Pay-to-Play Down Slightly, Survey Shows
July 24, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Slightly less than 50 percent of MHSAA member high schools assessed sports participation fees during the 2017-18 school year, according to an annual survey that enjoyed its highest response rate in 14 years of measuring the prevalence of charging students to help fund interscholastic athletics.
This year’s survey was completed by a record 80 percent of the MHSAA’s 751 member high schools, and 49 percent of respondents charged participation fees – down slightly from 49.7 percent in 2016-17, when the rate dropped below 50 percent for the first time since 2009-10.
The MHSAA conducted its first participation fee survey during the 2003-04 school year, when 24 percent of responding schools reported they charged fees. The percentage of member schools charging fees crossed 50 percent in 2010-11 and reached a high of 56.6 percent in 2013-14.
Class A schools remained the largest group charging fees in 2017-18, with 65 percent of respondents doing so – although that percentage was the lowest for Class A since 66 percent reported using fees in 2011-12. Class B schools fell to 47 percent charging fees (from 52 percent in 2016-17), while Class C (46 percent) and Class D (37) schools remained below 50 percent as well.
Charging a standardized fee for each team on which a student-athlete participates – regardless of the number of teams – remains the most popular method among schools assessing fees, with that rate at 43 percent of schools. Schools charging a one-time standardized fee per student-athlete showed a slight decrease to 28 percent, while assessing fees based on tiers of the number of sports a student-athlete plays (for example, charging a larger fee for the first team and less for additional sports) and assessing fees based on the specific sport being played (some being more expensive than others) both showed slight upticks to 15 and 5 percent, respectively.
The amounts of most fees remained consistent during 2017-18: the median annual maximum fee per student at $150, the median annual maximum family fee at $300 and the median per-team fee at $75 – all for at least the fourth straight year. The median fee assessed by schools that charge student-athletes once per year held steady at $125 for the second straight school year.
Click for the survey for 2017-18, and surveys from previous years can be found here.
Four 1st-Time Title Winners Headline 2022-23 Parade of Champions
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 23, 2023
A total of 101 schools won one or more of the 128 Michigan High School Athletic Association team championships awarded during the 2022-23 school sports year, with four teams earning the first Finals championship in any sport in their schools’ histories.
Johannesburg-Lewiston celebrated its first MHSAA Finals team championship during the fall by winning the Lower Peninsula Division 4 girls cross country title. Taylor Trillium Academy earned its first during the winter, in Division 4 girls bowling. This spring, Buckley won its first Finals title, in Lower Peninsula Division 4 girls track & field, and Standish-Sterling earned the school’s first championship by clinching Division 3 softball.
A total of 20 schools won two or more championships this school year, paced by Marquette’s six won in girls and boys cross country, girls and boys swimming & diving and girls and boys track & field. Ann Arbor Pioneer, East Grand Rapids and Munising all were next with three Finals championships. Winning two titles in 2022-23 were Ann Arbor Greenhills, Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood, Bloomfield Hills Marian, Detroit Catholic Central, Flint Powers Catholic, Grand Rapids Christian, Hart, Hudson, Jackson Lumen Christi, Lansing Catholic, Manistique, Northville, Rochester Adams, Rockford and Traverse City West.
A total of 30 teams won first MHSAA titles in their respective sports. A total of 37 champions were repeat winners from 2021-22. A total of 17 teams won championships for at least the third-straight season, while eight teams extended title streaks to at least four consecutive seasons. The Lowell wrestling program owns the longest title streak at 10 seasons.
Sixteen of the MHSAA's 28 team championship tournaments are unified, involving teams from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas, while separate competition to determine titlists in both Peninsulas is conducted in remaining sports.
For a sport-by-sport listing of MHSAA champions for 2022-23, Click Here.
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 1.3 million spectators each year.