September 08, 2004

Report: Texas High School Football Is Big

FROM THE LONE STAR STATE comes a thorough analysis of the huge popularity of high school�and middle school�football.

Texans delight in brashly boasting of their bigness in all manner of physical, cultural, geological and attitudinal attributes. Sometimes this boasting is bluster, sometimes it�s factual.

A recent report by the Dallas Morning News has verified that in football�especially at the middle school and high school levels�Texas is indisputably big�in fact, the biggest by far.

Consider:

� Texas has far more high school football players than any other state. About 160,000 play football in grades 9-12 for Texas' approximately 1300 public and private schools, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. California, with a population half again larger than Texas, ranks second with less than 100,000.

� Taking consideration of the multiplier effect, Texas high school football rolls up to almost a billion (with a �b�) dollars--an estimated $900 million--in total fan spending each year and the equivalent of 8800 full-time jobs.

� For game tickets, programs, concessions, merchandise, travel, meals and lodging alone fans spend at least $275 million a season.

� Nowhere is the impact more visible than in the stadiums built by school districts. Just in the Dallas area alone, at least $180 million will be spent on new varsity stadiums in the four year period ending in 2006.

� In the Dallas-Fort Worth area alone, there are 21 stadiums that seat 10,000 or more. In other states considered to be football hotbeds (California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida) 7000-seat high school football stadiums are considered large.

� There are an estimated 16,000 and 18,000 football coaches in Texas for grades 7-12.

In typical Texan hyperbole, says Johnny Bledsoe, president of Waco-based Sturdisteel Co., which builds stadiums throughout the country, says, "Other parts of the country think their high school football is big. It ain't."

It�s official. Texas high school football is big.

(this 316 word excerpt�with attendant commentary�was extracted from a 2448 word article in the Dallas Morning News of 9-6-04)