Building girls’ confidence, leadership skills & opportunities on and off the flag football field
Girls’ flag football is more than a game—it is a movement reshaping what opportunity looks like for the next generation of athletes. Across the United States, girls are stepping onto fields, discovering their voices, building confidence and redefining leadership and teamwork. Flag football is fast, inclusive and empowering, offering girls a space to compete, belong and imagine futures beyond the sidelines.
To leverage the sport’s power, the Click Clack: Next Era Grant launched early 2026 to expand access to flag football for girls. The grant was made possible by a collective $1 million commitment from Under Armour and The DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation with delivery by Beyond Sport.
Though a growing number of girls are playing flag football, its popularity has outpaced the infrastructure needed for sustained and equitable participation. Access to organized leagues, trained coaches and consistent school-based opportunities remains uneven in many communities.
Without intentional, multi-year investment to reduce barriers, improve the quality of coaching and develop the overall ecosystem, girls’ participation gaps will persist.
The Problem
Sports ability to positively impact physical and mental health, life skills development and open doors to opportunity is well known. However, though overall youth sports participation is on the rise, access is deeply unequal. According to the Aspen Institute’s State of Play 2025, 55.4% of U.S. youth ages 6–17 played organized sports in 2023 — still below the national goal of 63%. At the same time, family spending on youth sports has increased significantly in recent years.
DICK’S Foundation Sports Matter research also reinforces growing financial barriers. Registration, equipment and facility costs are among the most significant obstacles to youth entering and staying in sport, particularly in under-resourced communities. Within this landscape, girls face additional challenges.
And according to the Women’s Sports Foundation:
- 40% of teen girls are not actively participating in sports
- Girls enter sports later, participate at lower rates and exit earlier than boys
- High school sports opportunities for boys outnumber those for girls by over $1.13 million
How It Works
Under Armour, The DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation and Beyond Sport are investing in the growth of the game and in the environments, mentors and systems that allow girls to thrive.
The program is supporting 10 nonprofit organizations across the U.S. and Mexico to expand access to safe, structured play in communities where opportunity is too often limited. Click Clack also focuses on strengthening the foundation needed to advance state sanctioning of girls flag football as a varsity sport. It is designed to remove barriers and open doors—providing critical financial resources, top-tier equipment and apparel and access to high-quality coach education through Positive Coaching Alliance.
Ultimately, this initiative is about more than flags and footballs. It is about confidence earned, leadership developed and futures unlocked. It is about helping girls dream bigger and play harder—on the field, in the classroom and in life. Through this grant, the game grows—but more importantly, so do the girls who play it.
