In the Shadows: How Football Looms Over High-School Athletics

Credit: Eastside Catholic School

American Football has been in some sense, America’s athleticized sweetheart since the late 1920s when the sport began to gain its rise to the top of the sports food chain. The sport “developed out of something like a cross between association football (or soccer) and rugby.”

In another sense, football drapes a blanket across modern America’s entertainment sources with the NFL’s logo imprinted big and bold, smack in the middle of that veil.

The niche sport holds four days of the week in its hands with primetime games on Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays. The late window on Sunday is also typically a spot for premier contests, the-now trademarked Sunday Night Football.

Yet it leaves the resounding question, where is that space for every other sport?

It seems there is rarely as much anticipation for any other athletic activity or artistic extracurricular, in comparison to football. American Football validates itself as a hovering silhouette overshadowing the rest of, not only a variation of sporting opportunities, but recognition for the arts.

The 2023 Super Bowl reeled in a whopping 115 million viewers. “The 2023 edition of the Super Bowl, which saw the Kansas City Chiefs emerge victorious against the Philadelphia Eagles was watched by over 115 million viewers in the United States, making it not only the most watched Super Bowl in history, but also the most popular TV program of all time in the U.S.”

This only further demonstrates the country’s passion-induced commitment to the sport.

Centering on prep football, homecoming week is built around an eagerly expected football game in the beginning of every high school year. Followed by dances, reunions, and individual school traditions, surrounded with an immense volume of hype and promotion.

We even see the NFL hosting “homecoming” “for former NFL players often return to the field of their glory days to be honored with a warm reception”, of course, with differentiating purpose and tradition, but the name is there.

“Of course, I wish that the arts had more hype and more excitement around it. But at the same time, I feel like especially at Eastside Catholic, it’s kind of designed to be a school that is surrounded by just the energy from football.”

Credit: Curtis High School

Asher Kaufman, peer member of the Thespian Society at Eastside Catholic’s response expressed acknowledgement that most schools around the United States are assembled around school spirit encouraged by football games.

“I think that, just football is like an American thing, [and] sports is just the monopoly of entertainment. [Especially] when it comes also just to high schools because it’s kind of just the most exciting thing, because it gives you the most adrenaline.

And with the arts, it’s kind of very different. It’s more philosophical or more of just like a reflection of the world.”

Kaufman also notes the issue relies within motivation.

“There needs to be some sort of incentive going on. And like that’s kind of part of the problem, is it’s just like: Yeah, there is this event. Show up.

You need to bring that sort of [adrenalized] kick in with these things, because it’s like, if you think of a football game, the energy is going to be high.

And if you hear someone say: Oh, there’s a play happening tonight. You’re kind of like, OK. I mean, sounds interesting, but I don’t know, like I also could just stay home.

I think that’s the general consensus of the people at EC. And I think it needs to be like, oh, there’s a play tonight!”

The sad truth of celebration for all extracurriculars and sports is recognized when regarding the eagerness and advertising for these said activities.

“Companies spent a total of 449 million dollars on in-game advertising during the [Super Bowl] in 2020” versus a flatlining comparison to another well-loved sport, “MLB Major League Baseball Enterprises spent under $100 million on advertising in digital, print, and national TV”.

“[The promotion is] definitely not to the same level as football but, it’s not to the point where it’s like the only thing that is being promoted and being worked on are football games.

But [then there’s] activities like robotics, I’ve never heard anything about robotics. There’s a lot of things that definitely go without promotion and unheard.”

Credit: O’Dea High School

While football clearly holds a place in the collective hearts of many Americans, it tends to overshadow a multitude of other sports, schools’ extracurricular offerings, and even other professional sports.

If we allow football to play right into our hearts, why not allow the entertainment of others do the same? An impressive and diverse array of after-school activities sit waiting for students to take them on, but football overshadows the wide majority of these extracurriculars.

It seems we’re reaching a point (and may have already done so) when we need to take the excitement centered on football and find ways to redistribute it to the ever-broadening spectrum of opportunities presented to young students every day.