Women’s college flag football is coming to the East Metro.

The Vikings announced Monday the organization is helping to launch a six-team league that will compete on three weekends in April.

The six participating colleges are Northwestern-St. Paul, Bethel, Wisconsin-Stout, Gustavus Adolphus, Augustana and Concordia-Moorhead.

Those six schools will play in a pair of jamborees — on April 5 at Northwestern-St. Paul and then on April 12 at Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wis. — prior to the championship tournament on April 26 at the Vikings’ practice facility, TCO Stadium, in Eagan.

The Vikings, along with the NFL, are contributing $140,000 to the league and its participating schools.

“This is a significant moment for the continued growth of girls’ and women’s flag football,” Vikings vice president of social impact Brett Taber said in a release. “These institutions are set to do something unique, and their partnership with the Vikings and the NFL will bring further awareness to the future of women’s football and empower the next generation of athletes to find opportunities to compete and shape this game.”

This league wasn’t the only of its kind announced Monday. ESPN reported the Atlantic East Conference — a Division-III conference located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the country — announced it was launching its first varsity women’s flag football season this spring, becoming the first NCAA conference to do so. That venture also is receiving financial support from the NFL.

Last month, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics recommended all three divisions across the NCAA add flag football to the NCAA’s Emerging Sports for Women program, which gave all three divisions the chance to sponsor legislation that would move the sport through governing structures of the NCAA.

A sport must have a minimum of 40 schools sponsoring it at the varsity level, and meet minimum contest and participation requirements, to be considered for championship status.

The Associated Press reported last month that at least 65 NCAA schools were sponsoring women’s flag football at the club or varsity levels this year, with more slated to join in 2026.

While that process plays out, leagues such as the one announced for local competition this spring could allow programs to hit the ground running if and when women’s flag football receives championship status from the NCAA down the road.

“It’s definitely the hope that it would continue to grow at an NCAA level and that the NCAA will sponsor it,” Rebecca Mullen, interim commissioner of the Division III Atlantic East conference, told ESPN. “To see it continue to grow and buy into that is really a unique opportunity.”

The Associated Press reports there are 14 states that have sanctioned girls flag football as a high school varsity sport.

Nearly 500,000 girls ages 6 to 17 years old played flag football in 2023, per NFL FLAG.