Only two states with SEC schools, Missouri and Arkansas, are at odds with this relationship, having seen considerably larger declines in participation. Of the 7 states that saw increases and the 8 with the smallest decreases (15 total) in high school football participation from 2008-19 to 2018-19, eight host universities of the SEC and one borders them (Oklahoma).
states characterized by increases (green shades) or decreases (orange shades) in high school football participation rates from academic years 2008-09 to 2018-19 ( data from NFHS and updated from my analysis in this preprint).Ĭhange in high school football participation by state 2008-2009 to 2018-2019. This regionalization can be seen clearly in the figure below, which shows U.S.
Such tensions over the violence of football are not new, as Kathleen Bachynski observes in her excellent book No Game for Boys to Play, “tackle football has nagged at American consciences for over a century.”Įvidence also suggests that football is becoming a more regional sport, with participation and interest most concentrated in the southeast, roughly characterized by the 11 states with universities in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Research shows increasing parental concerns about concussion risks and an increased desire to see age-based restrictions on physical contact in the sport. Most notably, there can be little doubt that Junior Seau’s suicide in 2012, Will Smith in Concussion in 2015 and the emerging science of repetitive brain impacts and long-term neurological damage have cast a dark shadow over the sport.Īs a consequence, it is clear from the data that parents are increasingly keeping their young children out of football and high school boys are choosing to play other sports. However, some reasons behind the trends are more certain than others. The NFL’s strength notwithstanding, the broader decline of football in American culture is a topic of much concern within the sport and the subject of study among academics, but no consensus has been reached on what is driving these overall trends. The pipeline of players that feed the NFL is robust, and will be if even it continues to shrink. With 53 players on each NFL team’s active roster that means there are less than 1,600 total players across the league. There are about a million kids playing football in high school and almost 30,000 players in Division 1 college programs. In 2019, of the top 50 most-viewed TV shows, the NFL claimed 47 of them. Consider that in 2019 during the regular season, NFL TV ratings were up from the year before by 4.7 million viewers per game. Of course, while trends in Super Bowl viewers are intriguing, as a business the NFL is very well insulated from any broader cultural shifts in attitudes towards football.
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