The Fiesta Sports Foundation has hosted noteworthy events in the past: College Football Playoff games, golf tournaments and more. On Thursday morning, the institution added to its comprehensive list of festivities with a first-of-its-kind national showcase.
The foundation announced that it will host an eight-team national women’s collegiate flag football tournament at Arizona State from April 18-19.
“We like to use our platform, the Fiesta Sports Foundation, to call attention to, encourage and support athletes, as well as sports in our state,” Fiesta Sports Foundation Executive Director and CEO Erik Moses said. “I couldn’t think of a better sport to do that with than women’s flag football and doing it at the collegiate level.
“All of this is part of a consolidated effort to support the growth of that sport in Arizona and therefore across the country.”
The Fiesta Bowl Flag Football Classic, sponsored by Oakley, will include both ASU and Grand Canyon University. Over the course of two days, teams from Division I universities will compete in a seven-on-seven tournament, starting with a three-game pool-play format, ultimately leading to a championship game.
“Being part of the very first Fiesta Bowl Flag Football Classic is incredibly meaningful for us at ASU,” Arizona State flag football coach Jesse Pap said in a statement following the announcement. “It represents how far this sport has come and the belief that others have shown in its future.”
The inaugural tournament will also bring teams from out of state to the desert – Alabama State, Charlotte, Florida, Georgia, Central Florida and USC – creating an epicenter for women’s flag football.
“We want to make this an opportunity for them to get to know their peers from across the country, because all of them are pioneers,” Moses said. “They’re pioneers in a sport that is growing and is not yet where we know it will be in the coming years. And so, we want them to be able to build and cultivate community within that support.
“We’re going to try to make this the biggest, most successful, most sought-after women’s flag football invitation in the country.”
The announcement comes amid a multi-year boom in flag football both in the Valley and on a national scale.
Arizona is one of 17 states where flag football is sanctioned as a varsity sport at the high school level. Since the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s approval of flag football as a varsity sport in 2023, more than 130 AIA schools competed last fall.
The sport, which will be part of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, has grown to a base of 2.5 million athletes according to the Fiesta Sports Federation.
On Jan. 16, the NCAA added flag football to its Emerging Sports for Women Program – an initiative designed to help provide more athletic opportunities for women with the ultimate goal of creating a new championship sport.
To earn the designation of a championship sport, at least 40 schools must sponsor it at the varsity level and it must meet contest and participation requirements.
“Welcoming women’s flag football into the Emerging Sports for Women is a meaningful step toward expanding access, equity and opportunity,” Jacqie McWilliams, the commissioner of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and chair of the NCAA Committee on Access, Opportunity and Impact, said in a statement after the addition of flag football to the program. “This sport has already sparked passion nationwide, and now countless young women will see a path that once didn’t exist.”
As of the NCAA’s latest data on projected sponsored sports in September 2025, at least 40 universities across all divisions are expected to field teams at the varsity level in women’s flag football in the spring of 2026. Furthermore, nearly 60 Division I institutions currently offer flag football programs at the club or varsity level, according to the Fiesta Sports Foundation.
With flag football continuing to grow, organized collegiate tournaments like the Fiesta Bowl Flag Football Classic mark the first steps toward bringing the budding sport into the limelight at the college level.
“In our early conversations with the NCAA, they’re super excited about us doing this because it provides yet another legitimizer and credibility builder for this sport,” Moses said. “Given what we’re known for in our close association with college football, we think this is going to be very well received.”
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