Gardner-Webb Adding Women's Flag Football

Gardner-Webb University (NC) will add a varsity women's flag football team. The school also announced the addition of women's acrobatics and tumbling, while discontinuing both men's and women's tennis. GWU did not provide a timeline for when the flag football team will begin competing.

Gardner-Webb is a member of the NCAA Division I Big South Conference, which has seen its flag football sponsorship rise to 5 in the last few weeks. Radford University (VA) was the first school from the conference to add the sport, announcing a club team in May 2025. Big South Commissioner Sherika Montgomery signaled in October 2025 that additional conference members were likely to launch flag football programs in the coming months.

At the end of January, Charleston Southern University (SC) announced that a varsity team will start competing in the 2027-28 academic year. Earlier in February, the University of North Carolina at Asheville announced a club team for the 2026-27 academic year and plans to elevate to varsity status in the future. The University of South Carolina Upstate will also add a varsity team starting with the 2026-27 academic year.

There are at least 15 NCAA Division I programs that currently compete at the varsity level or plan to do so in the coming years. Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, UNC Asheville, and USC Upstate are four of the 15 varsity teams. The other 11 include Alabama State University, Cal Poly (CA), Fairleigh Dickinson University (NJ), Long Island University (NY), Manhattan University (NY), Mercyhurst University (PA), Mount St. Mary's University (MD), Mississippi Valley State University, the University of Nebraska, the University of North Alabama, and the University of Texas at Arlington.

Gardner-Webb is one of 19 schools in North Carolina to have a club or varsity program. At the NCAA D-I level, Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, UNC Asheville, and UNC Charlotte offer flag football. All offer a club team, while UNC Asheville will offer a varsity team in the future.

Flag football is expected to continue growing after the NCAA added it to the Emerging Sports for Women program in January. More than 50 NCAA schools across all three levels will launch varsity flag football teams in the next few years. That number is on top of the more than 60 varsity programs and 100 club teams offered by NCAA schools in the current 2025-26 academic year.