Women’s sports have rapidly started to grow in size and popularity over the past few years at both the collegiate and professional level. A prime example of this idea would be women’s basketball. According to Forbes, the 2024 NCAA Women’s March Madness championship game drew 18.5 million viewers, which broke records. Part of this is due to the stars of women’s basketball being more well known these days, such as Caitlin Clark or Paige Bueckers. Both of these athletes were popular figures over the last couple of seasons.

It has gotten to a point where someone could walk into a Dick’s Sporting Goods in southeastern Wisconsin and see Indiana Fever Caitlin Clark merchandise. Women’s basketball highlights are also constantly being showcased on media sites such as SportsCenter. But basketball isn’t the only women’s sport that is growing at a substantial rate. 

Women’s flag football has been growing in popularity, with several NCAA Division III schools adding teams. According to CollegiateFlagFootball.com, there are currently three Division III conferences for the 2025-26 school year, with some programs remaining independent, while other schools just offer women’s flag football at the club level. There are a few notable takeaways from this list, with schools such as Beloit, Marian, UW-Stout and UW-Oshkosh all offering or planning to offer some form of women’s flag football. This has begged the question: could women’s flag football be coming to UW-Whitewater?

While the addition of women’s flag football is not imminent at this time, it remains a possibility, especially since WIAC schools Stout and Oshkosh have started to take those steps. These are programs and administrations that UW-W Athletic Director Ryan Callahan has strong relationships with.

“I think anything and everything’s on the table,” Callahan said. “When sports come up, they go through the NCAA and once it gets to a certain threshold then you have a championship and all of that. It’s definitely something that we’re eyeing up.”

Once Oshkosh and Stout’s programs start to get off of the ground, Callahan can observe how they built those programs and determine whether or not that’s something that can be done at Whitewater.

There are several factors that go into a decision like this, especially a collegiate program that would be built from scratch in a sport that is just starting to grow. Not only would you need a coach and players, you’d need athletic trainers, sports information and general administrative health personnel. You’d also need to figure out facilities and locations for the team to practice and play. UW-Whitewater also has 20 teams within its athletics department already, so the university wouldn’t want to take away from those either.

All of these things essentially boil down to one thing: funds. There is only so much money that the University has, and they have to budget for all of the various fees and expenses they may encounter. That can lead to some tough decisions being made and has an impact on the feasibility of adding a women’s flag football team.

“The growth of women’s flag football would be the biggest factor,” Callahan said. “I think it’s here to stay. If that’s what’s going to happen, when do we want to jump into that game as well? Is it when we have a little bit more financial security with our campus funds or a little bit more comfort with our enrollment patterns? It’s constantly being discussed.”

UW-Whitewater would also need to ensure that there is enough interest in women’s flag football that it would make sense for them to make the move, especially in the Wisconsin and northern Illinois areas. There are a few methods for them to do so, which include the old-fashioned way of surveying incoming students to learn about what they’d be interested in as well as utilizing the National Federation of High School Athletics, which gives the university current trends in athletics. 

Another thing that the administration would need to consider is where these athletes are coming from. There would be students already enrolled that would be interested, but perhaps they are already part of athletics. What about potential transfers or recruiting high school student-athletes? Part of growing the athletic department is having the student body grow with it.

“There’s a school in our conference that started flag football and they had no new students,” Callahan said. “It was all current student athletes that came from another sport. You’re providing an opportunity, but you’re providing an opportunity for students that are already in athletics.”

Callahan is confident in Whitewater’s ability to recruit combined with the history of success across all of the athletics programs, that if UW-W were to be one of the last WIAC teams to add a women’s flag football team, they would still be very successful. 

The other major aspect of building a team is finding a head coach. Unlike men’s football, a sport that has been around for decades, women’s flag football is a new and evolving sport. There aren’t many coaches who would be significantly experienced, especially at the collegiate level. Callahan talked about looking at how Oshkosh and Stout went about their searches, as well as working with the NCAA and other football associations to find a good fit.

“You’re going to have some people with a few years of experience, but you’re not going to have a lot of people with traditional football experience,” Callahan said. “You’re really more or less evaluating your candidates based on their ability to recruit new talent. You’re going to have some candidates that are really passionate about football while you have other candidates who are passionate about getting into this for the sake of continuing to advance women’s sports.”

If women’s flag football were to become a sport at UW-W, it would be several years out. Callahan estimated, hypothetically, that it would take at least three years for the implementation process. There’s time that would need to be spent on the coaching search, and then that coach has to have a season of recruiting to build up their roster. Once all of that is said and done, you have to determine if the team is ready to play games against other schools. 

Going forward, UW-Whitewater will continue to be an integral part of women’s sports, whether that’s the success that their current programs have, or their efforts to grow women’s sports. Some of Callahan’s fondest memories are of the successes that the women’s sports teams have had, and he’s eager to see what the future holds in store.

“We’ve been lucky,” Callahan said. “We’ve had some trailblazers. Our women’s teams are unbelievable, and they have some phenomenal leaders and student-athletes.”