Florida hosts Under Armour flag football national championships

Jay Collins welcomed teams from across the country to the final day of the Under Armour Flag Football National Championships in Florida, another high-profile stop in a state that keeps turning itself into the sport’s busiest championship stage.

The Under the Lights circuit, presented by Under Armour, is built as a national youth league for players from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. It sells the sport as a competitive, confidence-building, non-contact game for boys and girls of every skill level, with seasons running in fall, winter, spring and summer at sites across North America. That footprint matters because the championship path runs through Florida venues that can handle the travel demand and the size of the fields now attached to flag football’s growth.

This spring’s national championship was set for July 17-20, 2026 at Tampa Bay Sportsplex in Tampa, with a $650 tournament fee for invited teams. The event listed four co-ed divisions, from K-2nd grade through 7th-8th grade, plus three all-girls divisions, and each division was capped at 32 teams. A separate Spring Nationals listing said champions and runner-ups from spring league play would be invited to Tampa Bay Sportsplex on July 18-19 to chase the national title. By then, the message was clear: Florida was not just hosting an event, it was anchoring a qualification system.

That was not an isolated use of the state. A 2025 Under the Lights fall national championships listing put the event in Naples at Paradise Coast Sports Complex on Dec. 26-28, 2025, giving Florida back-to-back showcase dates on the circuit calendar. Other national operators have leaned on the same geography. NFL FLAG said its 2024 championships in Orlando were its largest youth tournament to date, with 252 youth teams representing 23 NFL clubs and 12 countries. USA Football also scheduled The One Flag Championship in Florida in 2024.

That mix of championship traffic, out-of-state travel and national visibility is why Florida keeps showing up in the center of the bracket. If flag football is expanding fastest where organizers can concentrate elite teams, recruit eyes and major tournament logistics in one place, Florida has already claimed the lane.