How Much Women’s College Flag Football Coaches Make

As girls flag football explodes at the youth and high school levels, NCAA institutions are adding varsity women’s flag programs on a near-weekly basis.

Activity is still largely limited to Division II and III. But the NCAA’s January 2027 vote to establish women’s flag as a championship sport is expected to spur a new wave of adoption by major D-I schools. (Nebraska is the only traditional powerhouse with a varsity flag team so far.)

To gauge the sport’s emerging labor market, Front Office Sports reviewed women’s flag football coaching salaries at 10 schools across all three NCAA divisions, drawing on public records requests, active job postings, and conversations with coaches and athletic administrators.

Head coaching salaries varied by more than $100,000 across our sample, from $18,540 at D-III SUNY Geneseo to $155,000 at D-I Cal Poly. The average salary is $72,545. Position terms generally span one to five years.

Of the employment contracts obtained by FOS, Nebraska is the only school with a full-time assistant head coach. It’s also the only school offering performance-based bonuses to its coaches, and it allows them to make money on outside activities, such as endorsements, with the athletic director’s approval.

Division I

California Polytechnic State University–San Luis Obispo

• Head coach: $155,000 

University of Nebraska

• Head Coach: $115,000
  • $5,000 bonus if program wins a conference championship
  • $5,000 bonus if program qualifies for an NCAA Championship or equivalent national championship tournament
  • $10,000 bonus if program wins an NCAA Championship or equivalent national championship tournament

• Associate Head Coach: $72,500
  • 5% of base salary bonus if program wins a conference championship
  • 5% of base salary bonus if program qualifies for an NCAA Championship or equivalent national championship tournament

SUNY Binghamton

• Head coach: $83,000

Iona University

• Head coach: $65,000

Division II

Purdue University Northwest

• Head coach: $65,000

Henderson State University 

• Head coach: $52,000 

Division III

Whittier College 

• Head coach:  $70,305–$73,000

Marietta College 

• Head coach: $43,000–$50,000

Hollins University

• Head coach: $42,800–$49,000

SUNY Geneseo

• Head coach: $18,540
• Assistant coach (part-time): $7,000

In October, Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen told Sports Business Journal that its 21-player women’s flag program cost less than $1 million to launch, providing an early benchmark for other major schools looking to stand up their own teams.

“I’ve had a handful of Power Four schools reach out to me and ask questions,” Jami Hagedorn, Nebraska’s associate athletic director of financial reporting, tells FOS. She oversees the women’s flag budget and hired its two inaugural coaches—twin-sister duo Liz and Katie Sowers—earlier this year. “They want to know what our startup costs were, what the big expenses were … we kind of are the market right now.” 

The Sowers sisters came to Lincoln from the NAIA’s Ottawa University in Kansas, where they founded the women’s flag program and led it to five consecutive national championships. Liz served as head coach and Katie as associate head coach, the same roles they now hold at Nebraska. 

Hagedorn says their compensation was primarily determined by “looking internally at [Nebraska’s] existing coaching salaries for similar women’s sports.” She adds that finding coaches with prior flag experience was a priority—a sentiment echoed in most of the 10 active head flag coaching job positions currently listed on the NCAA’s job board.

“I didn’t target many tackle football coaches when hiring, just because there are lots of nuances between the two sports,” Hagedorn says. “I don’t know that [tackle experience] 100% translates”.” 

With a professional flag league backed by the NFL and TMRW Sports set to launch in summer 2027 and flag making its Olympics debut in 2028, coaching jobs will grow, prompting a more competitive ecosystem—and, likely, higher salaries.