🏟🏈 Thanks for watching my reaction to Inside America’s $100 Million High School Football Stadiums! 🤯✨ What do you think about these incredible stadiums? Are they worth the investment, or is it over the top? Share your thoughts in the comments below! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more reactions to mind-blowing stories, sports culture, and unique experiences. Your support makes a difference! 🙌 #HighSchoolFootball #FootballStadiums #ReactionVideo
American Football has always been EXTREMELY popular. Huge sums of money have been and continue to be spent on secondary school sports. For example in 1936 DURING the Great Depression the community of Hamtramck, Michigan spent $250,000 (the equivalent of $56,750,000 in today’s money) to build 8,000 seat Keyworth Stadium for its 1,600-student high school. Another example in October 1944, during WARTIME restrictions, two high school teams one from Michigan & the other from Nebraska played in front of 40,000 people, which was more fans than the professional Detroit Lions got the next week.
This is crazy!!!! I'd say this is not the "norm" for high school football. Yes, there are many large school districts, but there are also many smaller schools. I will say in Texas high school football is a big deal. "Friday Night Lights"!! But not every school has those huge stadiums. It would be interesting to hear how many if those there are versus how many smaller schools. When my son played, we were in a smaller district. One school we played had a silo for their field house, and there were literally cows in a pasture about 20 feet from the fence around their field. And although my son went to a small school, they won the state championship two years in a row - of course, against schools their size. We did not have anything like this!! We had a football and yellow school buses! 😂
The Tom Benson HOF stadium IS a legitimate HIGH SCHOOL stadium. Historically, only high school games were played there. Most recently, they added/included other American football events like the NFL 's HOF game, and college football games. Because of it's size, they have included multiple events to bring in more revenue, of course. There are even bigger high school stadiums planned in other areas across the country. American football has become so popular that even AMERICANS have been caught off-guard by it's tremendous success.
These expensive ones are only for certain schools. Those of us who go to schools where the concentration is on learning (shocking concept, that) have very basic stadiums.
Football games are usually on Friday nights for high schools, Saturdays for colleges, and Sundays for professional so that people can support on all levels
Let's not forget middle school games on Wednesday or Thursday, High school JV games on Saturday mornings. Flag Football leagues and tournaments as well as pee-wee football on Saturdays and Sundays as well.
@Vadershake back when I was in school in the late 60s and 70s in Texas , peewee played Sat morning Jr high Tuesday and Wednesday JV Thursday varsity Friday and Saturday night and Jr high B-Teams played Sat morning
In 1981, in rural eastern Washington state, our rivalry games regularly brought in 15,000+ fans to a stadium with seating for less than 10,000. The game has only continued to grow in popularity as the NFL and college football continue to pass 'sissy' rules, making them little better than flag football.
Don't forget middle school and junior high games on Thursday night, with only the 9th grade game having a band present. Don't ask why because I have no idea.
We lived in Katy, Texas for several years. They take football VERY seriously in Texas! People actually move to specific areas so their kids can play for power house teams in the hope of college scholarships. People there hold season tickets for generations.
@@larryrunnels1190 I live in Texas and don’t hear people complain about property taxes at all. Lmfao it seems you’re just trying to make a negative out of this for no reason.
@TheNobleVart-jy5bj OMG. JUST ,MONTHS AGO THERE WAS A SPECIAL SESSION OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE WITH ONE OF THE AIMS TO REDUCE PROPERTY TAXES. IT WASON THE BALLET SOON AFTER THAT. WHAT MADE THE WHOLE THING RIDICULOUS IS PROPERTY TAX IS NOT SET BY THE STATE. IT IS SET OCALLY BY SEVERAL ENTITIES, (CITY, COUNTY, HOSPITAL DIST, WATER DIST, JR. COLLEGE, ETC.)
Yeah, why teach when you can play football? It's insane that caller to the Texas radio show who said the football team is losing because there is too much learning going on at school. Some might say schools are for learning. The sad part is that there are so few that are good enough to make it into the NFL, but if coaches weren't giving them false hopes about their prospects and schools inflating their grades to enable that, well, they might be perfectly capable engineers or business people. Instead they haven't learn diddly in school so when they don't make it to the NFL they are lucky if they can get a job in a fast food restaurant.
@@Anon54387 When we say it's a 'religion' we mean it's a huge part of the culture here. Sounds like you need to get a life if you can't figure that out.
And not to worry, we don’t neglect the educational buildings either. In Texas as you drive through some rural small town, pass a few farms and the Sonic and the Dollar General, you round the bend and suddenly encounter the most incongruently overbuilt and impressive building you’d ever imagine to see there. The new high school. That’s pretty common.
Don't fool yourself, it's not the outside of the building that counts, it's what's going on the inside that matters. Texas students rank 38th in the nation in SAT test score averages.
yea its pretty nuts to see. i bought a house in a super small town (2200 population, high school 387 kids) they just won their 3rd strait state championship. every building has the school logo or something with the school painted on it, signs all up and down the main street. on Friday the entire town is at the game. its pretty nuts
It really depends on the region. In my area, one might go to a football game while one is in high school or if one's kid is on the team, but most of us stop going once we graduate. I did go to some football games in high school, but my studies and my job had me so busy during college. Incredibly, some lamented that so few students went to the football games, but there simply wasn't the time. Some majors, like engineering, require enough dedication that those majors barely realize a football team exists.
Texas Loves their Football.... The start instruction of Players when they are young and the kids usually get the best of Equipment, Staff, Travel and Lodging when needed... Most states in the USA don't have such items for their football programs.... But Texas LOVES FOOTBALL!!
I coached SVAA football in the 90’s in Richardson,Tex. 4-6 grade. Full contact. Made the finals once in the old hs stadium. Place was packed. 6th grade. So fun.
Allen High School has a marching band with 675 members. They use 22 school buses when they travel to out of town games. There are UA-cam videos of their performances.
Allen High school also has the largest band in the USA with over 800 kids in it. Not to mention the wrestling team has won 15 straight state championships
The thing to remember about Allen is they only have one high school. My city is next to theirs. Yes, we have a stadium that is less than 5 years old and looks like a college/university stadium.
Cy-Fair is a beautiful facility. We had the pleasure of playing there in a state quarter-final playoff game several years ago. The architecture is admirable.
I live in upstate New York and our rival schools are across the river from each other. Both stadiums hold over 10,000 . Big games would expand to hold 15,000 people. Each school has 3 practice fields as well
why do you act like this is revolutionary in america , this ha literally been happening multiple thousands of years before you’re country was even colonized
I'm not sure about all HS Football but in a ton of towns the High school football games are televised on friday nigts!! That's how crazy the love for football is.
The High School Football Stadium in my town of Converse Texas cost $35 million when they built it in 2009. But they also tore down the old Judson HS and rebuilt it right after they built the Stadium. But it was a model for all of the other High Schools in San Antonio. Each School District now has a similar stadium that two or more High Schools use in each district.
Central Phenix City (Alabama) has held 10,000 for decades and used to host the D3 National Championship game annually. Memorial Stadium in Columbus (Georgia) just a couple of miles away holds 15,000. Football is HUGE here man.
