So it starts.
Does anyone have any stats on the # of participants and the rate of participation in high school football? I imagine the NFL is watching that very closely, because if the number of high school players begins to divebomb, the same will happen to college, which means the NFL is next.
I think it will be a long slow process though.
Good bump in light of a few recent developments. In addition to the Illinois high school lawsuit linked by Leaper above, a couple of other interesting things have just happened.
UAB shut its football program down yesterday. And the University of Hawaii AD said back in August that if the football program there doesn’t get an increase in funding from the state or boosters, that it may have to do the same thing. He later backtracked on it a little but things aren’t getting any better financially.
But the attack on the high school programs is probably the biggie. It may be one thing for a state to vigorously defend lawsuits filed against its popular major universities but another to defend high school programs which are generally a drag on public school spending. And individual school districts have even that much lesser financial cushion.
It’s a long way off but the Dallas Morning News recentlyspeculated that another threat is on the horizon, too.
Somewhat off topic, but one part of the UAB story struck me:
It’s just one more reminder of how college football is a big-money business, and how ridiculous it is that everybody gets a chunk of the money except the actual players.
I think in terms of universities giving up football for economic reasons, Hawaii’s a special case, given its small natural recruiting area and its great distance from the other teams on its schedule. But one wonders how many other schools are in similar positions to UAB:
The big fish in college football need the small fish to beat up on. I can’t help but wonder whether UAB’s an outlier, or whether there are a bunch of other universities that are having an increasingly difficult time carrying their football programs. But if UAB is fifth in its conference in both those numbers, it sounds like it’s got company.
Here are the total numbers as of 2013.
But while overall numbers grew, here’s a really interesting chart showing declines in 36 states. Most of the growth occurred in the Deep South.
Finally, here’s the New York Times with observations on the growing Blue state/Red state divide.
I like these observations very much and I’m sure that data is out there for someone with a little more time than I have right this moment to dig up. It’s always been a fascinating argument from college football programs that, even though they are not financially self-sufficient,* that they can’t afford to give them up, either.* I understand the arguments that high-visibility football programs have intangible benefits for the university (donations, applications, etc.) but those shouldn’t be fundamentally difficult to quantify. And it bears noting that a couple of schools who dropped football in the recent past (like Northeastern) are clicking along just fine without it.
But I’d like to digress for a moment about the bolded comment. I’ve seen arguments on a football-centric message board that schools like Tennessee and Georgia Tech have to schedule a few fish because the difference in going 8-4 versus 6-6 is crucial to maintaining strong fan support. Isn’t this odd? Competitiveness doesn’t seem to enter into the equation (competitiveness from the standpoint of playing someone of equal strength); instead, it’s all about beating an overmatched opponent. Didn’t that stop being fun once we weren’t kids any more?
I agree on the long and slow part. There’s significant slack in supply of players versus demand as you go up the chain. There are plenty of Division III schools where the kids don’t even get scholarships to play. There there’s all the NAIA and junior college teams. There are a lot of people playing football outside the spotlight of what we think of as Division I FBS football. Those at the top will simply take the best of what’s available as long as fans still want to see it. Teams might get a touch smaller, or a touch slower, but there’s a lot of slack before the top level teams have any issues getting players.
There’s also some negative feedback built in because as high school programs drop the odds of getting scholarships in college and the odds of making the NFL goes up.
I see the former as more significant; the latter, I’m sure, faces more unique financial pressure due to location (plus I understand they kinda suck, which is even worse).
In general, I assume stuff like this is why the developmental league is getting traction in the NFL.
Hawaii is a special case - it can ask non-conference schools that want to play games in Hawaii (so they can have a 13-game regular season) to help pay for the program.
Where are these club teams supposed to play? At local high schools? Which ones still have football goal posts? At local JCs? Which ones still have football? Four-year schools? Which clubs can afford renting those fields?
In Texas, I can sort of see club football taking hold, since a number of communities are willing to pretty much pay for their high school’s football stadiums with tax money, so if it switches to clubs, building a stadium for the local club is not too big of a stretch.
Rugby is played without any helmets or body armour and maintains its popularity so far. Nevertheless at the amateur club level - which is where the players all start, clubs are diminishing. Parents see the game as violent and steer their children to soccer.
No way. You’re absolutely right that this would be a sensible and logical change, but “we’ve made the game safer by using less protective equipment” is not intuitively correct to frightened mothers and the people who sit in the jury boxes in liability lawsuits. Pile your data a mile high, you will still lose.
I wouldn’t make much of the UAB case – there have been something like 5 teams that have moved up to 1A football in the last two years.
Nonetheless … count me among the fans that expect it to decline in popularity in the future.
That explains a lot about Texas politics.
But if you look at the stats, soccer has a concussion problem also, both from heading and from player contact.
I played college club rugby in the 1990s. Back then, if someone showed up who had played rugby in high school showed up, we looked at them like they were a goddamned unicorn. Rugby at that level was practically non-existent.
