EAST LANSING, Mich. – Aug. 31 – Buoyed by a reformatted District and Regional tournament schedule in volleyball, attendance at Michigan High School Athletic Association postseason tournaments for girls set a new record during the 2008-09 school year, and contributed to an overall increase at the gate over the previous season.

      

Total attendance for 2008-09 was 1,487,514 with 1,097,918 fans at boys tournaments; and 389,596 spectators at girls tournaments. Attendance is kept for all sports except golf, skiing and tennis, where admission is typically not charged.

      

The girls attendance figure broke the old record of 384,646 in 2002-03, and was a 14.1 percent increase over 2007-08. The boys figure was a drop of 2.4 percent over the previous year, but for boys and girls combined there was an overall tournament attendance increase of 1.5 percent.

      

It was the MHSAA’s work to reformat the tournament schedule by having schools play only one match per day that led to a record attendance at the District and Regional rounds of the girls volleyball tournaments, where 54,910 fans attended District matches and 17,766 were at Regionals. The Quarterfinals of the tournament also set a record with 7,463; and the tournament series hit a new high with 86,689.  Ironically, the combined Semifinals and Finals attendance of 6,550 was the second lowest since the Association began compiling such figures during the 1990-91 school year; the 2007 Fall Finals total of 6,070 being the bottoming-out point.

      

Other girls tournaments setting new overall attendance records in 2008-09 were competitive cheer with 20,752; lacrosse with 3,897, and swimming and diving with 5,009. Boys tournaments to set overall marks were baseball with 49,411; and swimming and diving with 6,539. The MHSAA Bowling Tournament, at which boys and girls compete simultaneously, also set a new spectatorship mark with 11,442.

      

The overall attendance figure was up for the second straight year, but was still the third lowest since 1999-00, the first year of the eight-division football playoffs. Basketball was at an all-time low for boys with 340,370; and the girls mark of 153,287, while a 1.4 percent increase over the previous year, was its second lowest. The football playoffs had its second poorest year since the 256-team, five-week tournament began in 1999 with 449,162.

      

The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by over 1,600 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 approximately 1.6 million spectators each year.

 

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