International Women’s Day: UK’s Jets and Bears NFL Girls Flag league returns for 2024
To commemorate International Women’s Day, the New York Jets and Chicago Bears have announced the re-launch of the UK’s Jets and Bears NFL Girls Flag league for 2024.
The league’s inaugural season last year was a resounding success, launched as the UK’s first all-girl competition of its kind, and will be expanded this year as a result.
Flag football, American football’s non-contact form, is pioneering the way for inclusivity within the sport. Breaking down many of the game’s barriers, it has seen an exponential growth of female participation here in the UK, with the league’s numbers doubling and now expanding to multiple boroughs.
Jets and Bears setting the bar
The work the Jets and Bears have put into the UK’s flag football youth infrastructure continues to set high standards. They are making the sport more accessible to young girls across London, with a view to continually expand the league further as it grows more popular.
What makes this version of the sport even more exciting is its inclusion into the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. Events such as the league’s 2024 launch, hosted at the Red Cherry Records Stadium in Wimbledon, may have inspired multiple young girls to dream of being an Olympian.
The launch saw two NFL line-backers, New York Jets’ Quincy Williams, and Chicago Bears’ Tremaine Edmunds, and a whole host of NFL coaches, run through flag drills with over 200 girls from 21 participating schools.
The Sports Gazette spoke to ex-NFL veteran and Sky Sports pundit Jason Bell, Sky Sports’ Olivia Harlan Dekker and Team GB Women’s flag football star Kellie Barrett at the event.
The importance of exposure
Jason Bell has a 10-year-old daughter, and for him it is very important that she is exposed to sports and be able to enjoy the opportunities that flag football allows. This sentiment echoes to all the young girls in the UK in the same position.
“I’m just so proud to see what these two teams are doing. The investment to come out here and put in all this work to form a league, it’s going to change a lot of people’s lives,” Bell said.
“It’s going to give a lot of girls a lot of opportunities to learn things about themselves that might not have happened because they weren’t exposed to a sport like this.”
He credits everything that has happened in his life coming because of the game he loves, which defines the world of sport perfectly. Sport is and should be for everyone to enjoy.
A view from women in the media
Olivia Harlan-Dekker is flying the flag for women on the media side of the sport, currently working for Sky Sports, with a number of years’ experience in the industry behind her too.
When she was growing up, she never thought there was a time where women didn’t work within the sport. In reflection of the past and the obstacles women have had to overcome in the industry, Harlan-Dekker is incredibly proud to be a woman covering the NFL.
She said: “I always say ‘I sit on the shoulders of giants.’ I’m so lucky to have grown up in a time where I turn on the TV and I’d see women covering the sport, and I’d think ‘I want to do that.’”
For Harlan-Dekker, the growth of flag football in the UK is truly special, and she cannot wait to see where it goes from here.
“It’s the fastest growing sport for young women in the UK. These girls now as they grow up, you’re getting fans for life, girls who probably would have never followed the sport without events like these.”
“It’s amazing to have the Jets and the Bears come over here, sponsor these teams and events, and have young women fall in love with the sport I love too.”
Leading Team GB’s charge to the Olympics
Kellie Barrett has played flag football since the age of seven, first starting out when a contact American football team came to her primary school to do a P.E session. She couldn’t catch a ball, but that never deterred her drive.
Barrett and her family went on to set up their own club, the Coventry Cougars, in 2009. She has since played internationally, then onto Team GB, and is very excited for what these events represent for the future of her sport.
“This is the next generation of female athletes for flag American football for Team GB. They are going to be representing us at the European and the World Championships, and potentially the Olympic stage,” Barrett said.
“Getting the girls involved young and early, making sure they are confident and feel empowered to play is huge.”
Whilst Barrett worries that her age may be a factor when it comes to the Olympics in LA 2028, she will do all she can to keep herself in the best shape to play. Even if Kellie misses out, she guarantees she will be there one way or another.
“If I’m not there playing, you best believe that I’ll be there in a coaching role, on the side-line in some shape or form!”
With the LA 2028 Olympic Games only four years away, there isn’t a more exciting time to get involved in the sport, as flag football continues to go from strength to strength in the UK.
To learn more about the great work the Jets and the Bears are doing, please visit www.chicagobears.com and https://nyjetsinuk.com/girls-flag.
