On another baseball-centric forum, an Aussie asked about the popularity of the major sports here in this country. Nearly everyone replied about the popularity of football over baseball, with some adding in college football. I took that further by including HS football. I know in many parts of the country, HS football is tepid at best, but in other parts (namely Deep South, Western PA), its insane popularity makes up for it. I also brought up how some HS programs probably have a bigger budget than some D1 schools (don't know if that's true but it was cool to say). Can I get more information on the popularity of HS football that could lend to the discussion of it perhaps being more popular, on the average, than baseball?

well in SC we had a lottery to issue tickets to the Byrnes Dorman game. The stadium only holds 20k....

Minor league baseball adds to baseball's claim as the national pastime. But no one goes to minor league baseball games because of the game. They go because it's cheap entertainment for kids. Meanwhile, folks go to college football and basketball games in droves, because they're rabid fans.

College football is like club soccer in a way, though. Long, venerable franchises that never change names or move cities. The players change, but other than that...it all stays the same. Unlike say, pro sports in this country.

at the high school I coach at we typically get about 2,000 for a regular game and have had as many as 7,000 for our games against national power De La Salle.

by comparison on the times I have gone to baseball games there are rarely as many as 50 people there.

Now to be fair we are considered a "football school" with a tradition that goes back to 1918 and we have won our league 8 of the 9 years I have been there, where as our baseball team rarely finishes about .500.

Me personally I have a hard time choosing between football and baseball, I love them equally.

There's a quote I've seen associated with Friday Night Lights about how high school football attendance in the U.S. annually exceeds the combined total of all college & pro football games combined ... but I can't seem to find the attribution for it despite a variety of Googles.

I may have interest in HS or college football if I had a kid on a team, but, since I don't, I have absolutly zero interest in either level of the sport.

Of course, growing up in Southern California there's more things to do besides shovel snow and wonder when the first thaw will arrive, which I'm sure attributes, to some degree, the general apathy towards college sports and high school sports out here.

In Ohio its big, but it doesn't appear to be that big up here in Michigan.

There are many folks in Indiana who think football is catching basketball as the most popular HS sport in the state. I'm not from here to know the deep tradition that is supposed to be HS basketball. I know there are a lot of people who say that moving to a class system really hurt HS basketball here.

The first football played at the Colts new stadium was a HS game. It was the first HS game I have gone to here and by kickoff, there weren't any empty seats and I saw lots of school colors, but I'm sure there were a lot of folks like me who were there to see the stadium.

Anyway, it sounds like HS football is growing really well. It seems there are more kids going to D1 schools if you listen to the local radio guys.

There's a quote I've seen associated with Friday Night Lights about how high school football attendance in the U.S. annually exceeds the combined total of all college & pro football games combined ... but I can't seem to find the attribution for it despite a variety of Googles.

This would not surprise me in the least given there's only 32 NFL and a few hundred college football teams. Texas, California, and Florida probably outstrip all those by themselves.

In 2007, 37 million attended D1 football games, while 17 million attended NFL games. In 2004, there were 18,400 total HS in the US. Each HS would have to have a total annual attendance of 3000 in order to match pro and college combined. Given that some draw 60,000+ and some draw 12, that's doable.

I may have interest in HS or college football if I had a kid on a team, but, since I don't, I have absolutly zero interest in either level of the sport.

Of course, growing up in Southern California there's more things to do besides shovel snow and wonder when the first thaw will arrive, which I'm sure attributes, to some degree, the general apathy towards college sports and high school sports out here.

That's a weird post given that high school football is much more popular in the warmer climates than in the cooler ones, generally speaking. There are plenty of things to do in Texas and Florida, too, in case you're curious. ;)

This has been an interesting ESPNU game between ST Thomas Aquinas and Byrnes (#1 and #2 nationally)

Kind of plays back to this thread, they had to move the game away from STA home stadium into FAU's stadium because the 16,000 seats were all sold.

High School football's fan rabidness always interested me, because I come from an area of New Jersey (on the shore) where kids went to high school football games to hang out with friends rather than actually watch the game, and baseball was far more popular (and this was before my hometown team won the Little League World Series).

High school football in Ohio is pure insanity. 30 minutes of TV coverage from all the networks Friday night. Stories on all the TV stations and newspapers, Monday through Friday getting ready for the games. Some unbelieveable stadiums. Huge amounts of money for some schools.

In Ohio its big, but it doesn't appear to be that big up here in Michigan.


I grew up in Oakland county and now live in Macomb county and HS football really is not an interest unless you have some kind of stake in the school (you go there, you recently graduated, your kid plays). Maybe it is more popular outside the metro Detroit area, I am not sure.

Here is a good Michigan Football website if you are interested:
Michigan High School Football (http://michigan-football.com/)

I guess this is as good a place to post as any - I stopped by to watch some of my lacrosse kids play and our HS almost pulled off the upset over the league favorite for the first time in 27 years. They have about double our enrollment, alleged steroids use and walking past the sideline I'd estimate they had 25 guys bigger than me (6' 180) not on their first team while we start one guy over 175. I'd estimate there were about 2000, 500 from their town (town sizes CC ~20k, AB ~40k), and even many of those were students waiting for the parties to start and little kids playing football behind the bleachers and ignoring the on field action, so clearly it's nothing like other parts of the country. They went up 14-7 on a fake FG early 4th and we scored to get back within 1 on a 4th and goal QB bootleg keeper with 30 seconds left, but the same play call to the other side for the 2-pt conversion failed.

I grew up in Oakland county and now live in Macomb county and HS football really is not an interest unless you have some kind of stake in the school (you go there, you recently graduated, your kid plays). Maybe it is more popular outside the metro Detroit area, I am not sure.

Here is a good Michigan Football website if you are interested:
Michigan High School Football (http://michigan-football.com/)

Thanks, we are in the Dakota school district so we've been trying to follow them but there just isn't any news coverage and we don't go to the games with 2-year old and a newborn.

I think it's regional. Some areas just put higher emphasis on it while others put higher emphasis on college and the NFL. I don't know if there is a reason for it either, it just kin dof seems random in a way. I mean Florida loves football but has trouble filling up their NFL stadiums.

In Ohio its big, but it doesn't appear to be that big up here in Michigan.

In West Michigan where I'm from, it's huge. Especially southwest Michigan. I lived in Florida for some years, and it was no where near the level of excitement.