More than 3,500 high school girls will descend on Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson Saturday morning for the fourth annual Rams Girls' Flag Football Jamboree, a 144-team showcase that has grown into the largest flag football event hosted by any NFL franchise. Games begin at 8:30 a.m., with teams playing in a group format.
The event's scale reflects just how fast the sport has grown since it started small. As the Los Angeles Times reports in prep sports columnist Eric Sondheimer's latest dispatch, the jamboree has grown since its early editions, and this weekend's edition dwarfs anything the league has previously staged for the girls' game. The NFL has made promoting flag football a broader priority, and the Rams' Carson event stands as one of the clearest examples of that push translating into a mass gathering of high schoolers on the field.
From Loyola Marymount to a Record Crowd in Carson
The jamboree didn't start at this scale. It began with an inaugural event, according to the Los Angeles Rams. It expanded past 100 teams by its second annual edition, and this weekend's fourth edition — now held at Dignity Health Sports Park — has 144 scheduled teams and upwards of 3,500 athletes.
Among the participants is El Camino Real High School, whose Royals were described as one of the most impressive City Section teams over the summer, per the Times' reporting. The Royals had not yet played a regular-season game heading into the jamboree, with their season set to begin this week — meaning the Carson event may double as an early measuring stick before conference play gets underway.
The Growth of Girls' Flag Football
The jamboree's size reflects the sport's growth and a regulatory shift. In February 2023, the California Interscholastic Federation's Federated Council voted unanimously to sanction girls' flag football as an official varsity sport statewide.
National girls' flag football participation reached 42,955 in the 2023–24 school year.
An Olympic Backdrop
Flag football is set to debut as a medal sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, with matches at Exposition Park Stadium after the International Olympic Committee's October 2023 vote, per NFL.com.
