The Tennis Industry’s Best Kept Secret - High School Tennis

High School Tennis and the National Federation of High School Associations (NFHS)

High school tennis has the most participants of any junior tennis program in the United States.

A comparison of high school tennis to two notable USTA programs shows that high school tennis has three times more players than the USTA Junior Team Tennis program, which has 100,000 participants annually. It also has more players than the highly regarded USTA adult leagues (320,000).

The NFHS is a governing body of state high school associations that provides rules of competition, guidelines, education, and marketing for most high school sports and activities in the United States. In addition, it compiles data from the state associations to produce participation statistics for these activities. That data is analyzed in the following paragraphs.

You Have Come a Long Way, Baby

The United States tennis participation data, compiled by Sports Marketing Services, reported that tennis enjoyed a boom during the pandemic. Unfortunately, the COVID-related policies that caused people to flock to recreation and club tennis courts caused many school programs to shut down. As a result, NFHS did not compile high school sports and tennis participation statistics for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.

The data in Table I shows there was a slow but gallant recovery in 2022-23. Total participation for all sports exceeded the pre-pandemic levels in 2023-24.

Also, note that there were about four million high school athletes in all sports for 1971-72. By 2023-24, the number of athletes doubled to more than eight million. The number of boys increased from 3.7 million to 4.6 million over this period and the number of girls increased from about 300,000 to 3.4 million.

For the school year 1971-72 (Table II), there were about 117,000 tennis athletes. Since then, Title IX created opportunities for girl athletes to increase their participation in tennis and other sports. The number of boys increased from 91,279 in 1971-72 to 157,835 in 2023-24, while the number of girls increased from 26,010 to 195,766.

The number of boy tennis athletes bounced back after the pandemic but remained below the pre-pandemic level in 2023-24, while the number of girl tennis athletes exceeded the pre-pandemic level during the 2022-23 season.

Over the past decade, about 55% of high school tennis players have been girls. During that period, about 4.4% of high school athletes were tennis players – 3.5% of boy athletes were tennis players, and 5.7% of girl athletes were tennis players.

Where are NFHS High School Tennis Athletes and Programs Located?

Table III shows that about two-thirds of high school tennis athletes reside in the top sixteen states. Each state has a combined tennis population greater than 8,000 athletes.

Almost one in four high school players are from Texas or California. The two states have about 84,000 high school tennis athletes.

Texas, Southern California, Florida, and North Carolina are sunbelt states. The U.S. population and tennis participation has increased significantly in sunbelt states. High school sports will benefit from this growth.

Between 2020 and 2023, the population declined in California, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The declines in population may limit the growth of high school sports in these states in the near term.

What are the Most Popular High School Sports?

Table IV shows participation and program numbers for the top twenty sports, ranked by the total number of athletes. These sports have varying appeal to boys and girls. For example, there are more than 1.1 million football players and 99.6% are boys. On the other hand, there are 52,000 field hockey players, and 99.7% are girls.

About 5.4 million athletes participate in the top seven sports: outdoor track and field, football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, baseball, and cross-country programs. These sports are often in the fall or spring. Top athletes may choose to play these sports rather than tennis.

Each of the top seven sports has more than 400,000 participants. Less than one percent of the participants in baseball and football are girls. Volleyball is the only sport in the top seven that has a majority (84.9%) of athletes who are girls.

Tennis is ranked ninth in participation, with 353,601 athletes. About 55% of tennis athletes are girls. Wrestling and softball (fast pitch) have a similar number of athletes as tennis.

The Impact of COVID-Related Policy on High School Sports

During the pandemic, the U.S. tennis population increased by about six million players. The COVID-related policies that encouraged social distancing favored sports like tennis and golf. On the other hand, NFHS did not report participation for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons because some schools temporarily discontinued sports programs because of those same policies.

Most sports recovered slowly, beginning in 2021-2022 (Tables I and II). Table V shows the changes in participation between 2018-19 and 2023-24. Participation in all sports increased by about 1.6% or 124,811; however, the impact varied by the sport.

During this period, the total number of tennis athletes increased by 1.4%, or 1,851. The ten sports in Table V, highlighted in green, posted gains. The sports with increased participation that were greater than 10,000 were:

• Wrestling +87,566

•  Volleyball +48,009

• Track/Field Outdoor +37,727

• Flag Football +31,800

• Football +27,185

• Competitive Spirit +20,855

• Golf +14,989

The sports with declines in participation that were greater than 9,000 were:

• Cross Country -56,290

• Swimming and Diving – 54,723

• Basketball -35,884

• Softball (Fast Pitch) -18,614

• Baseball -10,951

• Field Hockey -9,14

High School Tennis Should Not be the Sport’s Best Kept Secret

Athletes value the opportunity to represent their school by playing an individual sport (tennis) in a team setting. They appreciate the camaraderie of playing with friends, learning life skills, and improving mental, tactical, and physical skills in an athlete-centric environment.

A critical part of every successful high school tennis program is FUN! Dr. Amanda Visek recently released research in which she defined fun, and the role fun plays in coaching tennis. Her research is must-read material for high school coaches, tennis professionals, players, and parents, https://api.mobilecoach.org/static/asset/pdf/159_3ecc2536-6ed2-454d-b421-643af1d162c1_default.pdf.

High school tennis fills the critical role of serving as a gateway to adult tennis. Industry leaders are in a position to strengthen the pathway to adult tennis by expanding tennis programs at elementary and middle schools. In addition, there are opportunities to strengthen existing programs and create additional activities that keep high school athletes engaged in tennis during their off-season.

Because high school tennis positively touches so many young athletes, industry leaders must provide more support for high school tennis, including strengthening the quality of training for coaches and mentorship programs for coaching high school tennis. Many states, such as Texas and Florida, are leaders in this area. They have longstanding high school tennis coach associations that provide exceptional leadership for their high school tennis programs.

To quote musician Randy Newman, “It is a jungle out there.” Tennis is a great sport, but there is stiff competition from other great sports for participants. Industry leaders must bring their “A” game to maintain the popularity of tennis in high school sports.

High school tennis should be a best told story, rather than a best kept secret.

In addition, Gary Horvath has conducted extensive business and economic research that has largely supported the state of Colorado's economic development efforts.