The Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles have collaborated for three years to grow girls flag football in Pennsylvania, and today the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) voted to sanction it as a high school sport.

The PIAA Board of Directors meet on Wednesday in Mechanicsburg, Pa., where girls' flag football was reviewed and approved on the third and final reading to be designated as a state sanctioned sport.

"We're thrilled that we can offer another opportunity for girls to participate interscholastic athletics," said Frank Majikes, PIAA President. "This is the second girls' sport in two years to be approved. In recognizing the National Federation of High School Associations (NFHS), we will be initiating development of a girls' flag football rules book in January 2025. This will allow us to develop our process to host a championship. Although, the structural changes to the sport won't begin until the 2025-26 school year. The PIAA thanks the National Football League, Eagles, and Steelers for their support and efforts for girls' flag football."

The PIAA required there be 100 teams playing the sport at the high school level in the state in order for the sport to be sanctioned, and thanks to the efforts of both professional football teams, as of April there were 101 teams playing girls flag football in Pennsylvania.

"We are excited to see such a groundbreaking moment for the future of girls' flag football," said Steelers President Art Rooney II. "It has been great working with the Eagles to accomplish a successful ruling that will now give young girls the chance to compete at a state level. We look forward to seeing how girls' flag football continues to grow in Pennsylvania and worldwide."

The Steelers and Eagles collaborated over the past three girls flag football seasons to grow the sport through clinics, camps, hosting games, education, equipment distribution and more. In July, 2023, the PIAA designated girls flag football an emerging sport in the state, with it now sanctioned.

"This is not just an important day for the Eagles and Steelers, but for the sport of football and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," said Jeffrey Lurie, Chairman & CEO, Philadelphia Eagles. "When we launched our girls' flag football league in 2022, we set an ambitious five-year goal to get the sport sanctioned in our state. Now, here we are three seasons later and two years ahead of schedule. The sport's organic growth is a credit to the participants, administrators, coaches, officials, and parents who helped raise the profile of girls' flag football. We thank the PIAA for their leadership in recognizing a sport that has the power to unlock new pathways and opportunities for girls of all ages in every community."

The Steelers efforts started small with girls flag football with only six teams taking part the first season. Now, the number of teams sits at 36 in the Pittsburgh region and 100 plus in the state. Through sponsorship help from Nike with uniforms, to donations from the teams of equipment and more, the sport was able to grow by leaps and bounds.The team has hosted a yearly Girls Flag Football Jamboree, Girls Flag Football Leagues, Girls Flag Football Championships and a uniform unveiling at Acrisure Stadium. And through the support of current and former Steelers players, the attention to the game has soared.

"Our mode of operation in the beginning was to reach out to schools and invite them to participate," said Mike Marchinsky, the Steelers Senior Manager of Alumni Relations and Youth Football. "With all of the social media coverage, coverage on our website and news stories, that bumped us up to 17 high schools and 22 teams in 2023. We also had a girls flag football game at halftime of a preseason football game.

"What started to happen was we still sent the same information out to the schools, but now the students and parents in those school districts were now going to their administration and saying, hey, we have enough girls. We want to participate and make a team. That helped the explosion up to 36 teams for us."

With the sport now sanctioned, the goal is to get it to expand further as it's concentrated in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas right now.

"We'll start reaching out to all the other districts and see how we can help," said Marchinsky, who added that other NFL teams are doing similar things in their areas to get the sport sanctioned. "The tough part before was we wanted to make sure it was buttoned up and well-run and exactly how we wanted it to be, so we kept it close to Pittsburgh so we could manage it and partner with Pittsburgh Flag Football League to make sure that we had a site manager, trained officials and all of that stuff. To do it outside of our general area would have made that a little bit more challenging, and the last thing we wanted was a negative experience in a nearby district. We'll start attacking all the different districts and seeing what we can do to help."

From the PIAA:

- A sport is considered for sanctioning when it has adopted a set of operational and safety standards set forward by a governing body. When these standards and best practices are fully implemented within the overall framework of a program, events create a more positive and structured experience for participants. In the case of girls' flag football in Pennsylvania, it was required that there be at least 100 participating teams across the state. That threshold was achieved in April with 65 schools from the eastern side of the state (Philadelphia Eagles) and 36 from the western side (Pittsburgh Steelers).

- The Eagles and Steelers have received generous support to help grow and expand the game for girls from organizations, such as the NFL Foundation, NFL Flag, USA Football, Nike, FLY:FWD, and corporate partners. Items provided by both NFL clubs to first-year programs: $3,000 stipend ($1,500 stipend to returning schools), 25 customized uniforms from Nike, 30 flag belts, six footballs, and USA Football Flag Kits (flags, cones, footballs).