Senior Bowl opens youth flag football registration in Mobile

The Senior Bowl has opened registration for its 2026 FLAG Football League in Mobile, giving boys and girls ages 7 through 12 a new entry point into one of the fastest-rising versions of the sport. Sign-ups began July 14, and the league is built around a September kickoff camp that does more than introduce the rules.

That camp is set for Monday, September 14, 2026, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the University of South Alabama Intramural Fields, 6450 John Counts Dr., Mobile, AL 36608. The Senior Bowl says attendance is strongly encouraged for registered players because the session will teach fundamentals and NFL FLAG rules while also serving as an evaluation period to help organizers form balanced teams.

The structure matters. The Senior Bowl is not stepping into youth flag football as a one-off youth clinic; it is extending a football brand that has anchored Mobile for more than seven decades. The organization calls itself the longest continually running all-star game in football, and its committee materials say it already hosts an NFL Flag league for ages 6 through 12, supports high school sports through the MBAP and works with the Mobile Touchdown Club to put equipment into youth parks so more kids can get meaningful reps.

That local footprint makes the new league more than a registration drive. The Senior Bowl’s community materials say it aims to connect and uplift the community through mentoring young athletes, supporting local charities and service work. It has already used NFL Flag programming in the Turkey Bowl Classic, when youth league winners and local tackle teams played at Hancock Whitney Stadium on November 22, 2025.

The timing also lines up with where the sport is headed. NFL FLAG says youth flag football now has more than 4.1 million participants in the United States, up 50% since 2020, with about 20 million players worldwide. Flag football will make its Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, and NFL clubs voted in 2025 to allow NFL players to compete. In Mobile, that larger surge is now coming through a name families already know, and a league built to turn interest into actual participation.