High school football has high expenses, low revenue
Illinois’ high school football playoffs start Friday, a season-ending reward for immense physical effort, shrewd game planning — and a whole lot of spending.
Some of the most successful Chicago-area programs drop more than 0,000 a year to play under the Friday night lights, a sum that for all the sport’s popularity is only modestly offset by ticket sales, concessions and fundraisers. The athletes themselves sometimes must come up with hundreds of dollars for the privilege of playing.
“Using the most conservative cost estimates and the most liberal revenue estimates, football might cover half of its cost — maybe,” said Hugh Franks, a former economics teacher in West Texas who published one of the only financial analyses of high school football. “It doesn’t even come close.”
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