Michigan High School Athletic Association - Promoting Educational Athletics
Michigan High School Athletic Association - Promoting Educational Athletics |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Dec. 17, 2007 Survey Results Point to Fun & Learning as Top Roles of School Sports EAST LANSING, Mich. – Dec. 17– A month-long survey conducted by the Michigan High School Athletic Association about high school sports yielded a variety of results, but none more important than the facts that both students and adults feel the primary roles of education athletics are to let kids have fun and teach them about becoming tomorrow’s leaders. “Have Your Say: The High School Sports Opinion Poll” was an online survey in which 8,036 questionnaires were submitted from October 8 to November 5. The purpose was to determine attitudes towards educational athletics to assist the MHSAA in its future planning. The Association plans to conduct a follow-up survey at least every two years. Students and adults agreed on the primary roles of school sports, but had their order flip-flopped. Students, consistent with other surveys by other parties, listed having fun as the primary role of these extra-curricular activities. Adults responding were of the opinion that school sports should teach young people about leadership skills. The role of school sports serving as a vehicle to a college athletic scholarship saw some interesting graphing in the survey. Of the eight roles respondents were asked about, earning college scholarships rated positively, but nowhere near as high as the other roles. As a group, student-athletes saw earning an athletic scholarship as a role; but as respondents got older, they were less inclined to think so until an upward shift in the age 35 through 49 year ranges, where they then dropped off again. In comparing high school sports to programs sponsored by other groups – parents, school coaches, school administrators and school game officials were united in the feeling that the school sports experience was better than participating in club or AAU programming. It was also felt that the level of sportsmanship was better in high school sports than collegiate sports, high school aged AAU and club sports, non-school youth sports and professional sports, in that order. The survey also asked questions related to the financing of high school sports. Respondents were willing to pay more for a ticket to the MHSAA Football Finals than the Basketball Finals. Corporate sponsorship of school sports, the survey found, was acceptable to a limit – most notably title sponsorships of high school events were looked upon unfavorably. The most popular media sources for high school sports information continue to be local newspapers and television stations, according to the survey; but the Internet was beginning to rival newspaper reading for those polled under 35 years of age. Indications are that web-based delivery of high school information will become increasingly important for upcoming generations of high school parents. Fans of high school sports also tend to stay loyal to their local school, indicating that if a college football team they follow was participating in a televised contest at the same time they were still more likely to attend a high school event in-person. The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by over 1,800 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract approximately 1.6 million spectators each year. -0- MEDIA ADVISORY – Graphs from some of the statistical findings of the survey can be found by clicking here. RL07-041 AT&T, Farm Bureau Insurance Henry Ford Health Systems and MEEMIC Insurance |