I graduated from McKinney, Ron Poe was the athletic director while I was in High School and his son was our quarterback. Ron Poe Stadium was originally Lions Stadium for the McKinney Lions. it was on the grounds of Faubion Middle School. That campus was originally McKinney High School but became Faubion Middle School after the new McKinney High was built in 1986. Faubion and the stadium were built in 1962. So the district got many years out of that stadium before building the new one. During my High School years Allen TX were our big rivals. Allen however grew faster than McKinney and moved into the 5A category before McKinney did. The "A" system is used to group schools into similar sizes to keep the play fair across all sports as larger schools have a larger pool of athletic talent to pull from. While these stadiums seem massive, they actually bring quite a bit of money to the community and they are not just used for football. These stadiums are host to multiple sports including football, soccer, track and many other events as well. Band competitions are held there along with Special Olympics and even college level games get hosted there. They not only pay off their own bonds, but after those are paid back they turn into a revenue source for the district. My father spent several years on the school board for McKinney and one thing I remember him talking about with my mother is how football had such a large budget as opposed to the other sports and band groups. My mother did not like it as I had three sisters that were in athletic events as well as band and she thought the money distribution was unfair. Things like the band, the flag core, the drill team (dance team) all had to have fund raiser to supplement their budgets but football did not. My father let her know that the revenue from football not only paid for itself, but brought in enough to subsidize the other groups.
I live 50 miles from Canton, Ohio. The Canton McKinley high school is built on the south side of the stadium. It really wasn’t shown in the aerial shots. The buildings are connected as part of the high school campus.
Doesn't sound like YOUR local High School football field is "usual" either! I'm in Southeastern Virginia with a brother 6 years older than me. He played in the High School Band so we went to all of the games at Stadiums nowhere close to those in this video, but they were well suited for the size of the crowds AT THAT TIME. He graduated in 1968. I graduated from the "new" High School in 1974, which had more seating capacity, but was more utilitarian and less "comfortable" than the older Stadium, with people walking around under the bleachers, an area inaccessible in the older, smaller Stadium. I married a small town girl in the Shenandoah Valley in 1976. Her County High School had a Stadium much like the one at my School. Where in the USA is it still ... in 2024, FIFTY YEARS after I graduated ... a big deal to get lights at your Stadium? I'm surprised by that!
@@randyinchesapeake8129 I think we got them about 25 years ago now. But it was a big deal. I live in a town of 2k people, which is big for some of the towns around here.
@@PetraDarklander You've surprised me again! A Town of 2K people has a Stadium? Kind of shows their priorities! Proves the point from the video about Americans loving their football. My ex-wife's Home Town was I think less than 2K people. Had one flashing light at the main intersection, zero stop lights. Her County High School where the Stadium was located was in a bigger Town a good ways up the road.
@@randyinchesapeake8129 LOL No we don't have a stadium. Just a grass field and some bleachers, and now some lights. Ah well we got one stop light. Only 'stadium' in the state is at the biggest collage towns, and they are small ones.
the stadium in Canton, OH might be the most expensive because of the NFL HoF using it but not too many people actually go to the HoF game while Canton McKinley regularly sells out the stadium
I am from small town Oregon and we regularly had 5000 at our games, granted we were a state powerhouse at the time. Friday Night Lights movie was made for a reason HS football is a huge deal in the South, Midwest and much of the rural West.
Here is a fun fact. The Allen High School stadium developed cracks in the foundation after the first season of use. It had to be closed for a couple due to the damage while the cracks were repaired. It was several million dollars more to do this. If the cost of repairs was announced i mst have missed but it took the cost of the stadium well over $100 million.
Lyle, I live in Katy, TX near 2 of these stadiums. The attendence to the Friday night games are near capacity every week. Katy has won a record 6 or 7 state championships to date. It is big business here!
Remember, these are NOT just for football, they will also play soccer and lacrosse/field hockey. Many stadiums will also have tracks on them so they are used to host track and field events. In addition you also have marching band competitions where 20-30 school bands compete for district or state honors. Many times they are built by a district that has many high schools. The Cypress-Fairbanks (Cy Fair) school district has 14 high schools (it has over 118k children enrolled from grades K-12). Also, many schools will have two football teams - the Junior-Varsity (JV) and Varsity (the top level). The JV teams play on Thursday night while the Varsity teams play on Friday nights (some larger schools have teams just for freshmen). They host a lot of sports and events and they do make a good amount of money as well (still, this more for athletics than making money for the school like in college football).
Sheldon Cooper, from The Big Bang Theory, once said that his father forced him to watch football before he could start his homework. I've been To T. Benson Stadium in Canton Ohio 3 times in the last 10 years. My Div. 4 team's record was 2-1. Canton, Ohio is where the NFL Hall of Fame is located.
You need to remember, these high schools football players are typically heading to colleges and universities across the country after high school graduation. Most of these students will receive grants and scholarships depending on their level of talent. Recruiters visit these high schools to observe the local talent. This is serious business.
My cousin works in McKinney ISD as part of curriculum development. The school district is so much more than just sports. Sports pay for other services. Both directly and indirectly.
That's true. Football generates revenue, and actually helps pay for other sports like basketball, volleyball, baseball, and other UIL groups like orchestra and band. It really is a boon to the school to have so many people at the football games.
Howdy from Texas. I agree with you on that last stadium. It really should have just been an honorable mention because it was not built specifically for a high school or a public school district. It was built for the NFL teams specifically and they simply allowed several high schools to play there. Not exactly the same thing as a " High School " football stadium. Here in Texas our kids start early playing all sports. But Football will always be King here.
That's missing the point. That stadium exists *mostly* to be a high-school football stadium; the other stuff is incidental. The longest-standing rivalry in the history of football, and one of the most intense, is the Massillon/Canton high school football game. Massillon used to bring a live tiger to the game. High school football has been a *BIG* deal in that part of Ohio, since before anyone in Texas had even heard of the game. (An earlier version of) the high-school football stadium was there first, and the hall of fame was added to it, and that location was chosen *because* of the importance of the local high-school teams, to the history of the sport.
Keep in mind that American High Schools are Grades 9 thru 12, Ages 14 to 18 (normally). So while High School sports are big (especially in smaller towns), College sports are MASSIVE. Some even bigger than Professional leagues. High School Football is played on Friday Nights, usually around 7pm, and College Football (the NCAA) is played on Saturdays, and there's 3 time slots for those. Games typically start at 12pm (noon) Eastern Time, and last roughly 3 hours. So the next time slot is 3pm, but I think the night games start a bit later, like 7pm or even 8pm. However due to the Lower 48 having 4 time zones, West Coast games can start pretty late for the rest of the the country. So you may be watching a game go into the Midnight hour on the East Coast. NFL is played on Sundays, except their 3 hour time slots start at 1pm Eastern.
I played high school football in Florida back in the 1970's and our stadium held 8,000 in a town of 25,000 people and it was filled every Friday night, it wasn't shared with any other high schools either. Football IS a religion in America.
I live a few miles from the Cy-fair stadium. The stadium is in use for a lot more events than football. It hosts concerts, craft shows, proms, graduations. It gets a lot of use. We still call it the Taj Mahal.
I am from Florida, arguably best football players in the country. That said nothing, I mean nothing is like Texas High School football. I lived there, I seen it myself, crazy!
Most of the high school games in Texas are televised events with sportscasters calling the games. You can find most any towns games broadcasted on small cable networks
I was at the McKinney stadium a few weeks ago for a band performance with the high school and middle school bands performing. The stadium didn’t seem too large, but it is nice.
The Canton, Ohio stadium is not really shared by those other high school teams though some may play there. It has always been Mckinley High School's stadium. Those other teams he alludes to have their own stadiums. However, the state championship games are played either there or at Ohio Stadium in Columbus (Ohio State University). I have played in games at the old stadium and so has my son. My four granddaughters have all played in the Canton McKinley band in the new stadium.
