13.6 Million ...
 

Basketball 24.4 million participants
Baseball/Softball 23.3 million participants
Soccer 13.6 million participants
Football 8.9 million participants
Ice hockey 3.1 million participants

Soccer is just a thinly veiled attempt to get kids exercised and probably one of the cheapest sport to play and little training for kids to be able to play...a win-win-win for most parents. If pro soccer ever got the money level you see in other pro sports it will explode.

Each board rates their officials their own way. When it comes down to state tournament assignments though, it is 100% how many votes you get from coaches and your assignments are 100% how much Mr Murray knows/trusts you.

One of our Rec Leagues has a pretty good youth, ref development program. They can start officiating as early 13 with the little kids (7/8) with an adult mentor there. I'm happy to say that several of these young officials keep it up into HS and even during their college years during breaks and the summer.

For many of them it's their first paying job (outside of mom and dad).

But, it's certainly not for everyone that's for sure.

Participation in a youth capacity is different than what happens in actual dollars for most communities and schools. I am in an area where every other year a new conference is forming or teams are leaving one conference to join another all because of football. Yes football might have fewer participants (many schools do not even have a football team) but everything in high school sports surrounds football. Teams are not moving conferences because of what is happening with the soccer team. Football in my state for most schools is one of the biggest revenue generators. Basketball does very well for many schools as well. Soccer is an afterthought. Soccer and other sports are lucky to get as many people attending those games as a JV football contest. Just alone in my state, the football and basketball State Finals (which advertises to get officials) are shown on live TV. The other sports not mentioned might be shown live, but you have to pay for the service with streaming video to see those events live. And all of this influences how we get officials and where they come from.

I belong to an organization of organizations called the Inter-Athletic Council of Officials (IACO). IACO is a group of official's associations that bond together to run area trainings. We have only camps and classes for football and basketball. We used to have a baseball/softball camp, but we lost so much money on that event we had to stop holding that event. We have had people try to start camps in other sports like wrestling and we cannot get enough participation and interest. This is also another reason we can find soccer officials that work multiple state finals and in sports like Football or Basketball, if you get 3 trips to the State Finals you are fortunate. But someone in Soccer might have 6 or 7 trips in their career.

Peace

Horse Racing And Boxing ...
 

Agree. But still, 13.6 million soccer participants ain't nothing to sneeze at.

Maybe not in Illinois, but we are certainly a country that "cares about soccer".

Pratt and Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field, in East Hartford, Connecticut (home of the University of Connecticut football Huskies) seats 41,000. USA Soccer has men's, or women's, games there about twice a year, and the stadium is almost filled to capacity for these games. Granted, fans are, for the most part, parents (soccer Moms) with children, or immigrants watching their home country, but soccer is certainly a lot more popular now compared to when I went to high school back in ancient times.

Soccer certainly isn't anywhere near up there with basketball, and football, but it's become a pretty popular sport over the past fifty years. Things change. At one time the biggest sports in the United States were horse racing, and boxing. Look at what happened to them.

OK, then why are they talking about a shortage of officials in soccer? You think people become officials out of thin air? Usually people join a sport because they either had a kid that played it or they have interest in the game. Most newer officials we see here are older than me and usually people that join their sport after their kids have graduated and said to themselves, "I can do that." So yes the number is not bad, but it does not translate into officials. I stand by what I said, soccer is not the this countries sport. I would not say that about Hockey and Hockey at least is followed heavily at the pro or NHL level.

My comment is not about Illinois either. There are states that do not pack the house for youth soccer.

USA soccer? You are using USA, international Soccer as a judge for something in this conversation? Really? Are TV ratings on par with other sports in our country? Michigan and Tennessee fill up their football stadiums multiple times a year with over 100,000 people. And they can and do get ratings even a regional broadcast gets during those games in the Northeast? There are high school football games that get better TV ratings in our local market than the pro MLS team in Chicago. And most major cities do not have a soccer team for a reason. Heck the women's league

Yeah, but they said soccer was going to take over 20 years ago when the MLS came onto the scene. I am still waiting for kids to play that sport on anything other than football beyond some youth and middle school level.

Again the issue is shortage of officials, not how many kids might play a sport at some time.

Peace

Men At Work ...
 

