American Flag Football League Sells Boston, Vegas Franchises for $3M
The American Flag Football League, which is launching a professional league in spring 2023, has sold its first franchises in Boston and Las Vegas at a price of $3 million each.
“It wasn’t our intention to sell any of the teams, but we started to see a lot of interest and shifted our attitude on that,” league founder Jeff Lewis said in a video call. “We will open with four to six teams, at least four of which will be owned by external parties.”
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The first two franchises were sold to private investors; Lewis declined to name them, though the investors currently don’t own any other teams in a top-level sports league.
The AFFL wants to have franchises in cities with strong football participation and a good base of local pro and college football veterans. “Boston makes a lot of sense for us because we have a youth league that has about 10,000 kids in it, and half are in New England,” Lewis said, “[and] Vegas, there are so many athletes out there it’s ridiculous.”
There are ongoing discussions about selling a third franchise in Pittsburgh, while football hotbeds of Florida and Texas are also being targeted for teams, according to Lewis. Sprawling metropolises with a large slate of pro teams—such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—are unlikely to be early AFFL cities, he added.
The AFFL has run flag football games since 2017 highlighted by former NFL pros, including Chad Johnson and James Ihedigbo. The game is played seven-on-seven with no kicking game and, of course, no tackling. Last year, the league’s men’s tournament was broadcast on various Paramount outlets while its women’s tournament primarily had contests streamed on Facebook and YouTube. Athletes in those games weren’t paid.
For 2023, the AFFL’s pro men’s league will pay players $1,000 a week, plus travel and away game expenses, for a 10-week season that may feature 16 games, given the much-reduced wear and tear on players compared to tackle football.
“The beauty of this sport is it is so low-maintenance. You’re talking 12 to 15 people on [a team’s] roster and a couple of staff,” Lewis said. “Our game is so light, if it’s clear the market is really loving it, I don’t see why we couldn’t put out six or eight teams in a season.”
The NFL’s decision to change its Pro Bowl format to include flag football is evidence of the entertainment value of the game, according to the Lewis, who also holds an unrelated executive position at investment firm Pantera Capital. “What’s really cool about flag is when you put athletes on the field to play it, it doesn’t matter who they are, they revert to being 10 years old… That level of intensity and the competition—the Pro Bowl has been utterly lacking in those elements,” the executive said. “The NFL is saying the best way to place their best players on a pedestal and have them look good is to have them play our game. That’s a pretty good compliment.”
In the long run, Lewis says flag football and the NFL should be viewed akin to mixed martial arts and boxing, in which a widely popular sport encounters a variation that is different enough to stand on its own and appeal to a younger fan base. “Anecdotally, young people want their own world, their own stuff, so they’ll embrace flag, like they have cornhole and esports,” Lewis said. “They don’t value tradition. They value innovation, things that are fresh and … games that go faster.”
For its part, the NFL isn’t letting the AFFL dominate the youth flag football turf. The NFL claims 500,000 participants in its flag program nationwide, making it the largest flag football organization in the U.S., according to its NFL Flag website.
Lewis also says flag football will benefit from growing enthusiasm among girls and women playing the game. “We had four games on CBS Sports last year: Three of them were men, and one was women. It was the first nationally televised women’s football game ever, and it doubled the rating of the three men’s games on average,” Lewis said. “There’s something percolating out there.”
The AFFL’s women’s tournament featured six teams. The league also has held girls flag football events at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium and elsewhere. For now, the women’s leagues remain an amateur affair, but Lewis believes women’s flag football will continue to grow as the men’s league establishes roots.
“I dream of playing our championship game in [New York City’s] Central Park and just let all the people in the park walk over and see something amazing.”