In our school district we have 3 public high schools and one private high school. We also have 4 junior high schools. The private high school shares a football stadium with a local private college. We have 7 public high/junior high schools sharing one football stadium. The high schools in towns surrounding us, each have their own stadiums as those towns only have 1 high school each. It all works out relatively well. The game of soccer is played elsewhere. It will never replace American football. Those stadiums in Texas are quite grand.
Mansfield Highschool in Texas is now building a $1.5 BILLION stadium. I graduated in 2003, they built a $200 million stadium after I left, now they're building a new $1.5 billion dollar stadium. Also "fun" fact, Mansfield was the last school in the south FORCED to desegregate by the federal government (there's a wiki on it).
Most of them being in Texas is no surprise. Colleges in the US give schlorships for athletics. High School is where they'd look for potential talent. High School football is as normal as yellow school buses.
What's really amazing is to build that one $70 million stadium that was in the #3 position, they passed a tax bond for $748 million,10 times as much as the stadium cost to build. I wonder what the other $675 million was used for?
Different sport, but 10 of the top 12 biggest basketball gyms in the country are here in Indiana with the top 5 in Indiana. And the biggest high school gym in the world being right here in New Castle, Indiana with seating for over 8000!!! Yeah, we take our basketball VERY seriously here in the Hoosier state!!!
When I saw the title of your video I immediately said to myself, "They're all in Texas." So I was off by one, but as you said its not really "just" a high school stadium. High School Football IS a religion in Texas.
Fun side note. Ron Poe the Mckinney ISD athletic director in the 1990's had numerous contacts with the Cowboys organization. When the Cowboys re-did their weight room he was able to acquire all of their old equipment for McKinney. For a good number of years we had the best weight room in the State.
Keep in mind McKinney and Allen are suburbs of Dallas/Fort Worth; Legacy in Katy, Cypress are Houston suburbs, Cy hosts 12 high schools in the Independent School District.
Bro, in Texas, football isn't just a sport. It's a way of life! And having the biggest, best stadium is a badge of honor. Also, Cy-Fair, Katy, are both located in/near Houston.
My HS, late 70's, was brand new. We had elevators, walled in courts even a smoking court and the exclusive 'Senior" court. We had a shop/trades section that would blow your mind. A wood and cabinet shop, every tool imaginable. A foundry and kiln for metal casting/mold making. A auto-body shop with a paint booth and even a full salon for hairdressers and makeup students. We had 2 auditoriums, seated a few thousand people like an opera house. Sports fields had their own facility, weight rooms all that - but the field? Weren't nothing special, hard ass red clay, with a pebble or 2. steel pipe and 2X12 planks for bleachers. We won our div state championship 3 yrs in a row because we had an alien running back. He went on to Notre Dame, became a star there and on to the NFL. He's still today, the same, col, friendly and humble person he always was from the day I met him in school. Not many like his that shit don't fuk up their head.
HS in the US is divided into different divisions. I think the top is 5A down to 1A. Based on student population. Most 1,2 and 3A schools have pretty modest stadiums. It varies a lot. Then you have hundreds of private schools or academies some with well funded sports programs. Great job reacting. 👏👏👏
In USA we have High Schools that are 80% oriented on sports, with lots of sponsorships from auto dealers to factories and shopping centers, usually those kids start classes from around 5th or 6th grades at those High Schools, they have better gyms that the best private gyms in town. They have multiple athletic programs, the band or bands are involved also, and homecoming games with homecoming parades are a big deal.
My Sr. Year in high school state championship in 2005 5 broke the single game record for attendance in the country, the championship held at the Super Dome, where the New Orleans saints play, sold out 75 thousand seats
My high school stadium was the first high school stadium to have electric lights. First town in the world to have electric street lights too. Thomas Edison built his 6th ever power plant in my small Pennsylvania hometown.
Where I live we have superbowls for all the high schools in the state . My nephews team just won the superbowl for Division 2. The superbowl was held where the New England Patriots play. America is over the top when it comes to sports.
Most states' high schools don't get that big. Texas is on another level when it comes to high school. And honestly, check the geographics, local events, proximity to major metro cities, etc and you see why. These are multi-purpose use stadiums. We have some decent size ones here in South Carolina. Don't believe we have many that top 10,0000+ though, but we are one of the smallest states in the US.
Tom Benson is absolutely 💯 a high school stadium. It is owned by the canton city school district. It stands where Fawcett Stadium used to stand. Tom Benson gifted the school the money to build it in his will.
You cant even argue that tom benson hof stadium is not a high school stadium. The nfl hall of fame game is a SINGLE game per year, and the 2 universities it used to host are no longer using it. Also, not only does canton mckinley use the stadium, but the stadium also hosts all of the ohio high school championships. For every. Single. Division. Divisions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Its main purpose is undeinably high school.
@Catiko....your absolutely right about that stadium being a high school feild...it doesn't matter that it's beside the HOF!. FOOTBALL WAS CREATED IN OHIO! and founded here...I live in Rittman...less than 30 min away from that stadium I drive by it almost everyday for work... it's empty unless the bulldogs are playing...
I can understand many countries don't have high school sports as a big draw. You just ride the train for 30 minutes & you are at a professional venue for 90% of them. But Australia is a lot like the US. A large country sparsely populated in some areas. Pro level teams must be a very long way in some spots. So why haven't the local teams caught on in Australia? It would mean the world for those kids.
High School football can turn a tidy profit for the district if the teams are good enough. They can also be the size of a small college. My graduating class was 900 kids back in the 80’s. Go Converse, Texas - Judson Rockets!
Remember two things. High School is the first step to the NFL. If you excel in high school ball, you stand a chance of being drafted to a good college team. If you excel in college, you stand a chance of being drafted into the NFL. That's how it works. Second, seats mean tickets and tickets mean dollars. Stadium games provide monetary support for not only the football teams but the entire athletic department, and sometimes the entire school.
Large and consolidated schools started evolving once transportation was easier and more available... large numbers of students, alumni, parents and families have close relationships with some of the large schools and support them for the rest of the lives. And of course, football is the predominate high school and college sport!
See, thinking of it as JUST for football is what makes it sound more extravagent than it actually it. They're actually half athletics facilities and half community center, but because football as a sport needs such specific features like yard lines and those standing goal posts, it gets taken as the predominant sport of the school's stadium. I won't speak for every school, but my high school's stadium (in a suburb of Dallas, Texas) was used by the track & field team, cross-country team, soccer team, cheerleading team, dance teams, marching band, color guard, and even the string orchestra on a few ocassions. It was also where we'd do certain outdoor sports and atheletic exams for gym class, and where events for school fundraisers would be hosted. There were a few times where local organizations would host charity yard-sales outside of school hours there, too.
Texas HS football is no joke - the TV series/movie Friday Night Lights is a pretty accurate depiction of how nuts it can be. By way of example, I headed home to Austin from Ohio on a Friday night and had decided to take US 79 as a shortcut. Big mistake. We hit Jacksonville around 9pm, right when the local HS game was over and people were headed home. Wound up stuck in extremely heavy stop-and-go traffic for over an hour before it cleared out. But that's what happens when damned near the entire population of two towns shows up for a game.
When I was in high school, we certainly didn't have anything like that. It was a great big deal when we got to play at the University of Kentucky's football field, one year, and they didn't have anything like that. I'm a Home Fry and follow you for reactions to Home Free, but I do check out some other stuff that may catch my attention. Love your channel.
