Prep fans love their football, basketball
When it comes to going to games, more people go to high school football and basketball games than attend college and profession football and basketball games, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) reported Wednesday.
Attendance for high school football and girls and boys basketball games was 336 million during the last school year -- more than twice the number of people who attended college and pro games in the same sports, the NFHS said. The MPSSAA is a member of the federation.
Last year, according to the NFHS survey of its member schools, attendance grew to 468 million for the top 16 prep sports -- football, basketball, baseball, cross country, field hockey, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo and wrestling. About 42 million people attended playoff games in these sports. This included girls and boys sports.
By sport, regular-season basketball was the most popular with 170 million in attendance followed by football with 166 million. Soccer was third with 24 million. Baseball ranked four with 20 million followed by volleyball (17 million), softball (15.8 million), wrestling (10 million), track and field (6.6 million), ice hockey (6 million), swimming and diving (4.8 million), lacrosse (4.5 million), cross country (3 million), water polo (1.8 million), golf (1.3 million) and field hockey (800,000). Boys and girls teams were included where applicable.
This is the first time the NHFS has surveyed for national attendance figures.
The NFHS explained how the survey was conducted in its new release: "The NFHS surveyed high school athletic directors at small (up to 1,000 enrollment), medium (1,000 to 2,200) and large (more than 2,220) high schools and multiplied the average regular-season attendance (based on the schools that responded) in each sport by the number of schools in each enrollment category that sponsor the sport. A similar method was used to determine overall attendance at postseason events conducted by NFHS member state associations.
