According to a poll on @fsjournalism, 47% of students’ favorite sport to watch is football; boys soccer was the second most popular at 27% favorability and volleyball in third at 15% favorability. Because of this preference, student athletes who partake in spring sports have noticed a significant difference in attendance at their games.
Assistant girls soccer coach Simon Skinner said the difference in attendance was noticeable as soon as the season began. During the first home game of the season, Skinner said he noticed more fans in attendance for the opposing team.
For girls swim and dive, junior Helena Mattes said she thinks a large part of the problem is difficulty advertising when games are during the busy spring season.
“Most everyone in the school knows when there’s a football game or basketball game, but I’ll wear my swim team shirt to school on the days we have meets and people will say to me, ‘You have a swim meet today?’” Mattes said. “Not many students would’ve even known when our senior night meet was without actively looking for that information.”
In addition to smaller crowds in attendance, she also believes the girls swim and dive team is having a harder time getting athletes to join. Mattes said that because swimming has less people in it now, it makes it harder to get people to try the sport later because students continue to stay unaware of it.
“Not many girls go out to swim in general because of how unpopular it is,” Mattes said. “…Girls swimming is a spring sport, its season is at the same time as the most popular sport: track. On the other hand, the boys swim team at Free State seems pretty big for a swim team, one reason being because it’s a winter sport.”
For sports like golf that never take place on campus, sophomore and JV golfer Jake McMahon said that, even if students would like to support the team, it is inaccessible for many fans to show up at games.
”It would be better to grow the team if it had more support from the school,” McMahon said “…I’m not sure if golf can receive the same amount of support from fans since it is a calmer sport.”
