Organizations compete for attention instead of coordinating development.
Recruiting anxiety becomes a business model.
Eventually, families are spending thousands of dollars trying to determine which opportunities actually matter.
Girls flag football does not have to repeat that cycle.
We are early enough to make better decisions.
We can build an ecosystem where businesses succeed because athletes succeed.
Where sponsors support communities instead of merely borrowing their credibility.
Where technology simplifies the journey instead of creating another unnecessary subscription.
Where events have measurable developmental value.
Where recruiting information is transparent.
Where local programs remain important.
Where organizations collaborate instead of pretending they invented the sport.
Where families can tell the difference between an opportunity and a sales funnel.
Where athletes are participants in the economy surrounding their sport, not simply inventory for it.
Growth Is Coming Either Way
Girls flag football is not going backward.
Good.
It should not.
The sport deserves the attention it is receiving.
The athletes deserve investment.
The coaches deserve resources.
The programs deserve support.
The question is no longer whether people will invest in girls flag football.
They will.
The question is what kind of ecosystem we are going to build with that investment.
So bring the sponsors.
Bring the technology.
Bring the media.
Bring the tournaments.
Bring the businesses.
Bring the investors.
Bring the brands.
Bring the money.
Just bring some integrity with it.
Do not call something grassroots simply because grassroots sells.
Do not manufacture community because community creates engagement.
Do not sell exposure without being able to explain exposure to whom.
Do not use athletes as content while pretending content is the opportunity.
Do not erase the coaches, parents, organizers, and athletes who were doing this work before everybody else realized there was money to be made.
Because grassroots is not something you declare.
Grassroots is something the community remembers.
And if you really came to grow the game, prove it.
Leave girls flag football better than you found it.
Anthony Washington Sr.
Leadership. Systems. People First.
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