Which high school boys’ sport is losing the most athletes? A deep dive into the numbers

Across the nation, including here in Nebraska, high school sports are facing a tough opponent: declining participation. Earlier this week, News Channel Nebraska took a deep dive into the state of girls’ athletics. Now, we’re turning the spotlight to the boys. Here's a look at the numbers, which may surprise you.

Across the nation and here in Nebraska, football continues to lead the scoreboard as the most popular sport for boys. But this powerhouse is struggling to keep players on the field. Within five years, the roster size for Nebraska high school football shrank by 76 players. Expand the timeline to a decade, and the sport lost 1324 athletes. Two decades? Down more than 2600.

Basketball is another sport trying to keep possession. In five years, participation dropped by 736, and within ten years the number of athletes decreased 833. But the biggest buzzer-beater? Twenty years ago there were 2047 more boys taking shots than there are today.

But not all sports have seen losses in players. Wrestling, for example, has been holding steady over the past decade, and is even up from 20 years ago. Meanwhile, baseball and soccer have won over more players, and other sports, like cross country, swimming and track are up from 20 years ago, but have lost some ground in the last ten years.

And then there’s golf, which hasn’t exactly been a hole-in-one, losing athletes over the past two decades. However, it may be finding its way back onto the fairway with a recent revival. From the 2017-18 to 2022-23 school year, 70 more players joined the sport.

You can take a closer look at all of the numbers on the Nebraska School Activities Association website.