Methodology

How this tracker counts girls' flag football sanctioning, and why our number may not match the one you saw somewhere else.

Why the numbers disagree

If you searched for how many states have sanctioned girls' flag football, you probably found several different answers. All of them were published in 2026. All of them were, in their own terms, correct.

Over one summer, published counts included nine, 17, 18, 21, 23, and 24. The NFHS, NFL Flag Football, and individual newsrooms each maintain their own tally, none of them updates on a fixed schedule, and none of them states its counting rules. So the same week can produce a story calling a state the 18th to sanction and another calling it the 21st.

Three things drive the spread:

Different counting units. Some tallies fold the District of Columbia in with the states. Some don't. That is a one-count difference on its own.

Different definitions of "sanctioned." A state association can approve a sport in principle, approve it with a future effective date, run a multi-year pilot that already crowns a champion, or fully sanction it with a state championship. Reasonable people count these differently.

Lag. Association votes happen year-round. A tally published in April is stale by June.

What we count

We record a state as sanctioned when its state athletic or activities association has formally voted to recognize girls' flag football as a varsity sport with a state championship, whether or not the first season has been played.

We record it as pilot when there is organized, association-acknowledged play without that formal vote.

We record it as unconfirmed when we have not personally confirmed the status against a primary source. This is not a judgment that no program exists. It means we have not checked yet, and we would rather say so than guess.

We treat the District of Columbia as a separate entry and report it separately from the state count. When we say "23 states and the District of Columbia," that is why.

What counts as a primary source

In order of preference:

The state association's own rulebook, sport page, championship manual, or board minutes
A press release issued by the association
Contemporaneous reporting that quotes the association directly and names the vote

Reporting that cites another outlet, or that cites an organizational tally rather than the association, is a lead for us to follow, not a source. We do not count a state on the strength of a secondhand number.

Verification dates

Every state page carries a last-verified date. That date is when a person opened the association's own materials and confirmed the entry, not when the page was last edited.

An entry with no verification date has not been confirmed. Those pages say so plainly, and they are excluded from search indexing until they are.

Update cadence

Association votes cluster around board meetings, which run heaviest in spring and fall. We review the full table monthly and update individual states within a week of a vote we become aware of.

The count on the homepage carries an "as of" date. If that date is more than a month old, treat the number as provisional.

Corrections

We keep a public corrections log. When we get something wrong, the fix is logged with the date and what changed, rather than quietly edited.

If you work for a state association and we have your state wrong, we would rather hear it from you than from a reader. Email corrections@prepflagfootball.com and we will correct it and credit the source.

What we don't track

We do not maintain school-level rosters, schedules, or scores. Other outlets do that well, and a reference that tries to be a scoreboard stops being a reliable reference.

Known limitations

Our sanctioned entries were initially compiled from reporting and are being re-confirmed against primary sources state by state. Entries that have not yet cleared that step are labeled.
No published source enumerates which states are running pilot programs. Counts of pilot states circulate, but the underlying list does not exist publicly. Building it is ongoing work, and it is the main reason this site exists.
Some associations publish sanctioning decisions only in board minutes, which are sometimes posted weeks after the vote.

Questions about how we count? Email info@prepflagfootball.com.