Full Decade Price Freeze
September 15, 2011
The 2011-12 school year marks the 10th consecutive year of no increase in MHSAA Regional tournament tickets for football and boys and girls basketball; and it’s the ninth consecutive year without increase at the District level of those tournaments. This is noteworthy on at least three levels.
First, it means parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends on fixed incomes or struggling through a fickle economy have experienced no new costs to support their local school teams over the past decade.
Second, it means that what were the MHSAA’s largest revenue sources – gate receipts from District and Regional tournaments of football, boys basketball and girls basketball – have not been used to support the MHSAA’s expanding services.
Finally, when the freeze on ticket prices is combined with the freefall of girls and boys basketball attendance since the change of girls basketball season to the winter (the four-year average total attendance is down 9.3 percent for the girls tournament and down 21.1 percent for the boys tournament), the overall effect on the MHSAA’s operational budget is dramatic.
To compensate, the MHSAA has cut expenses and created new revenue sources. For years, MHSAA tournaments produced more than 90 percent of the MHSAA’s revenue. In 2010-11, it was less than 80 percent. The 2011-12 target is less than 75 percent.
Not the Critic
February 22, 2014
It is predictable; and it’s petty, not profound. Almost without exception, when a rule is enforced in one situation, the MHSAA will be criticized for not pursuing a similar penalty in other cases.
Of course, the critic is apt to draw parallels where they don’t exist. The critic is likely to assume facts that are not correct, and likely to call for the MHSAA to apply rules that the critic misunderstands, and to assess penalties that are in no one’s authority to impose. The critic can be unbothered by truth, accuracy and accountability. We cannot.
To be honest, MHSAA staff members have often been frustrated that the rules as they are written have no way to stop a particular transfer, or that people will not give testimony to enable a finding of undue influence. The reality is that rules cannot be written to stop everything bad without interfering with very much that is not bad.
And it is equally true that many people who have condemning information do not have the courage to share that information. And that some school administrators are too busy to get involved in such messiness. And that other school administrators are only too happy to have a malcontent athlete or parent move to another school.
Even at risk of irritating member school colleagues, the MHSAA ignores no allegations of violations by its member schools, their personnel or their students, even though we know that very many will be without merit – sometimes an innocent misunderstanding, other times a personal vendetta. And we know there may be just as many situations going unnoticed by or unreported to MHSAA staff.
And we also know that even when we do our job and we get it right – which is almost all the time – we may still be criticized by those who either have a personal agenda or do not have all the facts.
What is also true but unknown to the critic is the frequency with which MHSAA staff works proactively with schools to avoid problems, and how often MHSAA staff works privately with schools which self-report and quickly penalize their own constituents. A high percentage of violations have little publicity because we are intentional in efforts to keep a low profile for the unsavory side of educational athletics, and to keep the spotlight on the achievements of young people.