I lived in Midland Texas for eight years. You probably know us from our nearby neighbors Odessa, Texas, one-time Murder Capital of the world, and known for the actual Friday Night Lights book (They sent death threats to the author). For the eight years I was there, Midland could not get the funding for a third, much needed High School. The ballot measure would not pass on the basis that a third school would move the local schools from 6A High School football, to 5A. After several years of failed ballot initiatives, they were finally able to pass funding for two replacement high schools of a larger size. Note that despite a name change and completely new school, we will continue to refer to one of the two schools as Robert E Lee
I always find these stadium stories amusing when I think about my own high school's stadium. Well, you could say 'high schools' stadiums' since I went to a private school in 9th grade but the actual stadiums on campus for the high schools were very similar. Bishop Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale has a field with a track around it, no lights, and what looks to be an even smaller grandstand than when I played Freshman football -- kind of, I was a 160 pound nothing of a linebacker so I was _very_ in reserve. Then again when I went there the varsity squad played at nearby Hofstra University's football stadium. Wide World of Stadiums now refers to it as the biggest primarily-lacrosse stadium in the country now that Hofstra ended their football program, so I'm not sure if they still play high school ball there; then again, the 10 thousand seat lighted stadium for my alma mater Nassau Community College (also Eddie Murphy's... for four weeks :P) is down the road anyway. But for the rest of my high school career, as a part of the WT Clarke Marching Rams in south Westbury, the stadium was even less impressive. The games were _always_ on Saturdays because again, no lights, there was approximately room enough for 1200 people total in that stadium, they had to roll in a portable scoreboard for gameday because at the time we didn't _have_ a functional scoreboard, and, worst of all for a French horn player in the marching band, the stands were and still are one-sided. Meaning there was nothing for the sound to bounce off of so that people could even start to hear me. :P (They _do_ have a permanent scoreboard now, though. And, amazingly enough, artificial turf! Well it costs a lot more to have _good_ natural grass to play on than it does to have Field Turf. Still no lights though.)
This is not unusual situation when I was in high school, 1969 - 71, in Long Beach , California. The 5 high schools that were part of the city school district all shared the use of Long Beach Vets stadium (which had more than 11,000 sears) for all schools varsity football home games. This was because each school had about 4,000 students at the time, but each campus stadium only had seats for about 4,000 fans. And so, was inadequate for the very popular varsity football games.
I was a school bus driver in Katy, Texas and I have been to both of those stadiums that are still in muse and there now 10 high schools in Katie, half of them are playing away games every weekend. And the other app. We're playing local games in that stadium. If you do the math for the price per seeds and the food sold, they're not losing money. You have no idea how big football is in Texas.
my high school had a 25,000-seat stadium back in 1949, in the 70s Pele played there look it up Aquinas Stadium Rochester, NY 1949, before they built it they sometimes got upwards of 27,000 for the Boys Town of Nebraska game, no TV back then
My hometown built a new high school about 15 years ago. I don't know how much money they actually spent on the stadium, but it's huge compared to the old one. I think it seats 10,000, and my hometown only has a population of about 25,000. Sports are big business in the US, especially football, and it starts in high school if not earlier some places. High School football coaches are usually the highest paid employees in the school.
Yea. We didn't have anything like that in my state. Even our really good HS progarms were like 1/4 that size and no where near that cost. Anytime we had really big games we'd play in the closest college stadium.
Some of those High Schools have up to 10,000 students. Then combine multiple High Schools and that's a lot of people using those facilities for multiple sports. The cost averages out.
At my high school that was built in 1953, remodeled the football stadium in 2012 for 1 million. I think that is way too much money for high school students that just end up trashing it.
I graduated from Cy-Fair High School (#2 stadiums), though this stadium wouldn't be built for more than a decade after I graduated. C.F.I.S.D (Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District, located in the outer suburbs of NW Houston) has the largest student enrollment of any school district in the nation that is not the main big city school district (i.e. Houston ISD would be the main big city school district). CFISD now has 12 high schools, and an enrollment of over 118,000 students. Each of those high schools has their own on-site fields for games and/or practices, as well.
I live in a rural town west of Ft. Worth. Our stadium was upgraded a few years ago for $14.5 million. That's not ground up. That just Upgrades! Population of the town? 30,000.
in new orleans we have a stadium for almost all high school to use in our city parrk , called TAD GORMLEY STADIUM it has held some really big games for years, one of the biggest games is between holy cross high school and jesuit high school, it is one of the 10 oldest football games in the country going back to around 1910 or 1915 or so, it has close to 25000/to 35000 or so fans when both teams are really good playing for city or state titles.. they get around 10000 fans when the teams are just soso.
I'm 58, female, in Central Ohio, and I went to the 62nd best High school in the state of Ohio, that's out of 1,360 High Schools in total. Female students could play volleyball, touch (American) football, run track (and field), basketball, and, I think Golf & Soccer. The guys also had Baseball (instead of Volleyball), and typical American Football, but otherwise the same other stuff, basketball, track & field, golf, soccer. That's a single A School, my graduating class was all of 82 students. We had teams and kids who went to state in various sports. I almost got to state in discus, but missed it by a few inches :( But doing regionals & district etc was fun.
There is a huge range in what high schools put money into. In New England, this amount would be ridiculous for a high school stadium. My kids' HS was rebuilt from ground up in 2018 after many years overdue for modernizing. the entire school (including all athletic facilities) was the cost of this stadium. of course there are many schools struggling to modernize aging buildings or get basic supplies.
About 10 miles north of Allen and Mckinney stadiums is the town of Melissa with a population of about 13,000 that recently built a $35m facility. Frisco is a little to the west and they have a dome.
Dome? a H.S. has a dome? I was wondering, when #5 starts in an area everyone knows about. They made a movie! a TV show! Then #4? holy cow, somebody's got a dome in #1 HAHA!!!
McKinney had the first indoor practice field in the State. They also got it for free. It was a deal with Coca-Cola. At the time the district owned and maintained their own soda machines and Coke offered to come in and replace all of them, run and maintain them and give the district a 5% cut of the sales. To sweeten the pot they included paying for the building of an 85 yard indoor practice field.
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American Football has always been EXTREMELY popular. Huge sums of money have been and continue to be spent on secondary school sports. For example in 1936 DURING the Great Depression the community of Hamtramck, Michigan spent $250,000 (the equivalent of $56,750,000 in today’s money) to build 8,000 seat Keyworth Stadium for its 1,600-student high school. Another example in October 1944, during WARTIME restrictions, two high school teams one from Michigan & the other from Nebraska played in front of 40,000 people, which was more fans than the professional Detroit Lions got the next week.
This is crazy!!!! I'd say this is not the "norm" for high school football. Yes, there are many large school districts, but there are also many smaller schools. I will say in Texas high school football is a big deal. "Friday Night Lights"!! But not every school has those huge stadiums. It would be interesting to hear how many if those there are versus how many smaller schools. When my son played, we were in a smaller district. One school we played had a silo for their field house, and there were literally cows in a pasture about 20 feet from the fence around their field. And although my son went to a small school, they won the state championship two years in a row - of course, against schools their size. We did not have anything like this!! We had a football and yellow school buses! 😂
The Tom Benson HOF stadium IS a legitimate HIGH SCHOOL stadium. Historically, only high school games were played there. Most recently, they added/included other American football events like the NFL 's HOF game, and college football games. Because of it's size, they have included multiple events to bring in more revenue, of course. There are even bigger high school stadiums planned in other areas across the country. American football has become so popular that even AMERICANS have been caught off-guard by it's tremendous success.
