Football Week in Michigan
November 24, 2017
One of the best and most influential friends of school sports I know from outside the field of school sports is Greg Hammaren, senior vice president and general manager of FOX Sports Detroit.
Greg has observed his children participate in school sports and has taken special interest in treating educational athletics with first class efforts when producing MHSAA Finals in football and basketball for many years. He has been respectful of what we value and how we do things in high school sports.
About one year ago, Greg observed that his network and most other well-known names in live cable or over-the-air video sports production were abandoning the high school level. He felt that FOX Sports Detroit should not join that trend. But he had to convince the parent company in southern California that we were valued by Michigan’s consumers and advertisers. He has done just that.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association Football Playoff Finals dominate the schedule for FOX Sports Detroit’s first annual Football Week in Michigan this November. Over eight days, the best high school, college and professional football involving Michigan teams is being featured on a variety of FOX video platforms – FOX Sports Detroit, FS1, FOX Sports GO!, Big Ten Network and FOX over-the-air television.
MHSAA championship football games provide 10 of the 13 games during FWIM. The prep schedule began on Nov. 18 when the two divisions of the 8-Player Football Finals were shown live on the FOX Sports Detroit Facebook page from the Superior Dome in Marquette. Delayed telecasts of both games were aired on FOX Sports Detroit on Nov. 21.
This weekend, seven of the eight 11-Player Football Finals on Nov. 24-25 are being shown live on FOX Sports Detroit-PLUS, the exception being the Division 4 game tonight which will be shown on a same-day delayed basis on FOX Sports Detroit this evening at 11:30 p.m. All of the 11-player Finals will be available live on FOX Sports GO!
Over-the-air FOX television affiliates in Michigan also have the option to carry 11-player Final games being shown live in their markets if they have a local team participating in a game. Participating affiliates are: Alpena – WBKB-DT2 (11.2); Cadillac – WFQX-TV (32); Detroit – WJBK-TV (2); Flint – WSMH-TV (66); Grand Rapids – WXMI-TV (17); Lansing – WSYM-TV (47); Marquette – WLUC-DT2 (6.2); Sault Ste. Marie – WWUP-DT2 (10.2); Vanderbilt – WFUP-TV (45). Check local listings for games to be shown locally.
Football Week in Michigan – Greg’s brainchild – was officially recognized in October in a Proclamation by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.
FOX Sports Detroit’s MHSAA Football Playoff coverage began Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. with the announcement of the pairings for the 2017 playoffs on the Selection Sunday Show on FOX Sports Detroit-PLUS. Each week throughout the playoffs leading up to the 11-player Finals, the FOX Sports Detroit Prep Zone featured four games viewed live on FoxSportsDetroit.com and FOX Sports GO! – with one game also available live on the FOX Sports Detroit Facebook page.
MHSAA Tournament Sports
April 25, 2017
It is far from a rare occasion that the Michigan High School Athletic Association receives correspondence from a constituent – and most frequently from students – to provide an MHSAA-sponsored and conducted tournament for a sport they love, but which is not yet among the 14 sports for girls and 14 for boys which the MHSAA currently serves and supports with a statewide tournament.
The most recent additions to MHSAA tournament sports were boys and girls bowling and boys and girls lacrosse tournaments during the 2004-05 school year. In each case the MHSAA joined a small list of states with tournaments in those sports and quickly became one of the leading states in terms of the number of sponsoring schools and participating students, even as the sports spread to an increasing number of states across the U.S.
In neither case has the assimilation of the sport been problem-free. Lacrosse has struggled with travel limitations, and bowling with rules related to amateur status. Lacrosse has experienced issues related to game officials, and bowling has had to overcome venue challenges.
At the end of each school year the MHSAA asks its member high schools to report what sports they officially sponsored on a competitive interscholastic basis and how many students participated. This is one of the indicators of what might be added next to the lineup of MHSAA tournament sports. The most popular non-MHSAA tournament sports on last year’s survey (2015-16) were as follows:
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For girls . . . |
For boys . . . |
MHSAA policy advises the Representative Council to consider serving and supporting sports that are sponsored by 64 or more member high schools. It’s always a two-way street. Do those involved in the sport desire an MHSAA tournament and all the services and restraints that entails, and does the Representative Council believe the MHSAA can provide unique and necessary guidance and assistance? That mutual agreement occurred with bowling and lacrosse; it did not occur with equestrian; and there have been no conversations as yet regarding weightlifting.
We know that MHSAA tournament sponsorship gives a sport a bump – it leads to more schools sponsoring the sport. We know that students benefit – and with that, so does society – when schools provide a broad array of sports with which to engage students. But we also know there are limits – time, money, facilities, personnel – which are local realities that moderate our idealism.