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Perspectives on Popularity

January 13, 2015

With the National Football League about to take center stage in this country’s sporting drama this month, some “Down Under” comparisons provide perspective to moderate how popular and venerable the NFL is.

The NFL’s longest waiting list to become a season ticket holder is found in the NFL’s smallest market, Green Bay, where the waiting list to become a Packer season ticket holder is now 30 years. It’s so crazy that my sister, who splits her time between Vermont and Florida, still controls the two season tickets her father first obtained 55 years ago; and the tickets never go unused. The Packers season ticket waiting list is more than 80,000 names long.

However, the waiting list to join the Melbourne Cricket Club in Australia is even more imposing. Currently, more than 236,000 people are waiting to join the more than 100,000 active members, 40 percent of whom have only “restricted” privileges. An average of 10,000 fans join the waiting list each year, and their projected waiting time has now reached more than 40 years.

The Melbourne Cricket Club is the oldest sporting club in Australia, founded in 1838; while the Green Bay Packers is a relative upstart, founded in 1919. Still, it is the oldest NFL franchise in continuous operation with the same name and city ... since 1921 ... 83 years after the Melbourne Cricket Club.

By the way, the Michigan High School Athletic Association has operated under that name since 1920 ... one year longer than the Packers.

The Goldilocks Solution

December 2, 2014

Somewhere I read that there’s little to gain by trying to bring simplicity to what’s complex or sanity to what’s crazy. But we keep trying.

Last month we compiled results of a survey through which 513 MHSAA member high school athletic directors provided information about the out-of-season activities of their students and coaches and offered opinions regarding ideas to modify the rules that control those who want to do so much that it would force others to do more than they believe is sane for school-sponsored, student-centered competitive athletic programs.

A nearly equal number of schools from each classification were included in the 513 schools that responded to this opportunity to add more information and insight to this year-long look at MHSAA out-of-season coaching rules.

Some preliminary number crunching reveals (without surprise) that there are differences between large schools vs. small and more populated areas vs. less – differences both in the amount of organized out-of-season sports activity in which students engage and in the openness of their athletic directors to new ideas for regulating out-of-season activities by students with their school coaches. Generally, larger schools and/or schools in more populous areas see students participating in more organized out-of-season athletic activities, and they are more open to changing how those activities are regulated.

And so it continues ... finding that sweet spot that fits the perspectives and problems of a very diverse membership that supervises a wide variety of sports. The “Goldilocks” solution that doesn’t do too much, or too little.

The results that I’ll be looking for as we continue to gather information and facilitate discussions is no specific set of rule changes, but rather, to move MHSAA policies and procedures toward these two goals:

  • Rules simpler to understand, follow and enforce. Even good rules are bad if they are too cumbersome.
  • Rules that do not add pressure on students or coaches to focus on a single sport year-round. There is plenty of data that informs us that parents do too much of that already.