MHSAA Attendance Posts 5-Year High
October 6, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Michigan High School Athletic Association postseason events enjoyed a five-year high in attendance in 2015-16 as two sports saw record fan turnout.
Total attendance for 2015-16 was 1,483,724 fans, an increase of 6.8 percent over the previous year. Girls attendance was 461,419, less than a percent lower than the record set in 2014-15 but still the second largest overall girls turnout since data was first tracked in 1990-91. Boys attendance was 1,022,305 fans, a four-year high helped notably by an increased football crowd last fall. Attendance is kept for all sports except golf, skiing and tennis, for which admission typically is not charged.
The track & field and bowling tournaments, which include attendance for girls and boys events combined, set overall records. Track & field broke a 2011-12 record with 37,773 fans overall and a Regional record of 22,413, and bowling set an overall attendance record for the fifth straight season with 13,919 fans and a Regional record of 9,948.
Football attendance did rebound significantly after a snowy opening weekend in 2014 resulted in the lowest playoff attendance since the 256-team 11-player field was introduced in 1999. Overall football attendance jumped to a three-year high of 389,897, a 25.4 percent increase from the 2014 postseason and with increases seen at the Pre-District, District and Regional levels.
Ten more tournament series showed increases in total attendance over the 2014-15 school year: gymnastics (2.0 percent), softball (2.8 percent), baseball (0.5 percent), girls swimming & diving (12.7 percent), boys swimming & diving (14.6 percent), boys basketball (1.5 percent), girls and boys cross country (combined, 2.1 percent), boys soccer (2.4 percent), team wrestling and individual wrestling all saw increases in overall attendance from the previous school year. Volleyball fell just shy of equaling the previous year’s record, drawing 110,638 fans, a decrease of 293 from the 2014 season but still the second-most since records first were kept in 1990-91. Volleyball did, however, set attendance records at the Regional (26,445) and Semifinal (4,765) levels of the tournament.
Also of note:
• The Boys Basketball Finals draw of 47,407 was a five-year high and a 16.9 percent increase from 2014-15. The Girls Basketball Finals drew 22,301 fans, the most for a Semifinals/Finals weekend since 2004-05 and an increase of 12 percent over 2014-15. Girls basketball’s overall tournament attendance of 169,523 was a decrease of 1.2 percent from 2014-15, but still the second-highest attendance for the sport since 2005-06.
• Overall softball attendance increased for the third straight year to 44,515, the highest total since the record-setting spring of 1994-95.
• Boys Soccer Finals drew 4,906 fans, the most for that event since 2007-08.
• Coming off a record high in 2013-14 and then a sharp decrease the following year, the Ice Hockey Finals rebounded with 10,709 fans, a 7.9 percent increase from the winter before.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,400 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 more than 1.4 million spectators each year.
Baseball's Record-Setting Spectatorship Headlines MHSAA's 2024-25 Attendance Report
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
December 12, 2025
An overall attendance record in baseball and several more all-time bests for specific rounds of other sports’ postseason tournaments kept attendance at Michigan High School Athletic Association events near 1.4 million spectators for the third-straight school year in 2024-25.
Total, MHSAA Tournament events drew 1,397,574 spectators at competitions for which admission is charged – which counts all MHSAA-sponsored sports except golf, skiing and tennis, as single tickets are not sold for those postseason events. The total of just under 1.4 million spectators is a decrease of 3.6 percent from 2023-24, but still the third-highest overall attendance over the last eight school years.
Attendance at girls events for 2024-25 was 453,320 fans, a 3.9-percent decrease from the 2023-24 record-setting total but the second-highest over the last eight years.
The boys attendance of 944,254 was 3.4 percent fewer than the previous year. However, baseball set an overall tournament record with 65,150 spectators, with records as well of 38,086 at the District level and 7,517 attending Quarterfinals. Every round of the baseball postseason saw an increase from the previous year.
Overall attendance totals for the ice hockey, team wrestling, gymnastics, boys soccer and girls swimming & diving postseason tournaments also were up from 2023-24. Ice hockey set records at its Semifinals (7,758 spectators) and Finals (7,857), boys soccer at the District level (18,219) and team wrestling also at its Finals (11,604).
Football remains the most-attended MHSAA Tournament sport and drew 361,139 spectators for its playoff series – a decrease of just above a half-percent from the previous year but with the highest Finals turnout (44,535) since 2019-20. Boys basketball attendance remained second across all seasons at 251,668 spectators, followed by girls basketball at 145,313 and girls volleyball at 110,927.
Track & field (41,418 spectators) and softball (47,763) posted their second-highest attendances on record after setting records during the 2023-24 school year.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 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 more than 1.4 million spectators each year.