CIF participation survey

[ClayK]

Girls' basketball is the fourth most popular girls' sport in California, behind soccer, volleyball and track.

Discounting track, which is often (not always) an easy way to get a varsity sport on your college resume, the numbers:

Soccer: 49,342
Volleyball: 45,997
Basketball: 35,902
Softball: 32,233

The good news for people on this board is that percentage-wise, basketball participation was up 3.67%, much better than volleyball's 1.90%. Soccer increased 4.56% and note that soccer and basketball are both winter sports in California, meaning coaches are competing for the same pool of athletes.

The bad news is that there were 35,133 basketball players in 2012, an increase of 769 over the past eight years. Volleyball increased by 5,426 and soccer by 5,751.

On a different note, football participation continues to decline, down to 91,305 last year from 103,725 in 2015. Most of that decline has come due to the increased concern about concussions, presumably.

This, though good in many ways, could have a severe negative effect on high school sports, as revenue and community interest is driven by football.

 

[colhenrylives]

This one is tough to prove: When it comes to tall girls, volleyball is stripping a lot of potential post players away from the hoops realm. The evidence to support that thesis is anecdotal so far.

 

[ClayK]

I think the numbers show that a lot of girls are choosing volleyball, presumably because of the lack of contact. And some of those girls are bound to be tall ...

I know there was a girl at Miramonte who played volleyball and basketball up until her sophomore year and then chose volleyball. She was 5-10 or so and would have helped us.

And over the years, I've seen many girls who would have been good basketball players choose volleyball -- and anecdotally, of course, I've seen fewer make the other decision.