A Decline in Youth Football Participation And Its Impact on The N.F.L.

The amount of football players in America are diminishing, especially amongst the youth. With football being one of the more dangerous sports, the decline doesn’t come as a complete surprise. According to data by the National Federation of State High School Associations, fewer than 1.04 million high school students played football in 2017. In an article written by Jacob Bogage from The Washington Post, he points out that the decline includes “20,000 fewer athletes, a 2 percent drop from 2016.” He also notes that “in the past decade, football enrollment has declined 6.6 percent, according to NFHS data.” What’s even more astonishing is the fact that twenty schools across America have decided to drop football completely, including junior varsity and freshman programs. Even with the participation issues, the sport somehow remains as the number one boys participatory sport in the nation. According to Bogage, the number currently sits at roughly 1.36 million, nearly 500 thousand more than second more popular sport, Track & Field. Even so, the falloff has caught the attention of all levels of football, including the N.F.L. With injuries seeming to be the main cause for concern, the National Football League has decided to change some of its safety protocol. They recently adjusted their “roughing the passer” penalty where defenders are no longer allowed to bring down or fall on top of quarterbacks, regardless of intent or how severe the impact may or may not be. While this certainly doesn’t make defenders happy, just ask Clay Matthews, it further shows how even the N.F.L. is doing everything in its power to make the game becomes safer for better viewership, and to ultimately keep kids from switching over to a different sport. It’ll be interesting to see how the issue continues to affect football at the youth and N.F.L. level, as well as other echelons of sport such as the NCAA. Time will only tell.