@cheriwilson9937 it's mostly the larger schools in Texas with those large stadiums. And if they're in the same district they share it
These expensive ones are only for certain schools. Those of us who go to schools where the concentration is on learning (shocking concept, that) have very basic stadiums.
Football games are usually on Friday nights for high schools, Saturdays for colleges, and Sundays for professional so that people can support on all levels
Except with highschool teams that share a stadium they play Friday and Saturday night
Let's not forget middle school games on Wednesday or Thursday, High school JV games on Saturday mornings. Flag Football leagues and tournaments as well as pee-wee football on Saturdays and Sundays as well.
@Vadershake back when I was in school in the late 60s and 70s in Texas , peewee played Sat morning Jr high Tuesday and Wednesday JV Thursday varsity Friday and Saturday night and Jr high B-Teams played Sat morning
In 1981, in rural eastern Washington state, our rivalry games regularly brought in 15,000+ fans to a stadium with seating for less than 10,000. The game has only continued to grow in popularity as the NFL and college football continue to pass 'sissy' rules, making them little better than flag football.
Don't forget middle school and junior high games on Thursday night, with only the 9th grade game having a band present. Don't ask why because I have no idea.
We lived in Katy, Texas for several years. They take football VERY seriously in Texas! People actually move to specific areas so their kids can play for power house teams in the hope of college scholarships. People there hold season tickets for generations.
It's odd how people in Texas will bitch and bitch about property taxes then turn around and raise their own taxes by voting for a football cathedral.
@@larryrunnels1190 I live in Texas and don’t hear people complain about property taxes at all. Lmfao it seems you’re just trying to make a negative out of this for no reason.
@TheNobleVart-jy5bj OMG. JUST ,MONTHS AGO THERE WAS A SPECIAL SESSION OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE WITH ONE OF THE AIMS TO REDUCE PROPERTY TAXES. IT WASON THE BALLET SOON AFTER THAT. WHAT MADE THE WHOLE THING RIDICULOUS IS PROPERTY TAX IS NOT SET BY THE STATE. IT IS SET
OCALLY BY SEVERAL ENTITIES, (CITY, COUNTY, HOSPITAL DIST, WATER DIST, JR. COLLEGE, ETC.)
Same here in Georgia. In fact, a few football programs got in massive trouble for recruiting kids to play and providing houses for the families.
I graduated from Katy High School in 2004. I thought that stadium was big already. It crazy it's bigger now.
Texas High School football is a religion here. I've been coaching it since 1985. God bless Texas!
if you ever get a chance take the trip to watch a homecoming game in Texas.
Yeah, why teach when you can play football? It's insane that caller to the Texas radio show who said the football team is losing because there is too much learning going on at school. Some might say schools are for learning.
The sad part is that there are so few that are good enough to make it into the NFL, but if coaches weren't giving them false hopes about their prospects and schools inflating their grades to enable that, well, they might be perfectly capable engineers or business people. Instead they haven't learn diddly in school so when they don't make it to the NFL they are lucky if they can get a job in a fast food restaurant.
I think people must lead some very empty lives if football is like a religion to people.
@@Anon54387 When we say it's a 'religion' we mean it's a huge part of the culture here. Sounds like you need to get a life if you can't figure that out.
And not to worry, we don’t neglect the educational buildings either. In Texas as you drive through some rural small town, pass a few farms and the Sonic and the Dollar General, you round the bend and suddenly encounter the most incongruently overbuilt and impressive building you’d ever imagine to see there. The new high school. That’s pretty common.
☝️ this
Well done, Texas! (from Virginia!)
Don't fool yourself, it's not the outside of the building that counts, it's what's going on the inside that matters.
Texas students rank 38th in the nation in SAT test score averages.
In small towns all over the country Friday night football is their identity
yea its pretty nuts to see. i bought a house in a super small town (2200 population, high school 387 kids) they just won their 3rd strait state championship. every building has the school logo or something with the school painted on it, signs all up and down the main street. on Friday the entire town is at the game. its pretty nuts
@@zesolodar It speads the values held important in that community ...
It really depends on the region. In my area, one might go to a football game while one is in high school or if one's kid is on the team, but most of us stop going once we graduate. I did go to some football games in high school, but my studies and my job had me so busy during college. Incredibly, some lamented that so few students went to the football games, but there simply wasn't the time. Some majors, like engineering, require enough dedication that those majors barely realize a football team exists.
The Canton area has always been a huge center of high school football.
Texas Loves their Football.... The start instruction of Players when they are young and the kids usually get the best of Equipment, Staff, Travel and Lodging when needed... Most states in the USA don't have such items for their football programs.... But Texas LOVES FOOTBALL!!
I coached SVAA football in the 90’s in Richardson,Tex. 4-6 grade. Full contact. Made the finals once in the old hs stadium. Place was packed. 6th grade. So fun.
Allen High School has a marching band with 675 members. They use 22 school buses when they travel to out of town games. There are UA-cam videos of their performances.
Dang, that's a lot of members
Allen High school also has the largest band in the USA with over 800 kids in it. Not to mention the wrestling team has won 15 straight state championships
The thing to remember about Allen is they only have one high school.
My city is next to theirs. Yes, we have a stadium that is less than 5 years old and looks like a college/university stadium.
Cy-Fair is a beautiful facility. We had the pleasure of playing there in a state quarter-final playoff game several years ago. The architecture is admirable.
I live in upstate New York and our rival schools are across the river from each other. Both stadiums hold over 10,000 . Big games would expand to hold 15,000 people. Each school has 3 practice fields as well
what schools I went to Aquinas in Rochester we had a 25,000 seat stadium back in the 1940s-1980s
If you build it they will come.. and they do. Fans, kids, students, alumni… tickets =$$$.. we start our kids early in every sport.
why do you act like this is revolutionary in america , this ha literally been happening multiple thousands of years before you’re country was even colonized
@@pop-up5982 hater got to hate! Jealous much?
I'm not sure about all HS Football but in a ton of towns the High school football games are televised on friday nigts!! That's how crazy the love for football is.
The High School Football Stadium in my town of Converse Texas cost $35 million when they built it in 2009. But they also tore down the old Judson HS and rebuilt it right after they built the Stadium. But it was a model for all of the other High Schools in San Antonio. Each School District now has a similar stadium that two or more High Schools use in each district.
Central Phenix City (Alabama) has held 10,000 for decades and used to host the D3 National Championship game annually. Memorial Stadium in Columbus (Georgia) just a couple of miles away holds 15,000. Football is HUGE here man.
I graduated from McKinney, Ron Poe was the athletic director while I was in High School and his son was our quarterback. Ron Poe Stadium was originally Lions Stadium for the McKinney Lions. it was on the grounds of Faubion Middle School. That campus was originally McKinney High School but became Faubion Middle School after the new McKinney High was built in 1986. Faubion and the stadium were built in 1962. So the district got many years out of that stadium before building the new one. During my High School years Allen TX were our big rivals. Allen however grew faster than McKinney and moved into the 5A category before McKinney did. The "A" system is used to group schools into similar sizes to keep the play fair across all sports as larger schools have a larger pool of athletic talent to pull from.
While these stadiums seem massive, they actually bring quite a bit of money to the community and they are not just used for football. These stadiums are host to multiple sports including football, soccer, track and many other events as well. Band competitions are held there along with Special Olympics and even college level games get hosted there. They not only pay off their own bonds, but after those are paid back they turn into a revenue source for the district.