All three of my children played scholastic soccer, and one played collegiate soccer. I can only remember attending two, or three, night games. For some reason, Connecticut high school soccer is played in the afternoon, usually on weekdays. Most people have to work for a living, and most work during the day.

We're having the same problem with our basketball officials. Middle school, and high school freshman, games are usually played in the afternoon (3:30 p.m., 4:00 p.m.). We just don't have enough available officials to cover those games. Some of those games only get one official. Many middle school officials work their middle school game, stay dressed, get in their car, and head to a nearby high school junior varsity game. Others work the freshman game and stay and work the junior varsity game.

If you're available in the afternoon, there is money to be made; basketball, soccer, volleyball, lacrosse, field hockey, rugby, and a few other sports.

Is that why fans are always yelling at me, "Don't quit your day job".

Crystal Ball Needs Cleaning ...
 

And they said that the United States was going to go to the metric system. How did that turn out?

Well here, they play many games at night. These games make very little revenue for either gender at the high school level. Same in small colleges as well. They even play soccer here on Friday nights and still not the focus that football or basketball gets. I have a good friend that is a soccer official and he makes it very clear it is nothing like football.

Since we are on the basketball site, basketball officials in our state is not at all an issue. More than enough to cover games at all levels. Now the quality of officials to cover many games might be an issue, but I am not sure that is bad either.

But those other sports are hurting big time to find people to cover games.

Peace

A pro soccer player would be making "starvation" wages in compared to even the NHL if they werent the a star among stars. That probably keeps most players from continuing on. About 6-7 times less.

Football Drives The Bus ...
 

Agree.

I never paid to attend a regular season, or early round state tournament, scholastic, or collegiate, soccer game.

Football, and basketball, are the big high school revenue producers here in Connecticut.

While football often has the biggest revenues, it also has -- by far-- the biggest expenses of any of the HS sports -- you can outfit a basketball or soccer team for what it costs for the equipment for one football player.

While Football coaches (and those who love HS football) love to point at the gate revenue, I'm curious how many schools are actually net positive for their football programs once all the costs are added in. (I've never seen an analysis for HS, but I have read (can't cite, sorry) that outside the five (?) big conferences, college football is a net cost to the schools. (Recent TV contracts for other conferences could have also changed that.)

My sense is that while football generates more revenue, hoops generates more profit for most schools because of the relative costs. (And while more attend each football game, there are a lot more BB games.)

Also - there are quite a few high schools that receive revenue by selling the broadcasting rights of their football games to local radio stations. I'm guessing this helps fund those programs.

Maybe, but the revenue in football often helps pay the bills for other sports. Baseball, Soccer or even Wrestling does not quite do that. Also many booster clubs help raise money during football games where they do not raise the same money in other sports. Equipment purchases run in cycles. I doubt that there is a vast expense in equipment when you might not buy something but every 3 or 4 years in the first place. Also I see high school football all over the TV and national TV at that. I bet one broadcast on ESPN or some local channel might bring money that none of the other sports even sniff. You are right, there might be more expenses in football or even basketball, but when thousands come to your games over maybe a 100 in other sports, that might be completely absorbed by those sports. Again, I never see a varsity contest in the regular season that might get what a JV football game gets during that same regular season. But I am sure there are exceptions somewhere. Just do not see that the case in this part of the country.

I am sure there are schools that lose money. But do not tell me that a sport that gets a very modest gate is paying for those buses or transportation that it takes to play a season. Football here for example here has 9 weekends. Maybe 5 of those are road games. If you play soccer, you are playing more games. There is more travel in other sports than anything in most football. You have to pay a bus driver and insurance for the transportation as well. If I get 5 to 7 thousand at 4 or 5 dollars a pop, I can make a lot of money just for other things in one weekend. We have not talked about the concessions or other fund raising done. Let us not make it sound like the potential is the same for revenue.

You live in California and I am looking at your games on TV, it is clear that there are a lot of people that attend football games. Probably more than attend many games here. Basketball is really this state's passion more than football, but again if you are a middle of the road basketball program, you probably are not getting a lot of money. For one many of your events are away from home. Unless you host a tournament and make a lot of money at those events, the teams coming might not make much of anything to participate. Or if you make money, they are paying for maybe some hotel or travel so that you can play, but are they making money doing that or just breaking even?

Again we have had an influx of conference movement and it usually at the heart of what football is doing. Basketball almost never seems to be a factor when you look at these changes.

Peace