American football is booming in Germany. With the NFL Flag Program, the National Football League is introducing younger target groups to the non-contact version of the sport. SPORTFIVE has been responsible for implementing the program at over 350 schools in Germany since 2022 and has been able to get more than 40,000 pupils involved in the sport.
In this Success Story:
The starting point
In 2018 SPORTFIVE supported the NFL as a marketing partner with its market entry in Germany and has since been active in various areas for the National Football League.
The NFL Flag Program was launched to spark excitement for American football among younger target groups in one of the NFL's core European markets. The program, which has been run by SPORTFIVE since 2022, introduces girls and boys aged 10-14 to the non-contact version of American football. Flag football fosters creativity while promoting the NFL's values of respect, responsibility, integrity and resilience, as well as the importance of a healthy, active lifestyle. Flag football is trending worldwide and will be represented as a sport at the 2028 Olympic Games for the first time.
The implementation
The first step in getting pupils excited about flag football is to find motivated teachers. SPORTFIVE employees Annalena Welter, player for the national American football team, and Maximilian von Garnier, former NFL Europe professional, are taking on this task. The teachers are trained by experienced flag football coaches and provided with extensive teaching materials. All participating schools receive flag football equipment.
The NFL Flag website launched by SPORTFIVE serves as a main point of contact for all interested parties and contains upcoming dates, impressions of past events and all information about the program. Thanks to online training, many additional teachers and many rural regions throughout Germany could be included.
In addition to the workshops for teachers, which take place at the beginning of each school year, regional tournaments are held every summer where all teachers can compete with their teams. As a special highlight, many German NFL legends such as Sebastian Vollmer, Markus Kuhn, Björn Werner and Kasim Edebali visit the local tournaments and motivate the kids on and off the field.
The highlight of the program is the big U12 final tournament in Berlin at the end of the year with all regional winners from all over Germany. The tournament's winning team will fly to the Pro Bowl in the USA in February, where they will represent Team Germany at the World Championships and compete internationally against teams from various countries such as Mexico, the UK, China, Ghana, Australia, etc.
The results
The numbers speak for themselves: More than 400 teachers from over 250 schools in eight regions of Germany are now part of the program. In total, over 40,000 kids are playing flag football at schools. And there is more to come: due to the overwhelming response in the existing regions, the NFL program continues to expand and the cooperation between the NFL and SPORTFIVE has been extended until 2025. Cologne and Dresden are now also part of the program in addition to the metropolitan regions of Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg.
40,000
Pupils have already participated
400
Teachers have been trained
250
Schools are already involved in the NFL Flag Program
We are pleased to support the NFL's Grass Roots program with our expertise and our extensive network of schools and teachers and to sustainably increase interest in the sport and the NFL in Germany.
Karsten Bentlage, Senior Vice President at SPORTFIVE
Impressions
