High school sports participation, fueled by Vegas-rooted flag football growth, hits record high for 5th year in row

Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

High schoolhouse sports information nationwide deed an all-time grounds for the 5th consecutive twelvemonth successful 2025-26, driven mostly by the continued maturation of girls emblem shot — a roar that traces successful portion to Las Vegas, wherever the Clark County School District helped pioneer the athletics connected the varsity level.

The National Federation of State High School Associations’ yearly High School Athletics Participation Survey recovered that 8,415,684 students played precocious schoolhouse sports successful 2025-26, up 149,440 from the erstwhile year. That included 4,761,095 boys and 3,654,589 girls, some records, according to figures from the NFHS’s 51 subordinate associations, which includes Washington, D.C.

Girls emblem shot posted the astir melodramatic growth.

Participation roseate 48.7% past year, from 68,847 to 102,360, pushing emblem shot into the apical 10 nationally among girls sports. It inactive pales successful examination to way (509,070) and volleyball (502,056).

Since the archetypal postpandemic survey successful 2021-22, erstwhile 15,716 girls played emblem football, the athletics has grown by much than 87,000 participants successful 4 years.

The fig of schools reporting girls emblem shot climbed from 2,736 to 3,990 implicit the past year, and 37 states are expected to beryllium sanctioning the athletics oregon moving autarkic oregon aviator programs by adjacent year.

In Nevada, 1,959 girls played connected a prep emblem shot squad successful 2025-26, the survey showed.

CCSD adopted girls emblem shot arsenic a aviator programme successful 2012-13, making it 1 of the archetypal districts successful the state to connection the sport. The CCSD exemplary has since been adopted by different districts and states arsenic precocious schoolhouse emblem shot has dispersed nationally.

Flag football’s popularity successful the Las Vegas Valley has grown to the constituent that astir CCSD schools present tract 3 levels of teams — varsity, inferior varsity and freshman. CCSD athletes person gone connected to play successful college, and the athletics is acceptable to marque its debut astatine the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association sanctioned its archetypal girls emblem shot championships for the 2016-17 season.

Girls wrestling wasn’t acold down emblem shot nationally, with information up 19.9%, from 74,064 to 88,771.

The fig of schools sponsoring wrestling for girls stands astatine 8,853. Since the instrumentality to activities aft the pandemic, the fig of schools offering girls wrestling has grown from 4,802 to 8,853, and information has climbed from 31,654 to 88,771 girls.

All states present study immoderate level of girls wrestling participation, and 40 authorities associations behaviour authorities championships successful the sport.

In Nevada, 635 girls wrestled crossed 76 precocious schools. The NIAA offered a authorities tourney for the archetypal clip successful 2023.

“We are pleased to spot the fig of students progressive successful precocious schoolhouse sports continuing to emergence each year,” said Davis Whitfield, CEO of the NFHS. “Education-based sports wrong our nation’s schools is simply a privilege not disposable successful astir different countries, and we are thankful these opportunities proceed to expand.”

On the boys side, 5 of the apical 10 sports saw increases: 11-player football, way and field, soccer, play and tennis.

Eleven-player shot grew 1.4%, adding 14,128 participants to scope 1,043,716 — by acold the astir fashionable athletics for boys oregon girls nationally, and its highest people since the 2016-17 season. Including 6-, 8- and 9-player football, a full of 33,191 boys and 4,334 girls played immoderate signifier of football, bringing wide shot information to 1,081,241, up 11,597 from the erstwhile year.

In Nevada, 6,490 athletes crossed 96 schools participated successful tackle football, according to the survey.

Texas (911,405) and California (859,022) remained the apical 2 states for wide information by a wide margin. Ohio (347,994) ranked third, followed by Illinois (326,756), Pennsylvania (315,647), New York (312,563), Florida (311,233), Michigan (295,634), New Jersey (273,711) and Minnesota (241,536).

Nevada ranked 39th wide successful full information with 45,109 athletes — 26,249 successful boys sports and 18,860 successful girls, according to the survey.