Girls’ flag football in Georgia just got a whole lot bigger.
For the second year in a row, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and the Atlanta Falcons are giving grant funding to every accredited high school in Georgia that wants to start or grow a girls flag football program. This year, 323 schools made it happen.
Twenty-eight of those schools are offering girls flag football for the very first time in 2026. That’s 28 new rosters, 28 new seasons, and hundreds of girls who now get to play.
The Falcons have been building toward this moment for eight years. It started with a pilot program at just 19 high schools in Gwinnett County back in 2018. Georgia became the fourth state in the country to sanction girls flag football as an official high school sport in 2020. Last year, approximately 8,500 girls were playing at more than 300 schools statewide.
The numbers keep climbing — and the Falcons keep showing up.
“Over the past several years, introducing and growing girls flag football across Georgia has been a priority for the Atlanta Falcons and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation,” said Falcons President and CEO Greg Beadles.
“We are honored to continue our support for girls flag football through this grant opportunity at the high school level, our annual college showcase at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, year-round camps and clinics, and the inaugural Atlanta Falcons Girls Flag Football Week held recently at IBM Performance Field in Flowery Branch. We are thrilled to see the continued growth of the sport throughout our state and wish all schools the best of luck in the upcoming season.”
That inaugural Girls Flag Football Week was something special. The Falcons brought the state’s top high school athletes to their training facility in Flowery Branch for competition, training, and a full week of recognition. It wrapped up with the 2026 GACA Girls Flag Football All-Star Game played right inside the Falcons’ indoor practice facility.
Not bad for a sport that didn’t officially exist in Georgia six years ago.
To learn more, visit AtlantaFalcons.com/girls-flag-football.
