MHSAA Attendance Posts 6-Year High
September 21, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
MHSAA tournament events posted an increase in attendance for the second straight school year in 2016-17, drawing 1,492,469 fans – with eight boys sports enjoying larger audiences that the previous year.
Total attendance rose sixth-tenths (0.6) of a percent from 2015-16 to its highest total since 2010-11. Boys attendance rose to 1,034,625 (or 1.2 percent) to its highest total since 2011-12. Girls attendance was 457,844, continuing a trend that has seen the last three school years post the largest audiences for girls tournament events since the MHSAA began annually tracking data in 1990-91. Attendance is kept for all sports except golf, skiing and tennis, for which admission typically is not charged.
The second straight boys increase was keyed in part by a pair of records. Baseball drew 50,820 fans, breaking the previous record set during the 2009 season while also seeing a record turnout at the District level. Boys lacrosse, with 11,211 total attendance, broke the previous record set in 2010.
The boys basketball tournament, with 330,588 fans, enjoyed its highest turnout since 2010-11. Football attendance rose for the second straight year with 395,894 fans total, enjoying single-round increases at the Pre-District, District and Regional levels. Ice hockey, with 51,812 fans, also saw an increase from 2015-16, as did the boys swimming & diving tournament with 5,694 fans – its highest overall attendance since 2010-11.
Three more records contributed to the overall increase in 2016-17. Softball drew 47,364 fans total, breaking the previous record set in 1994-95. The bowling and cross country tournaments, which both include girls and boys competing at the same sites, both set records as well – bowling with 14,012 fans overall to set a record for the second straight year, and cross country with 20,671 fans, its most since 2011-12.
Two more girls sports also enjoyed increased attendance from 2015-16. The girls lacrosse tournament drew 5,691 fans, a 29 percent increase from the year before and with a record at the Regional level. Girls soccer drew 28,203 fans with increases at the District, Regional and Semifinal levels; the overall attendance was a 3.9 percent increase and the highest since the record 2006-07 season.
Also of note:
• Although girls basketball overall attendance was down half a percent to 168,674, both the Quarterfinals and Semifinal-Finals rounds saw increases from the previous season. The Semifinal-Finals weekend drew 24,120 fans, the most since the record was set for those rounds combined during the 1996 fall season (girls basketball moved from fall to winter beginning with the 2007-08 season.
• The boys basketball attendance increase was bolstered in part by the highest Semifinal-Finals weekend attendance (53,990) since 2008-09 and an increase that weekend of 14 percent from 2015-16.
• Boys Soccer Districts were watched by 15,048 fans, the most since 2008-09, and individual wrestling also enjoyed a bounce-back at its earliest rounds with a three-year high at the District level (10,792 fans) and a six-year high (8,488) at the Regional level.
• Girls gymnastics Regionals (1,146) drew their largest audience since 2002-03, while competitive cheer Regionals (7,333) enjoyed a nine-year high.
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.
Schools Approve 6th-Grade Membership
December 7, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
By a vote of 561 in favor and 87 opposed, the membership of the Michigan High School Athletic Association has approved an amendment to the MHSAA Constitution that for the first time in 2016-17 will permit schools to join the MHSAA at the 6th-grade level.
Currently, MHSAA membership is open to schools at the 7th- and 8th-grade level as junior high/middle schools and at the 9th through 12th grades at the high school level. The MHSAA’s total membership of 1,458 schools consists at this time of 705 junior high/middle schools and 753 high schools.
The revision in the MHSAA Constitution does not require school districts to become member schools at the junior high/middle school level and does not require school districts to sponsor any interscholastic 6th-grade programs. If a school district’s MHSAA Membership Resolution lists a junior high/middle school as an MHSAA member school, and if the school sponsors a 6th-grade team in any sport or permits a 6th-grade student to participate with 7th- and/or 8th-grade students in any sport, then all MHSAA Regulations apply to all 6th-graders in all sports involving 6th-graders on teams sponsored by that school. If the school does not allow any 6th-graders to participate in a sport, MHSAA rules do not apply in that sport.
“There are a variety of reasons school districts so overwhelmingly supported this change,” MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts said. “Some wanted the change so they could better market school sports to younger students. Some districts have their 6th-graders in the same buildings and even classrooms with 7th- and 8th-graders and see the natural fit. Some of our smaller junior high/middle schools need 6th-graders to fill out teams.”
MHSAA services, including catastrophic accident medical insurance and concussion care gap insurance, will be provided without charge for 6th-graders whose districts secure MHSAA membership, beginning with the 2016-17 school year.
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.