The football of the future is disembodied

The NFL is the biggest sports league in the world. But it still wants to expand. But the rules are complicated, and playing football requires equipment and a lot of time. That's why the NFL is relying on small flags and a "gigantic fun factor" to conquer the world.

For the average sports fan, American football is all about tough tackles. Twenty-two men in tight leggings and almost indestructible helmets rattle into each other with an energy that could power the Super Bowl halftime show.

As a Central European soccer fan, you can hardly comprehend the physical wear and tear that inevitably occurs: Nearly every game, a player is led off the field injured or carried off immediately. There is a separate protocol for head injuries (admittedly a field in which soccer should also become more active), as well as torn tendons and broken bones.

20 games instead of 60 or 100

The inevitable enormous physical exertion still characterizes the sport today with a number of side effects. The most obvious is the need for protective clothing. Helmets are constantly being redesigned, and there are also pads for the shoulders, back and chest or tape for the ankles. The spartan game plan follows on directly from this. Players on a European soccer team play a good 60 games a year, while in the NBA, teams often approach 100 on their way to the title.

And in the NFL? The Super Bowl winner plays just under 20 games. More is not possible, the sport is simply too strenuous, the strain on the players too high. In 2019, when it was being discussed whether the NFL should play 18 instead of 16 games in the regular season, ESPN reported on a study by the NFL players' union. It calculated that the average career length of players would fall from 3.4 to 2.8 years. Since 2021, there have been 17 games per season for each team.

Equipment costs money, stress costs time

Another such issue: due to the risk of injury, the Pro Bowl, the NFL's All Star Game, is mainly a contact-avoidance game for a long time. It is the last game of the season before the Super Bowl and no player wants to go on vacation with a torn Achilles tendon. Exporting the sport also suffers from these factors. The necessary equipment costs money, the high workload on the athletes costs time. The latter also prevents football from being included in the Olympic program in theory. A tournament within four weeks seems unthinkable.

But the NFL has apparently found a solution to all these problems. A new wonder weapon ensures an exciting All-Star Game, solves all time and resource problems, prevents injuries rather than causing them and celebrates its Olympic debut in 2028. Its name: flag football.

"Everything that's cool" - without a car accident

A first glimpse of the football variant on the big stage can be seen this spring, at the Pro Bowl mentioned above. Instead of wearing helmets and pads, the best football players in the world are on the pitch with fast glasses, gold chains or fishing hats. Good humor far and wide, nobody needs to worry about injuries. Because flag football is contactless. Two flags or flags on the side of the players have to be grabbed, then the game ends. Since contact plays no role, there is no offensive and defensive line, i.e. the men who face each other directly on every play and clash into each other at the whistle.

That leaves seven players per team, including quarterbacks, receivers, running backs, cornerbacks and so on. "You have your moves, your passes, your routes or you have to defend that. Everything that's cool about football, you have in flag football too. It's just that your body doesn't hurt the next day as if you've been in a car accident," says Mona Stevens and attests to the "gigantic fun factor" of her sport. She should know. The 31-year-old is quarterback for the German national tackle football team, wide receiver for the German flag football team and also flag football ambassador for the NFL and an expert on the NFL team for RTL.

Lots of energy for expansion

Time and again, she has colleagues who switch from flag football to tackle football. "It's boring, I hardly ever get a ball," she often hears. "There's always action in flag football. You get more passes, you run more routes," she explains. However, the switch is possible, it just takes a few weeks to get used to it. The NFL is also counting on this effect.

After all, the American sports giant is currently putting a lot of energy into its expansion. "America's Game" wants to go out into the world. Games abroad are an important pillar of this project. Regular games have been played in London since 2007, and the NFL has also been a guest in Germany since 2022 - with an impressive response. The NFL has already visited Mexico City several times, and next year the football circus plans to make a stop in São Paulo.

Being able to experience a sport live is one thing. Actually playing it is something completely different. If the NFL wants to be a global league, it also needs global stars, just like the NBA, for example. In the best basketball league in the world, many top players come from the USA, but also from Greece, Slovenia, Serbia or Cameroon. This is - still - unthinkable in the NFL.

"Who fights in the park with equipment?"

One of the formulas for success in soccer, the world's biggest sport, is the extremely low requirement for playing materials. You need a ball, and any object that can be thrown and caught will do. You can throw two jackets on the ground as goalposts. That's it. "You need an infrastructure for football. Who plays in the park with equipment? But you can also play flag football in the park or on the beach. It's an extended version of catching the ball," says Sebastian Vollmer, who played for the New England Patriots in the NFL for seven years, explaining the minimalist concept.

Thanks to the few resources the game requires, it has long since found its way into school sports. "As a child, you now have the chance to grow up with it. In contrast to tackle football, the inhibition threshold is much lower, both for children and their parents, because the risk of injury is much lower. Boys and girls play together," explains Vollmer. "And you can always switch to tackle football if you feel like it. Flag football is also a good way for the NFL to find the next star from Africa or Europe."

Patrick Mahomes soon to be an Olympian?

And then there's the Olympics. The 2028 Games will take place in Los Angeles. Flag football is also on the program. NFL megastar Patrick Mahomes recently announced his interest in taking part. "The NFL is very interested in the sport being represented at the Olympics," says Stevens. At the same time, the players have the historic opportunity to win their first football gold. Germany could also have a chance of winning a medal. At the 2023 European Championships, the men won and the women took bronze.

The sheer popularity of football may not change flag football significantly. But its accessibility in everyday life will. At the beginning of the 20th century, football put on its helmet and took over sports bars and living rooms around the world. With the tailwind of L.A. 2028, football can finally conquer parks, beaches and school halls - only this time without a helmet.

Read also:

The NFL, being the biggest sports league globally, is looking to expand its reach despite the complex rules and intense physical requirements of the game. To make football more accessible, the NBA-winning strategy of shorter seasons and a focus on smaller, contactless games, like flag football, is being explored.

As a testament to the growing popularity of flag football, the NFL is hosting a flag football event as part of the Pro Bowl, featuring top NFL players. Mona Stevens, a flag football player and ambassador for the NFL, emphasizes the fun and exciting aspect of the game, as well as its low injury risk compared to tackle football.

Source: www.ntv.de