Now there are 11 high schools in Wisconsin that have Girls’ Rugby, and at least 40 that have a Boys’ program. Middle schools are now beginning to get into the action with Touch Rugby.
Here’s an article from the Chicago Tribune 6 weeks ago about the growth of rugby in the Chicago area.
And here’s one from Bloomberg that notes that according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, rugby is the fastest growing team sport for all players age 6 and up.
So I disagree with your assertion that clubs are diminishing. Interest in the sport is higher than I’ve ever seen, I attended the All-Blacks vs USA Match in Chicago a few weeks ago and the place was sold-out, which the organizers didn’t expect. Rugby 7s will be played at the next Summer Olympics, I think that will spur even more growth.
Abstract of a recent study on high school football and non-concussive hits.
I wonder how bad the studies need to get to filter down even to poor red state families, and how much I-am-invincible teenagers will push back regardless.
I’m also skeptical of any sport without current popularity, like rugby, taking the #1 spot.
Fascinating, thanks for that.
Rugby is played here from the age of 5 by some keen boys as indeed is soccer but the numbers grow about the age of 10. There are girls teams and touch rugby teams too.
The attraction of rugby and soccer is that both sports require very little equipment and are mainly amateur games which any child/teenager can enjoy.
My impression by contrast, is that American football is quasi-professional even at high school level. Not that the players get money but the ethos and pride of the school rests upon one team and there is golden pathway onto college, then pro ball.
Tell me - is US football played by 10yr olds up in various amateur clubs and divisions?
Your impression is based more on the media looking at the top college teams and recruiting to support them. Most high school players don’t even get a scholarship to play in college. Most of those don’t have a realistic chance of ever playing for the NFL. During my time in high school our teams went to the state championship game twice (and won it once). A grand total of one player from those teams got a scholarship at a major college football program. ISTR a couple more getting a football scholarship somewhere else but most of those high performing teams didn’t even make that cut. I can find links to two students that ever made the NFL since the school opened. One appeared in a grand total of three games in his one NFL season. The other is in his first year. He’s on the team but hasn’t actually been in a professional football game yet. There’s still a fair amount of gold for being the bench warmer. It’s a pinhole to squeeze through to the gold, though, not a pathway.
My high school also made a big deal about our basketball team. To a lesser extent they made big deals about the baseball, wrestling, hockey, water polo, and swimming teams that had periods of success at time during my four years. Water polo and swimming may have produced more college scholarships than football since we were a perennial powerhouse in the water sports.
There are leagues far younger than that. Some are school associated (although generally not receiving school financial support IME.)
Thank you DinoR for explaining that.
In NZ and I think Australia and Briton (and probably France) children join amateur clubs to play sports. In fact there is a conflict between schools and clubs because both want the best players. However schools are not regarded as serious until First Fifteen level - the creme de la creme. Rugby clubs and indeed soccer clubs are for committed players.
What I never saw in the USA when I was there was any sort of amateur club game structure. It existed for softball but not much else.
My question is: what team sport can a child/teenager play every weekend?
Soccer, Volleyball, Track and Field, Basketball, Lacrosse, baseball, plus many others. In fact, American Football is quickly becoming the only sport that has it’s highest level of competition in school.
The best U-14 soccer team in the state (boys or girls) could probably beat the State Champion high school team full of 17 and 18 year olds.
I was at a private school with no real school action involved in the sports teams. It was a separate youth organization that ran football, baseball, basketball and soccer programs. For all except soccer they formed teams based on schools so you were with kids you generally knew. The only direct linkage I can think of in terms of support was they let the basketball team use the school gym. Soccer which was still pretty new just formed teams based on where kids who signed up lived since most schools didn’t have enough for a team. Once you got to high school those teams tended to predominate although the youth league I was in would have still allowed me to play there for part of that time.
Club soccer has since come on. I know club hockey existed for kids when I was young. There were baseball teams since the school teams tended to end around the time the school year got over. I’ve known people that played baseball, hockey, and rugby at an adult club level. Not having kids I’ve payed less attention to the state of things for children.
Where I grew up… only ones that could be played indoors unless the game could handle snow. I’ve heard of recreational soccer leagues and of course there’s basketball.
The argument for high school sports, particularly football, has always been that they attract students who would otherwise be unmotivated to attend. A 2013 article by Amanda Ripley in The Atlantic raises some interesting questions about that theory.
In summary, she notes a correlation between sports emphasis in high schools and academic performance (on a global basis). A fascinating story is that of Premont High School, a small school in a poor south Texas district. Faced with the prospect of shutting down altogether because of funding, Premont instead discontinued its entire sports program in January 2012. What happened at the school afterward may surprise you.
The part I enjoyed most was that other Texas high schools around the state, alarmed by any threat to the football culture, raised $400,000 in support of Premont, an amount that the principal immediately spent to renovate the science lab.