My father spent several years on the school board for McKinney and one thing I remember him talking about with my mother is how football had such a large budget as opposed to the other sports and band groups. My mother did not like it as I had three sisters that were in athletic events as well as band and she thought the money distribution was unfair. Things like the band, the flag core, the drill team (dance team) all had to have fund raiser to supplement their budgets but football did not. My father let her know that the revenue from football not only paid for itself, but brought in enough to subsidize the other groups.
I live 50 miles from Canton, Ohio. The Canton McKinley high school is built on the south side of the stadium. It really wasn’t shown in the aerial shots. The buildings are connected as part of the high school campus.
Football is a religion here in Texas!! Hook 'em Horns
🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼
Gig um Aggies!😊
These are NOT usual high school football fields. I live across from one and it was a big deal when we got lights.
Doesn't sound like YOUR local High School football field is "usual" either! I'm in Southeastern Virginia with a brother 6 years older than me. He played in the High School Band so we went to all of the games at Stadiums nowhere close to those in this video, but they were well suited for the size of the crowds AT THAT TIME. He graduated in 1968.
I graduated from the "new" High School in 1974, which had more seating capacity, but was more utilitarian and less "comfortable" than the older Stadium, with people walking around under the bleachers, an area inaccessible in the older, smaller Stadium.
I married a small town girl in the Shenandoah Valley in 1976. Her County High School had a Stadium much like the one at my School.
Where in the USA is it still ... in 2024, FIFTY YEARS after I graduated ... a big deal to get lights at your Stadium? I'm surprised by that!
@@randyinchesapeake8129 I think we got them about 25 years ago now. But it was a big deal. I live in a town of 2k people, which is big for some of the towns around here.
@@PetraDarklander You've surprised me again! A Town of 2K people has a Stadium? Kind of shows their priorities! Proves the point from the video about Americans loving their football. My ex-wife's Home Town was I think less than 2K people. Had one flashing light at the main intersection, zero stop lights. Her County High School where the Stadium was located was in a bigger Town a good ways up the road.
@@randyinchesapeake8129 LOL No we don't have a stadium. Just a grass field and some bleachers, and now some lights. Ah well we got one stop light. Only 'stadium' in the state is at the biggest collage towns, and they are small ones.
the stadium in Canton, OH might be the most expensive because of the NFL HoF using it but not too many people actually go to the HoF game while Canton McKinley regularly sells out the stadium
We also use it for our State championship games.😎
I am from small town Oregon and we regularly had 5000 at our games, granted we were a state powerhouse at the time. Friday Night Lights movie was made for a reason HS football is a huge deal in the South, Midwest and much of the rural West.
Here is a fun fact. The Allen High School stadium developed cracks in the foundation after the first season of use. It had to be closed for a couple due to the damage while the cracks were repaired. It was several million dollars more to do this. If the cost of repairs was announced i mst have missed but it took the cost of the stadium well over $100 million.
Lyle, I live in Katy, TX near 2 of these stadiums. The attendence to the Friday night games are near capacity every week. Katy has won a record 6 or 7 state championships to date. It is big business here!
Remember, these are NOT just for football, they will also play soccer and lacrosse/field hockey. Many stadiums will also have tracks on them so they are used to host track and field events. In addition you also have marching band competitions where 20-30 school bands compete for district or state honors. Many times they are built by a district that has many high schools. The Cypress-Fairbanks (Cy Fair) school district has 14 high schools (it has over 118k children enrolled from grades K-12). Also, many schools will have two football teams - the Junior-Varsity (JV) and Varsity (the top level). The JV teams play on Thursday night while the Varsity teams play on Friday nights (some larger schools have teams just for freshmen). They host a lot of sports and events and they do make a good amount of money as well (still, this more for athletics than making money for the school like in college football).
Sheldon Cooper, from The Big Bang Theory, once said that his father forced him to watch football before he could start his homework.
I've been To T. Benson Stadium in Canton Ohio 3 times in the last 10 years. My Div. 4 team's record was 2-1.
Canton, Ohio is where the NFL Hall of Fame is located.
Most people outside of Texas don't understand about Texas HS football. And Texans don't care if they do or don't.
Lol that's why they keep making football movies about texas HS football
All they have to do is watch Friday Night Lights. The television show and movie as well, very accurate.
You need to remember, these high schools football players are typically heading to colleges and universities across the country after high school graduation. Most of these students will receive grants and scholarships depending on their level of talent. Recruiters visit these high schools to observe the local talent. This is serious business.
My cousin works in McKinney ISD as part of curriculum development.
The school district is so much more than just sports. Sports pay for other services. Both directly and indirectly.
You are quite right. Sports bring in lots of money. My father spent 8 years on the McKinney ISD school board. I graduated from there.
That's true. Football generates revenue, and actually helps pay for other sports like basketball, volleyball, baseball, and other UIL groups like orchestra and band. It really is a boon to the school to have so many people at the football games.
LOL...Alamo Stadium in San Antonio was built for the city's high schools in an old quarry in 1940 and seats 23,000.
I hope this Aussie reacts to some of the other large high school stadiums. Not all of them are in Texas.
@@gregorybiestek3431 Definitely. But my post was that this is not a new phenomenon in Texas.
Howdy from Texas.
I agree with you on that last stadium. It really should have just been an honorable mention because it was not built specifically for a high school or a public school district. It was built for the NFL teams specifically and they simply allowed several high schools to play there. Not exactly the same thing as a " High School " football stadium.
Here in Texas our kids start early playing all sports. But Football will always be King here.
That's missing the point. That stadium exists *mostly* to be a high-school football stadium; the other stuff is incidental. The longest-standing rivalry in the history of football, and one of the most intense, is the Massillon/Canton high school football game. Massillon used to bring a live tiger to the game. High school football has been a *BIG* deal in that part of Ohio, since before anyone in Texas had even heard of the game. (An earlier version of) the high-school football stadium was there first, and the hall of fame was added to it, and that location was chosen *because* of the importance of the local high-school teams, to the history of the sport.
Keep in mind that American High Schools are Grades 9 thru 12, Ages 14 to 18 (normally). So while High School sports are big (especially in smaller towns), College sports are MASSIVE. Some even bigger than Professional leagues. High School Football is played on Friday Nights, usually around 7pm, and College Football (the NCAA) is played on Saturdays, and there's 3 time slots for those. Games typically start at 12pm (noon) Eastern Time, and last roughly 3 hours. So the next time slot is 3pm, but I think the night games start a bit later, like 7pm or even 8pm. However due to the Lower 48 having 4 time zones, West Coast games can start pretty late for the rest of the the country. So you may be watching a game go into the Midnight hour on the East Coast. NFL is played on Sundays, except their 3 hour time slots start at 1pm Eastern.
I went to a high school playoff game in Allen just last weekend, and it was at capacity. Completely full with standing room only.
I played high school football in Florida back in the 1970's and our stadium held 8,000 in a town of 25,000 people and it was filled every Friday night, it wasn't shared with any other high schools either. Football IS a religion in America.
I live a few miles from the Cy-fair stadium. The stadium is in use for a lot more events than football. It hosts concerts, craft shows, proms, graduations. It gets a lot of use. We still call it the Taj Mahal.
I am from Florida, arguably best football players in the country.
That said nothing, I mean nothing is like Texas High School football.
I lived there, I seen it myself, crazy!
Its good to see that at least a few schools have their priorities in order.
Most of the high school games in Texas are televised events with sportscasters calling the games. You can find most any towns games broadcasted on small cable networks
I was at the McKinney stadium a few weeks ago for a band performance with the high school and middle school bands performing. The stadium didn’t seem too large, but it is nice.
