Guarding the Gate
February 24, 2012
More slowly than I would like, because it’s not a field in which I’ve had formal training or extensive practical experience, I’ve been learning about the world of startup companies and venture capitalists that discovered the sports world in the 1990s and have proliferated during the past decade.
Usually with their founder making the contact, many of these young companies have reached out to the MHSAA, hoping we will embrace and endorse or utilize their new product or service. Almost all owe their existence to the World Wide Web and to the passion of their founder, either for sports or for a concept they think solves some need of athletes, coaches or fans . . . or advertisers and sponsors.
And almost every one of these startups is looking for an exit; looking for a bigger fish to swallow them whole. And paying them handsomely for consuming the young guppy. A lucky few make what the industry calls the “Big Exit,” like a major network buying the startup for many millions of dollars.
We hear from many of these startups that the advertisers are clamoring for this or that they are promoting, but we usually see one of two things happen. Either the advertisers show so little interest that the startup fails, or what support the advertisers do provide goes to the venture capitalists and not to those providing the content.
As we screen the plethora of proposals to capitalize on high school sporting events in Michigan, we look for two kinds of assurances. First, that the suitor doesn’t have an exit strategy; and second, that the initiative will have direct benefit in terms of both money and message to those providing the content: i.e., schools.
Most of the initiatives we screen will assist schools with neither money nor message, and some of them would actually provide a message that is contrary to the mission of educational athletics.
So we’re guarding the gate, in both directions – controlling the entrance to the high school sports market in Michigan, as well as the escape of those who are in our market for a fast buck and quick exit, big or small.
Football Participation
June 13, 2017
Each summer, the Michigan High School Athletic Association issues several news releases that, together, help to inform us about the health of high school sports in Michigan. These include reports regarding participation and attendance.
The first of these releases will occur later this month when we report on participation and make comparisons to previous years. Later, there will be a report of how participation in Michigan compares to other states.
Without going into detail now, I’ll preempt the first release to provide its biggest news – football participation was down about five percent in grades 9-12 in 2016 compared to 2015.
The decline in number of schools sponsoring 11-player football is matched by the increase in schools sponsoring the 8-player game. So overall, the number of football schools is stable; but squad size is smaller.
Among other things, this predicts continuing growth in 8-player football, which expects approximately 60 schools this fall when the MHSAA 8-player tournament expands from one to two 16-team divisions.
The latest participation data also requires that those of us who love the game of football have much work to do; and that work has little to do with how either the 8- or 11-player tournament is conducted.
The focus needs to be on practice – including how early in August it begins and how much contact is allowed; the focus must be on personnel – including the importance of hiring on-staff teachers as coaches; and the focus must be on perceptions – including our narrative that our game has never been healthier for junior high/middle school and high school students and never more important for the unity and identity of schools and communities.
Like other sports, football is challenged by declining high school age enrollment, expansion in the number of sports offered by schools and increased single-sport specialization, as well as a largely misplaced concern for injuries.
On June 28, the leadership of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association is convening a focus group to help identify the themes that resonate best with parents and who the most trusted people are to deliver those messages. This is an important effort.