There were a little over 8.4M kids playing high school sports during the 2025-26 academic year, according to NFHS — a new all-time record and the fifth straight year with participation growth.
About 4.8M boys, 3.6M girls participated
About 150K more total participants from 2024-25; 1.8% growth YoY
75% of growth share attributable to girls sports
Girls flag football and girls wrestling drove the growth in large part. Girls flag participation was up 48.7% YoY and girls wrestling was up 20%.
Also of note: Girls basketball participation saw a slight participation increase after years of decline. NFHS said the sport had lost 100K participants over 20 years before adding about 6K last year.
Football (11-player) also had a modest 1.4% participation increase and remains the most popular high school sport. Golf saw the biggest participation spike among boys sports with an 8.3% YoY increase.
Girls volleyball continued to grow, breaking the 500K participant mark for the first time, and is on the verge of overtaking track and field as the most popular girls sport.
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