SEATTLE — Washington state high schools will have their first new varsity sport in over two decades.
The Washington Interscholastic and Activities Association (WIAA) representative assembly approved an amendment Monday to add girls’ flag football as a sanctioned sport.
It’s the first new sanctioned sport since 1999, according to the WIAA.
Several schools and districts across Puget Sound petitioned to add the sport, including Redmond, Everett, Gig Harbor and Lake Washington high schools and the Peninsula and Tacoma school districts. In their push, the schools cited data that showed flag football is one of the fastest-growing youth sports, with nearly 500,000 girls playing the sport in 2024 – a 63% increase from 2019.
Washington is the 15th state to sanction flag football, according to the Seattle Seahawks, which supported the sanctioning effort.
The representative assembly, which is comprised of 53 school administrators, passed with 63% of high school administrators voting to sanction the sport. Amendments must meet a 60% threshold to pass.
The sport will be in place for the 2025-26 school year. The proposed season for the upcoming school year was from March 2 through May 16. Alternates were proposed for the fall and winter seasons as well.
Although this will be the first year girls’ flag football will be a varsity sport, some districts have teams for interested athletes. There are currently 90-plus teams competing in five of the six WIAA districts, according to the amendment. The sport was so popular at one of them, Emerald Ridge High School in Puyallup, the school filled three teams last year.
The flag football amendment was proposed last year, but it did not meet the required threshold to pass. Last year, one athletic director told KING 5 there was concern about how feasible it would be to add a new sport with tighter athletic budgets.