High School Sports Participation by State, 2015-16 to 2025-26

What the NFHS counts

Every year the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) collects participation figures from its member state associations, one per state plus the District of Columbia. The survey counts participation entries: a student who plays football in the fall and runs track in the spring is counted twice. The figures are not a head count of students.

In 2025-26 the survey recorded 8,415,684 entries, 4,761,095 by boys and 3,654,589 by girls. The largest totals belong to the largest states, Texas (911,405) and California (859,022), so to compare states this study divides each state’s entries by its population aged 14 to 17, the usual high school ages, from Census Bureau estimates.

Participation entries per 1,000 residents aged 14 to 17

Iowa reported 843 entries for every 1,000 residents aged 14 to 17 in 2025-26, followed by Mississippi (836) and Minnesota (786). At the other end, Nevada reported 274 and Florida 293. The national rate was 487, and 31 states and DC were above it.

A rate this high does not mean most teenagers in Iowa play a sport. Because multi-sport students are counted once per sport, the rate measures how many roster spots are filled, not how many students fill them.

All states, ranked by entries per 1,000 residents aged 14 to 17 in 2025-26

How the rates changed in ten years

Between 2015-16 and 2025-26, the rate rose in 37 states and DC, fell in 12, and was unchanged in Florida. Nationally, entries grew 7.0% while the population aged 14 to 17 grew 1.1%.

Largest increases in the rate, 2015-16 to 2025-26

Largest decreases in the rate, 2015-16 to 2025-26

The NFHS cautions that an increase may reflect more complete reporting as well as real growth, and that reporting practices differ between states. Large jumps in a single state are best read as a prompt to check with that state’s association, not as proof that many more students started playing.

Nevada

Nevada, where MX Trophies is based, had the lowest rate in 2025-26 and the second lowest in 2015-16. Its entries barely moved (45,265 in 2015-16, 45,109 in 2025-26) while its population aged 14 to 17 grew 8.8%, from 151,153 to 164,497, so the rate fell from 299 to 274.

The state figure covers schools that belong to the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association and report to the NFHS. Club sports, recreation leagues and youth programs outside high schools are not part of it.

Which sports grew

Among sports with at least 10,000 entries in 2025-26 and 5,000 in 2015-16, flag football grew fastest, from 12,093 to 103,573 entries, almost all of them girls. Competitive spirit (competitive cheer) roughly doubled, from 128,853 to 259,748, and wrestling grew 45.4%, to 384,030.

Fastest-growing sports, 2015-16 to 2025-26 (all states)

Sports with at least 10,000 entries in 2025-26 and 5,000 in 2015-16. Dance and drill are left out because the two reports group those entries differently.

Much of the growth in newer sports comes from more states adding them: girls flag football was reported by 6 states in 2015-16 and 29 in 2025-26. The gains were concentrated in girls’ programs.

Two girls’ sports, 2015-16 to 2025-26

Two sports with more than 10,000 entries in 2025-26 were not in the 2015-16 report at all: esports (27,057) and stunt (10,285).

Several of the biggest sports shrank. Basketball went from 975,808 to 902,265 entries (-7.5%), 11-player football from 1,082,637 to 1,047,949 (-3.2%), and swimming and diving from 300,217 to 246,116 (-18.0%).

The twelve largest sports in 2025-26, with their ten-year change

Method, sources and limits

We took each state’s total participation entries from the “Totals by State” table in the NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey reports for 2025-26 and 2015-16, and national sport totals from the sport lists in the same reports. The state totals add up exactly to the national totals the NFHS publishes for both years.

For population we used Census Bureau estimates of residents aged 14 to 17 on July 1, 2025 (Vintage 2025) and July 1, 2015 (the intercensal estimates released after the 2020 Census), summed from single years of age. The rate is entries divided by that population, times 1,000. Ranks use unrounded rates.

A separate script checked the figures against other sources: the NFHS press release for 2025-26 (national total, boys and girls, the ten largest states and three sport totals), the NFHS national totals and “most popular programs” tables, Census’s civilian population file for 2025 and its state single-year-of-age workbooks for 2015. Every published figure matched.

Sources

• NFHS, 2025-26 High School Athletics Participation Survey (PDF), state totals and sport totals, retrieved November 12, 2026
• NFHS, 2015-16 High School Athletics Participation Survey (PDF), from the NFHS survey archive
• NFHS, high school sports participation data and statistics, survey overview and notes on interpreting the data
• NFHS, participation survey archive, earlier survey reports
• NFHS press release on the 2025-26 survey, October 1, 2026
• U.S. Census Bureau, state population by characteristics, Vintage 2025, sc-est2025-alldata6, July 1, 2025
• U.S. Census Bureau, intercensal state population estimates, 2010 to 2020, sc-est2020int-alldata6, July 1, 2015

Limits

• Participation entries are not students. States with more multi-sport students, or more sports on offer, report more entries per student.
• Each state’s figure covers the schools in its NFHS member association. Schools that compete in a separate association, club teams and youth leagues are not counted, and the NFHS notes that reporting practices differ between states.
• The population aged 14 to 17 includes teenagers who are not enrolled in a member high school, and leaves out students outside that age range.
• Ten-year changes can reflect changes in reporting as well as in participation. Sports added by more states over the decade show large percentage gains partly for that reason.
• The 2015-16 rates use Census estimates revised after the 2020 Census. Earlier estimates for 2015 give somewhat different rates for some states.