The sports of tackle football and flag football are taking on the world. Now is the world ready for them? Team dealers in America are counting on it as the sport expands well beyond our borders.

Take tackle football’s international popularity in Dublin, Ireland – dubbed the college football capital of Europe – that continues to host a college football game in August to kick off the college football season. (This year, Iowa State and Kansas State met in Dublin on Saturday, August 23. Iowa State prevailed, 24-21.) It was the 11th U.S. college football game to have been played in Dublin since the first in November, 1988.

And then there are the Big Boys of American football. The National Football League continues to be aggressive in promoting the game overseas, especially with games in London, England. Need more international flavor? The second game of this year’s NFL regular season featured the Los Angeles Chargers playing the Kansas City Chiefs down in Brazil. Yes, Brazil, home of the Beautiful Game (that would be soccer, to most Americans.)

And here comes flag football, a sport where teams from around the world traveled to Finland to decide the International Federation of American Football’s Flag Football World Championships in August 2024. At that event, USA Football’s U.S. Men’s and Women’s Flag Football National Teams successfully defended their crowns.

Undoubtedly, flag football is much more than just a recreational sport any longer. USA Football produced a documentary, “Champions Rising,” that followed Team USA Football from training camp to those 2024 World Championships in Finland.

And, of course, flag football will generate global interest in 2028 when the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles will be the backdrop for international competition. It will mark flag football’s debut on the Olympic stage.

This all adds up for both tackle and flag football riding waves of participation momentum, which is great for sales for team dealers.

Dealers Talk Football

For the most part, the 2025 football season was a strong one for team dealers around the country — and most dealers contacted by Team Insight believe that momentum will continue into 2026.

In Wilmington, DE, Al’s Sporting Goods sells football to youth programs, local high school teams and adult squads year-round.

“We are selling football to youth and high school programs in the fall and we are selling football to local leagues for youth and young adults in the spring,” reports owner Bob Hart. “In our area, we have youth football in the fall and the spring.”

Al’s boasts both a strong team business and retail business for football. “Our team division sells footballs, helmets, shoulder pads and team uniforms,” says Hart. “In our retail area, parents will come in to buy a new helmet if their son doesn’t like the helmet provided by his school or team.”

The one football category which Al’s does not sell is footwear.

“We don’t sell football cleats anymore,” says Hart, with those lost sales made up by selling lots of tape and a set of goal posts from time to time.

In Battle Creek, MI, football sales have been better than average for Jack Pearl’s Sports Center.

“Even though our youth helmet and shoulder pads business was down this year, it’s been a really good year for football,” says owner Keith Manning. “Our online spirit wear business has been strong this year, too.”

According to Manning, high school and youth football programs are buying complete uniforms, shoulder pads, helmets, girdles, undershirts, socks, mouthguards, whistles, practice cones and even first-and-ten chains.  

“The lighted digital down markers from Champro are especially popular with teams once they seem them being used along the sidelines,” added Manning.

While Jack Pearl’s Sports Center doesn’t have an in-house reconditioning division, Manning and his associates collect the helmets and shoulder pads at the conclusion of each season and make sure a third-party vendor gets them reconditioned in time for spring football.

In Terre Haute, IN, Doc Claussen, the manager of Coaches Corner, feels that personalized customer service is what sets the team dealer apart from its football competition.

“We do it the old-fashioned way here at Coaches Corner,” says Claussen, who points out that all of its football clients are located within a two-hour radius of Terre Haute.

“We sell football merchandise to high schools, middle schools and youth sports leagues,” he adds. “We sell it all in football, with the exception of footwear. We don’t sell cleats. That is an Internet-driven category.”

In Marietta, OH, Zide’s Sporting Goods takes pride in its helmet-fitting business, a unique service that it provides to high school football teams in West Virginia and Ohio. That service helps Zide’s Sporting Goods stand out from the competition.

“My father was focused on fitting helmets for every one of our football clients,” explains owner Rod Zide. “Today, we have five teams of people who travel around from high school to high school fitting helmets.”

And its been a profitable year selling football for Zide’s Sporting Goods. “We sell lots of football uniforms and everything from head-to-toe in football,” Zide says.

In Fort Worth, TX, Carey’s Sporting Goods is also busy throughout the year selling football. “We sell everything from head to toe to the junior high and high school football teams here in the metroplex area of Dallas and Fort Worth,” says owner Dan Carey. “It’s been an okay year for selling football, but I’ve been in this business for 47 years so you’re going to have an off year from time to time.”

In addition to selling the apparel and protective gear worn by the players, Carey sells field equipment such as cones, tackling dummies, blocking sleds and the occasional set of goal posts.

Out west in Las Vegas, NV, most of the football business for Turf Sporting Goods is with local youth football programs, although it does have a few high school football as well.

According to owner Jerry Ocuda, buying gear for the youth football programs is done by the individual families. “We sell a special package to youth football players,” explains Ocuda — a helmet, shoulder pads, a pair of pants and a mouth piece.”

Inside The Football Numbers

According to the latest research from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), participation in tackle football is on the rise and on the upswing for flag football in the U.S. In 2024, there were 6.1 million tackle football players in the U.S.  Of those, the vast majority are young males — 89 percent are male and 57 percent were between the ages of 6-17.    

Another 17 percent of all the tackle football participants are ages 18-24, a reflection of both the large number of college football players and growing number of young adult males playing in semi-pro/amateur (age 18-plus) adult football leagues across the country.

At the high school level in the U.S., the 2024-25 NFHS Athletics Participation Survey indicates an overall total of 1.14 million participants (boys and girls) in all variations of football (11-player, nine-player, eight-player, six-player and flag).

The number of participants in 11-player football has increased three of the past four years – a trend not seen since the mid-2000s.

Finally, to further illustrate the health of the most popular high school sport for boys, the number of schools offering tackle football was the second-highest all-time in 2024. With 14,269 schools sponsoring 11-player tackle football in 2024, only the 14,279 schools in 2010-11 topped last year’s number in the 55-year history of the NFHS Athletics Participation Survey.