The Canton, Ohio stadium is not really shared by those other high school teams though some may play there. It has always been Mckinley High School's stadium. Those other teams he alludes to have their own stadiums. However, the state championship games are played either there or at Ohio Stadium in Columbus (Ohio State University).
I have played in games at the old stadium and so has my son. My four granddaughters have all played in the Canton McKinley band in the new stadium.
In our school district we have 3 public high schools and one private high school. We also have 4 junior high schools. The private high school shares a football stadium with a local private college. We have 7 public high/junior high schools sharing one football stadium. The high schools in towns surrounding us, each have their own stadiums as those towns only have 1 high school each. It all works out relatively well. The game of soccer is played elsewhere. It will never replace American football. Those stadiums in Texas are quite grand.
Mansfield Highschool in Texas is now building a $1.5 BILLION stadium. I graduated in 2003, they built a $200 million stadium after I left, now they're building a new $1.5 billion dollar stadium. Also "fun" fact, Mansfield was the last school in the south FORCED to desegregate by the federal government (there's a wiki on it).
Most of them being in Texas is no surprise. Colleges in the US give schlorships for athletics. High School is where they'd look for potential talent.
High School football is as normal as yellow school buses.
What's really amazing is to build that one $70 million stadium that was in the #3 position, they passed a tax bond for $748 million,10 times as much as the stadium cost to build. I wonder what the other $675 million was used for?
Different sport, but 10 of the top 12 biggest basketball gyms in the country are here in Indiana with the top 5 in Indiana. And the biggest high school gym in the world being right here in New Castle, Indiana with seating for over 8000!!! Yeah, we take our basketball VERY seriously here in the Hoosier state!!!
When I saw the title of your video I immediately said to myself, "They're all in Texas." So I was off by one, but as you said its not really "just" a high school stadium. High School Football IS a religion in Texas.
The Frisco ISD plays in the Cowboys training facility. They have an indoor stadium to play in.
Fun side note. Ron Poe the Mckinney ISD athletic director in the 1990's had numerous contacts with the Cowboys organization. When the Cowboys re-did their weight room he was able to acquire all of their old equipment for McKinney. For a good number of years we had the best weight room in the State.
"I wouldn't call it a true high school stadium" I agree with you 100%.
Keep in mind McKinney and Allen are suburbs of Dallas/Fort Worth; Legacy in Katy, Cypress are Houston suburbs, Cy hosts 12 high schools in the Independent School District.
I stayed in Allen Texas for a couple of months, and was shocked that the local 'college stadium' was actually the High School stadium!
Bro, in Texas, football isn't just a sport. It's a way of life! And having the biggest, best stadium is a badge of honor. Also, Cy-Fair, Katy, are both located in/near Houston.
Literally just drove past the stadium in Canton yesterday and today. The complex is quite impressive
As you can tell in Texas we LOVE high school football.
My HS, late 70's, was brand new. We had elevators, walled in courts even a smoking court and the exclusive 'Senior" court. We had a shop/trades section that would blow your mind. A wood and cabinet shop, every tool imaginable. A foundry and kiln for metal casting/mold making. A auto-body shop with a paint booth and even a full salon for hairdressers and makeup students. We had 2 auditoriums, seated a few thousand people like an opera house. Sports fields had their own facility, weight rooms all that - but the field? Weren't nothing special, hard ass red clay, with a pebble or 2. steel pipe and 2X12 planks for bleachers. We won our div state championship 3 yrs in a row because we had an alien running back. He went on to Notre Dame, became a star there and on to the NFL. He's still today, the same, col, friendly and humble person he always was from the day I met him in school. Not many like his that shit don't fuk up their head.
HS in the US is divided into different divisions. I think the top is 5A down to 1A. Based on student population.
Most 1,2 and 3A schools have pretty modest stadiums. It varies a lot.
Then you have hundreds of private schools or academies some with well funded sports programs.
Great job reacting. 👏👏👏
In Texas there is a 6A division.
There's 6A everywhere I believe
In USA we have High Schools that are 80% oriented on sports, with lots of sponsorships from auto dealers to factories and shopping centers, usually those kids start classes from around 5th or 6th grades at those High Schools, they have better gyms that the best private gyms in town. They have multiple athletic programs, the band or bands are involved also, and homecoming games with homecoming parades are a big deal.
My Sr. Year in high school state championship in 2005 5 broke the single game record for attendance in the country, the championship held at the Super Dome, where the New Orleans saints play, sold out 75 thousand seats
In many towns, the high school's sports facilities get used by the whole community throughout the year for many events.
My high school stadium was the first high school stadium to have electric lights. First town in the world to have electric street lights too. Thomas Edison built his 6th ever power plant in my small Pennsylvania hometown.
Where I live we have superbowls for all the high schools in the state . My nephews team just won the superbowl for Division 2. The superbowl was held where the New England Patriots play. America is over the top when it comes to sports.
Most states' high schools don't get that big. Texas is on another level when it comes to high school. And honestly, check the geographics, local events, proximity to major metro cities, etc and you see why. These are multi-purpose use stadiums. We have some decent size ones here in South Carolina. Don't believe we have many that top 10,0000+ though, but we are one of the smallest states in the US.
Tom Benson is absolutely 💯 a high school stadium. It is owned by the canton city school district. It stands where Fawcett Stadium used to stand. Tom Benson gifted the school the money to build it in his will.
Friday Night Lights wasn't just the name of a movie or TV series. It's a way of life
You cant even argue that tom benson hof stadium is not a high school stadium. The nfl hall of fame game is a SINGLE game per year, and the 2 universities it used to host are no longer using it. Also, not only does canton mckinley use the stadium, but the stadium also hosts all of the ohio high school championships. For every. Single. Division. Divisions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Its main purpose is undeinably high school.
@Catiko....your absolutely right about that stadium being a high school feild...it doesn't matter that it's beside the HOF!. FOOTBALL WAS CREATED IN OHIO! and founded here...I live in Rittman...less than 30 min away from that stadium I drive by it almost everyday for work... it's empty unless the bulldogs are playing...
@@phillipbarkman297 I dont live near canton cause i live down near columbus, but ive been to the stadium a few times
I can understand many countries don't have high school sports as a big draw. You just ride the train for 30 minutes & you are at a professional venue for 90% of them. But Australia is a lot like the US. A large country sparsely populated in some areas. Pro level teams must be a very long way in some spots. So why haven't the local teams caught on in Australia? It would mean the world for those kids.
High School football can turn a tidy profit for the district if the teams are good enough. They can also be the size of a small college. My graduating class was 900 kids back in the 80’s. Go Converse, Texas - Judson Rockets!
Remember two things. High School is the first step to the NFL. If you excel in high school ball, you stand a chance of being drafted to a good college team. If you excel in college, you stand a chance of being drafted into the NFL. That's how it works. Second, seats mean tickets and tickets mean dollars. Stadium games provide monetary support for not only the football teams but the entire athletic department, and sometimes the entire school.
You dont get drafted into college. You get recruited by a number of schools and you chose one. And in Texas, you get recruited for High School.
Before he even started saying where, I knew Texas would be represented 😆
Large and consolidated schools started evolving once transportation was easier and more available... large numbers of students, alumni, parents and families have close relationships with some of the large schools and support them for the rest of the lives. And of course, football is the predominate high school and college sport!
