NFL FLAG Championships Presented by Toyota Unfurl This Weekend Across ESPN, Disney Platforms

Between her myriad assignments as ESPN’s national reporter based in Chicago, Michele Steele has been at the forefront of covering one of the fastest growing sports in North America: flag football.

Through the years Steele has reported on the sport’s growth, which the NFL and ESPN give major exposure to this weekend with the first NFL FLAG Championships Presented by Toyota. For three days starting Friday in Canton, Ohio, 32 games will determine an 18U girls, 15U boys, and International team champion on various ESPN, ABC, Disney, and NFL Network platforms.

“I’m passionate about inclusive storytelling and football,” Steele says, “so this would be an intersection of the two.”

Steele’s impactful reporting prompted the NFL to ask her to be part of a panel determining the NFL FLAG Players of the Year. Steele, who’s covering the WNBA All-Star Game festivities in Phoenix this week, talks to Front Row about which flag players impressed her the most, her reporting on the sport, and more.

In February 2023, you had a two-part report on SportsCenter about the growth of girls’ flag football in California and later other states. What’s the response been to that report?
Anecdotally, so many football moms and dads reached out about their excitement that their high school-aged daughters would have an outlet to play in more states sanctioning the sport at the high school level.

High school championships have already resulted in collegiate scholarships for some of the best players — and that’s huge. I’m so happy for those players and their families, and it’s a privilege to tell those stories.

You’re serving on the NFL Honors’ committee to help select the girls’ and boys’ flag football players of the year. How did that come about? Which players impress you the most and why?
The organizers reached out to me after seeing our stories’ impact on the growth of youth sports, and flag football in particular. And the best way to grow the game and create lifelong fans is to get kids involved in sports at a young age, boys and girls.

It’s great to see this kind of active engagement from ESPN and our partners around these efforts because we should all be vested in the future and the next generation of fans — teams, the league, and, of course, in-house as well.

And I should mention that leaders around the league are noticing — I was at training camp with the [defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City] Chiefs this week. None other than [head coach] Andy Reid, after calling football a “tough guy sport,” quickly added “and lady sport with where we’re going with all the flag football right now.”

He’s the most innovative offensive mind in football, and he’s watching everything – even the flag.

What players impressed me? [Metro Select’s] Daniel Berry wowed me athletically and academically. I like [Texas Fury’s] Adeline “Addie” Chilek on the girls’ side and could easily see her team make it to the championship on Sunday.
[NOTE: In Orlando in February, Chilek made a game and title-winning catch for the Texas Fury in the 17U Girls Flag Football Championship Game as seen on ESPN in the video at the top of the post.]

You’ve also reported that the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles have made a difference by providing sports bras to local girls’ teams. How did you discover this story, and what has been viewers’ reaction to it?
The Eagles reached out after seeing some of our coverage on SportsCenter, and one line in their pitch stood out to me: They would be giving away sports bras so girls could participate.

After some reporting, I found out that providing sports bras almost doubled the size of their league. An old attitude might be, “Girls don’t really know or like football.”

But I think it’s important to ask the question, what could we be missing when we make presumptions? Girls drop out of sports at high levels right around puberty and need different equipment than boys. But once girls are properly kitted, they embrace this sport.