Peyton Manning could be set to promote flag football at Olympics

Peyton Manning has coached flag football. Now it appears he’ll be promoting the game as it prepares for its biggest stage yet.

According to Sports Business Journal, Manning and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell could be involved in an event to raise awareness and buzz for flag football to take place around the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris. The event is not yet finalized.

“The NFL reached out, [Goodell’s] coming over, and I need to make sure it works with my commitments for what I’m having to do for NBC, we’re going to try to take advantage of the opportunity over there to talk a little bit about flag and what’s ahead for the Olympics in four years,” Peyton Manning told Sports Business Journal.

Manning was already headed to Paris to work as a co-host of NBC’s broadcast of the Games’ opening ceremony July 26.

Flag football will be on the Olympics program in 2028, when the Summer Games take place on U.S. soil for the first time in 32 years. Most of the events will take place in the Los Angeles area. In each Olympics, organizers are allowed to choose six sports that have greater appeal to the local audiences, and flag football will be among them. (This is why softball was absent from the 2024 Games in Paris that begin later this month, but will be a part of the 2028 Games — albeit in Oklahoma City — and was included in the 2020 Games in Tokyo.)

The NFL and its teams have poured resources into promoting and underwriting flag-football programs in recent years. Locally, such efforts made by the Broncos helped make flag-football for girls an officially-sanctioned sport by CHSAA earlier this year.