By ROBERT F. KANABY
NFHS Executive Director
On any given Friday night across this great country during September, October and November, more than 7,000 high school football games are contested, involving one million student-athletes and, conservatively, seven million fans.
Players from urban and rural areas alike, and from diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, all come together to play high school football, and their families, friends and fans come together to watch and support it. It is truly one of America's classic traditions, and it binds us together, both in our communities and in our nation.
For more than a century, the only Friday night game in the fall has been high school football. Both the National Football League and the National Collegiate Athletic Association respected Friday as the special preserve for high school football.
That all could change. [This spring], the NCAA Division I Management Council approved a revision to an NCAA bylaw which paves the way for college conferences to televise games on Friday nights. Three conferences -- the Mountain West, Western Athletic and Conference USA -- already have announced their intention to do so.
The ramifications of this action will be far-reaching and severe. This is a "lose-lose" proposition for all parties involved. Not only are the high schools negatively affected, but a closer examination reveals that the collegiate game would be damaged as well.
Perhaps the most critical manner in which both games would suffer is by reduced live attendance. Both the high school and college games rely on the same fan base. By playing and televising college games on Friday night, football fans are forced to choose between attending a high school football game, attending a college game or watching a college game on television. If a fan has a child who is involved with the game as a player, a cheerleader, a member of the band, etc., then that fan most likely will choose to attend the high school or college game in question.
What happens when that fan no longer has a child involved with the game and the weather is getting colder later in the season? Is that "casual" fan going to endure inclement weather to watch a high school team in which he has a less-than-personal interest, or is he going to retire to the warmth and comfort of his living room and watch a college game on television? Sadly, but understandably, I suspect the latter more often will be the case.
Through these actions, the college game is "biting the hand that feeds it." High schools are the only source of players for the next level. By hurting the attendance and revenue at the high school games, colleges are undercutting their sole supplier of players.
The gate revenue derived from high school football is even more critical to high school athletic programs than to those at the college level. Most high schools have some season ticket base, but nothing like the college game. They count on the fan going out the evening of the contest.
In many school systems, the football revenue generates the lion's share of that high school athletic department's total income, and often is depended upon to support the athletic program as a whole. Through that trickle-down effect, if the football revenue source is impacted, then the entire athletic program is harmed. As a result, other sports will have to be cut back or eliminated altogether.
From a recruiting standpoint, televising college games on Friday night is self-defeating. High school football players are busy that particular evening.
The college teams they will watch the next afternoon (in person or on television) are the ones to which they will develop an allegiance. At this time, only the aforementioned three "mid-major" conferences (the Mountain West, Western Athletic and Conference USA) have indicated their intentions to have games televised.
However, the potential exists for the floodgates to open. Offers may come to major football conferences to have their games televised, but it is our hope that they will recognize the harm and decline. Without the "specialness" of Friday nights, the culture of high school football would unquestionably suffer and a valuable American tradition would erode away.
The high school community is not unmindful of budgetary pressures; we live with them every day. Neither are we unmindful of long-term benefits; that's what education is all about. We trust that the college football community will, in due course, recognize the collective long-term benefit of Friday night football.
Robert F. Kanaby is the executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which is located in Indianapolis, Indiana. A former high school coach, teacher, principal and state association executive director, Kanaby has been executive director of the NFHS since 1993. The NFHS is the national service and administrative organization for high school sports and fine arts programs in speech, debate and music.
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