USA Football brings 750 athletes to Los Angeles for Summer Series

Los Angeles stepped deeper into flag football’s Olympic future at Dignity Health Sports Park, where USA Football staged its Summer Series with more than 750 athletes from 10 countries. The three-day run, held June 20-22 in Carson, gave the sport a high-profile regional stage and turned one venue into a snapshot of how far the international game has come before LA28.

The Summer Series folded together the Junior International Cup, Select Bowl and International Bowl under the same 5-on-5 rules that will be used when flag football debuts at the Olympics. USA Football also described the 2026 edition on its Summer Series page as involving more than 1,000 athletes, coaches and team personnel and as a program presented by Under Armour, underscoring how quickly the event has grown into a major summer stop on the global calendar.

At the youth level, the Junior International Cup matched USA Football’s 15U and 17U girls’ and boys’ national teams against Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama and South Korea. That lineup gave the U.S. junior pipeline an unusually broad test, with national-team development happening in the same setting as international competition and senior-level exhibition games.

The event’s senior stage added another layer. USA Football said its U.S. men’s and women’s flag national teams faced Canada in the Rivalry Series during Summer Series week, while International Bowl exhibition games were played under International Federation of American Football five-on-five rules. For Scott Hallenbeck, USA Football’s chief executive, the goal was to bring flag football’s fast international style to Los Angeles and use the series to help drive the sport’s long-term growth.

Dignity Health Sports Park made that ambition look practical. The venue said Katie Pandolfo, its general manager, brought more than 25 years of experience to a campus that has hosted thousands of events and more than 25 million guests, giving USA Football a proven Olympic-era showcase site in Carson. The setting matters because LA28 has already confirmed flag football will award six-team men’s and women’s tournaments, with 10 athletes per roster and play in a five-on-five format, and the first Olympic champions in the sport are set to be crowned on Days 7 and 8 of the 2028 Games.

USA Football has staged elite flag football events in Los Angeles in prior years, but this Summer Series carried a sharper edge. With youth, developmental and national-team competition all in one place, the city is no longer just hosting a tournament. It is helping define the international standard for a sport that is moving fast toward the Olympic spotlight.