A new campaign has been launched to encourage children to play NFL flag football, the non-contact format of American football.
The move comes ahead of the NFL's first regular-season game in Ireland, which is being held in Croke Park later this year, with the Pittsburgh Steelers the designated home team.
Details on the opposition and the date of the match are to be announced in May.
To provide a tangible legacy, the NFL in partnership with Sport Ireland and American Football Ireland are aiming to grow the number of children playing flag football here to around 50,000 over the next three years.
A programme has already been underway in the Dublin area, with around 1,000 children participating in the league so far.
As part of the launch in Croke Park today, more than 50 young players aged between 10 and 12 from Greenlanes National School in Clontarf and Scoil an tSeachtar Laoch in Ballymun were showcasing their NFL Flag Football skills.
Greenlanes NS won the inaugural NFL Flag National Championship in December and represented Ireland at the NFL International Championships at the NFL Pro Bowl Games in Orlando in Florida earlier this year.
It’s estimated the sport, which is due to be included on the LA 2028 Olympic Games programme, is played by 20 million people in 100 countries.
The General Manager of NFL UK and Ireland said NFL Flag Football is the non-contact version of the sport that's "really accessible for young people, boys and girls to play."
Henry Hodgson said the NFL is "really focused over the next few years on growing participation across the island of Ireland."
He said the NFL Flag Football programme will work with schools that "want to do this as part of the PE curriculum".
"Then what we're also doing is working with American Football Ireland, which is the national governing body, to make sure that there's a pathway for kids to continue playing if they're enjoying it in school, to play for some of the local clubs that exist in Ireland already."
On the NFL’s first regular-season game that is to be played in Croke Park, Mr Hodgson said he would "expect to announce the date and the opposition for the Steelers in early May".
"The NFL schedule gets released somewhere in the first couple of weeks of May typically, and that's when we would announce who the competitors are and the date of the game."
