The “college” football season is in high gear, with ever bigger dollars flowing through what is actually a business. As a result–and also to raise their profile in attracting more students and fans–ever more schools are joining the bigtime (expensive) competition. Paradoxically, this is occurring even as participation rates in high-school football have declined noticeably over the past two decades.
First, the explosive growth: Boosters at the National Football Foundation point to a roughly 40% growth in the number of schools playing NCAA-level football since 1978. Although attendance at games has been flat over the last 20 years, the revenue from cable, broadcast and other video has risen enormously. It’s common to find 20 or more national game “feeds” on a Saturday, and an increasing selection on other nights. Recently, the number of “power” conferences has consolidated to four, but most remaining leagues enjoy greater exposure as well. Adding to the alumni loyalty factor as a draw for even non-marquee games is the mass legalization of sports betting, which engenders interest of a sort in any contest.
The result is an escalating spectacle aspect to the performances, culminating in the College Football Playoff among the top programs. Meantime, many players are now paid handsomely through the Name-Image-Likeness provisions to which the schools agreed under legal duress. And the coaches and other staff come at an increasing cost as well–into the tens of millions of dollars, even as they are (more often) fired for insufficient wins.
It’s as if America is a football-mad society, forgetting even the professional wing of the sport. That may be true from a spectating standpoint, but in fact fewer young males want to play the game. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, the total of boys in 11-player football (meaning full-contact tackle) dropped by 106,000 between 2008 and 2018–nearly 10%. It has then risen by 23,500 by 2024, the last datum available. Overall school enrollment has been basically steady over the period.
We can’t know why the falloff, but during this time the risks of CTE brain injuries from concussions received wide publicity (and increasing liability litigation). Equipment advances have been made to counter this and other types of injuries, along with rule changes, but at the same time player techniques and physiques have heightened the potential for harm. More boys and their parents have opted to take a pass.
Which boys? Here the numbers get fuzzier, but most reporting on the topic points to more affluent white families and to the Pacific Coast and Northeast regions of the country. These dropoffs have been mitigated by greater Hispanic participation, although that may simply reflect population gains in that sector. (At the major-college level, there’s a perceptible rise in international imports on some rosters, nearly tripling between 2012 and 2023 for NCAA Division 1, although in all they’re accounting for only 1%.)
So, you’d be excused if you saw a parallel here to the “two Americas” when it comes to waging military might: the cheerleaders for saber rattling and the young who actually do the fighting. Sure, in this case the battling has a potential payoff–commercialization of college sports has made football lucrative all the way down the line. But there’s apparently a limit to who will volunteer to wear the uniform.
Tim W. Ferguson 