NFL and RCX Sports Foundation boost global flag football scholarships

The NFL and RCX Sports Foundation named Laura Hernández Sánchez of Spain and Ella Sowden of Canada as the 2026 recipients of the Women’s Flag Football International Scholarship on June 24, a selection that puts two non-U.S. flag football markets at the center of the sport’s international growth. The program, which the two organizations launched in 2024, is built to do more than honor talent. It helps fund education, training and travel for elite women players while they keep competing.

That matters because the scholarship is being used as a pipeline tool, not just a prize. Public RCX materials say the award can provide as much as $75,000 for international women athletes to play flag football and study in the United States, giving emerging players a concrete route into stronger competition and coaching. The NFL’s announcement said the program provides financial assistance and mentorship, part of a broader push to strengthen women’s flag football as the game heads toward its Olympic debut at Los Angeles in 2028.

Spain and Canada are the key tells here. The selections show where the sport is gaining real traction beyond the traditional American football pipeline, with athletes coming from countries where flag football is increasingly being tied to education, mobility and high-level competition. Brian Flinn framed the initiative as a way to turn Laura’s and Ella’s aspirations into opportunity, underscoring that the scholarship is meant to move players into new environments, not simply recognize what they have already done.

Laura Hernández Sánchez already has one visible path from that system. A University of Texas Arlington athletics story dated June 24 said she earned an NFL Flag x RCX Sports Foundation International Scholarship and joined UTA Flag Football in Arlington, Texas. That kind of move is exactly what makes the program important: it links international talent to a U.S. college setting where the athletes can train, study and compete in a more developed flag football structure.

RCX Foundation materials say the NFL is dedicated to fostering the growth of women’s flag football worldwide, while the foundation says it aims to develop, promote and implement diversity and inclusion in youth sports. Put together, the scholarship announcement reads like infrastructure work for the sport’s next stage. It is helping build the people, pathways and competitive depth that flag football will need as its global profile keeps rising.