TAMPA, Fla. — The NFL and Nike have teamed up for a Kickoff Classic featuring two high school football games.

Two Tampa teams, Alonso and Robinson, will play in one game with the NFL Network, broadcasting it for all to see. This opportunity allows these Bay area programs to showcase the sport of flag football and open some doors for other young ladies.

Weeks of practicing are leading up to tonight’s nationally televised matchup. The game will be held at the Nike headquarters in Oregon. 

The Knights and Ravens will be the only two teams playing a flag football contest. These two programs have ruled the Bay area and the Sunshine State for so long. Now it’s time to take their act on the road and show it off to the nation.

Thanks to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Nike, both teams will look the part.

The high school student-athletes recently took over the Bucs’ locker room, where their new gear and jerseys were on full display.

“Just the way the whole event is coming together, it’s not something you could have dreamt up because you didn’t think it existed,” Alonso head coach Matt Hernandez said. “So it’s not like we dreamt of this. We didn’t know. We didn’t know this was possible.”

“For them to kind of be those trend setters and those pioneers to leave that impact, I think, is something that they won’t appreciate right now, because they just like the gear and the cool stuff, but 10 years from now, 15 years from now, they’ll tell their children, this will be the part that will matter way more,” Robinson head coach Josh Saunders said.

“I think this really validates what they’re doing,” Tampa Bay Bucs co-owner Darcie Glazer Kassewitz said. “I think they already feel validated, but it’s just always great to go higher and higher. It’s something that’s truly something special for them.”

“When you take something that three or four years ago, there were a lot of people that were like what is that, what is that sport or they don’t play that in this state,” Saunders said. “To now, you have it as an organized activity in over 25 states and now you’re going to see it on TV. They get to be the people that are seen by other girls, by middle school girls, by other high school girls, who don’t play that go, I want to do that.”