See, thinking of it as JUST for football is what makes it sound more extravagent than it actually it. They're actually half athletics facilities and half community center, but because football as a sport needs such specific features like yard lines and those standing goal posts, it gets taken as the predominant sport of the school's stadium. I won't speak for every school, but my high school's stadium (in a suburb of Dallas, Texas) was used by the track & field team, cross-country team, soccer team, cheerleading team, dance teams, marching band, color guard, and even the string orchestra on a few ocassions. It was also where we'd do certain outdoor sports and atheletic exams for gym class, and where events for school fundraisers would be hosted. There were a few times where local organizations would host charity yard-sales outside of school hours there, too.
Texas HS football is no joke - the TV series/movie Friday Night Lights is a pretty accurate depiction of how nuts it can be. By way of example, I headed home to Austin from Ohio on a Friday night and had decided to take US 79 as a shortcut. Big mistake. We hit Jacksonville around 9pm, right when the local HS game was over and people were headed home. Wound up stuck in extremely heavy stop-and-go traffic for over an hour before it cleared out. But that's what happens when damned near the entire population of two towns shows up for a game.
Johnny cant read or do math but he sure as hell can throw a football.
bear in mind, not ALL american high schools have this level of extravagance.
When I was in high school, we certainly didn't have anything like that. It was a great big deal when we got to play at the University of Kentucky's football field, one year, and they didn't have anything like that. I'm a Home Fry and follow you for reactions to Home Free, but I do check out some other stuff that may catch my attention. Love your channel.
I lived in Midland Texas for eight years. You probably know us from our nearby neighbors Odessa, Texas, one-time Murder Capital of the world, and known for the actual Friday Night Lights book (They sent death threats to the author).
For the eight years I was there, Midland could not get the funding for a third, much needed High School. The ballot measure would not pass on the basis that a third school would move the local schools from 6A High School football, to 5A. After several years of failed ballot initiatives, they were finally able to pass funding for two replacement high schools of a larger size. Note that despite a name change and completely new school, we will continue to refer to one of the two schools as Robert E Lee
I always find these stadium stories amusing when I think about my own high school's stadium. Well, you could say 'high schools' stadiums' since I went to a private school in 9th grade but the actual stadiums on campus for the high schools were very similar. Bishop Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale has a field with a track around it, no lights, and what looks to be an even smaller grandstand than when I played Freshman football -- kind of, I was a 160 pound nothing of a linebacker so I was _very_ in reserve. Then again when I went there the varsity squad played at nearby Hofstra University's football stadium. Wide World of Stadiums now refers to it as the biggest primarily-lacrosse stadium in the country now that Hofstra ended their football program, so I'm not sure if they still play high school ball there; then again, the 10 thousand seat lighted stadium for my alma mater Nassau Community College (also Eddie Murphy's... for four weeks :P) is down the road anyway. But for the rest of my high school career, as a part of the WT Clarke Marching Rams in south Westbury, the stadium was even less impressive. The games were _always_ on Saturdays because again, no lights, there was approximately room enough for 1200 people total in that stadium, they had to roll in a portable scoreboard for gameday because at the time we didn't _have_ a functional scoreboard, and, worst of all for a French horn player in the marching band, the stands were and still are one-sided. Meaning there was nothing for the sound to bounce off of so that people could even start to hear me. :P (They _do_ have a permanent scoreboard now, though. And, amazingly enough, artificial turf! Well it costs a lot more to have _good_ natural grass to play on than it does to have Field Turf. Still no lights though.)
TOLD ya us Americans are passionate about our school sports!
So proud that I visited the Hall of Fame when I was young with my city league team❤
This is not unusual situation when I was in high school, 1969 - 71, in Long Beach , California.
The 5 high schools that were part of the city school district all shared the use of Long Beach Vets stadium (which had more than 11,000 sears) for all schools varsity football home games.
This was because each school had about 4,000 students at the time, but each campus stadium only had seats for about 4,000 fans. And so, was inadequate for the very popular varsity football games.
I was a school bus driver in Katy, Texas and I have been to both of those stadiums that are still in muse and there now 10 high schools in Katie, half of them are playing away games every weekend. And the other app. We're playing local games in that stadium. If you do the math for the price per seeds and the food sold, they're not losing money. You have no idea how big football is in Texas.
my high school had a 25,000-seat stadium back in 1949, in the 70s Pele played there look it up Aquinas Stadium Rochester, NY 1949, before they built it they sometimes got upwards of 27,000 for the Boys Town of Nebraska game, no TV back then
My hometown built a new high school about 15 years ago. I don't know how much money they actually spent on the stadium, but it's huge compared to the old one. I think it seats 10,000, and my hometown only has a population of about 25,000. Sports are big business in the US, especially football, and it starts in high school if not earlier some places. High School football coaches are usually the highest paid employees in the school.
Bro, your beard is dope. Love from America
Appreciate it!
Yea. We didn't have anything like that in my state. Even our really good HS progarms were like 1/4 that size and no where near that cost. Anytime we had really big games we'd play in the closest college stadium.
The fans support the high schools and the colleges. There's not much else we can say.😊
Some of those High Schools have up to 10,000 students. Then combine multiple High Schools and that's a lot of people using those facilities for multiple sports. The cost averages out.
I was lucky enough to play Varsity football on a college field. The huge stands, the lights, the beautiful field.
In Texas 😆
At my high school that was built in 1953, remodeled the football stadium in 2012 for 1 million. I think that is way too much money for high school students that just end up trashing it.
I graduated from Cy-Fair High School (#2 stadiums), though this stadium wouldn't be built for more than a decade after I graduated. C.F.I.S.D (Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District, located in the outer suburbs of NW Houston) has the largest student enrollment of any school district in the nation that is not the main big city school district (i.e. Houston ISD would be the main big city school district). CFISD now has 12 high schools, and an enrollment of over 118,000 students. Each of those high schools has their own on-site fields for games and/or practices, as well.
Tom Benson was the > owner < of the New Orleans Saints when he passed away. His family still owns the team.
The high school Stadium at my school system is the prettiest in the whole state of Georgia. Friday night lights.
I live in a rural town west of Ft. Worth. Our stadium was upgraded a few years ago for $14.5 million. That's not ground up. That just Upgrades! Population of the town? 30,000.
in new orleans we have a stadium for almost all high school to use in our city parrk , called TAD GORMLEY STADIUM it has held some really big games for years, one of the biggest games is between holy cross high school and jesuit high school, it is one of the 10 oldest football games in the country going back to around 1910 or 1915 or so, it has close to 25000/to 35000 or so fans when both teams are really good playing for city or state titles.. they get around 10000 fans when the teams are just soso.
Our independence bowl here in Shreveport host college games once in a while, but our high school or high school use it
Everyone in Texas has heard of the Odessa Permian Panthers. Lost a little of their MOJO in recent years but back in the day they were the best.
Allen texas also has subway and pizza hut, and many other restaurants in their cafeteria. In a literal highschool
I'm 58, female, in Central Ohio, and I went to the 62nd best High school in the state of Ohio, that's out of 1,360 High Schools in total. Female students could play volleyball, touch (American) football, run track (and field), basketball, and, I think Golf & Soccer. The guys also had Baseball (instead of Volleyball), and typical American Football, but otherwise the same other stuff, basketball, track & field, golf, soccer. That's a single A School, my graduating class was all of 82 students. We had teams and kids who went to state in various sports. I almost got to state in discus, but missed it by a few inches :( But doing regionals & district etc was fun.
There is a huge range in what high schools put money into. In New England, this amount would be ridiculous for a high school stadium. My kids' HS was rebuilt from ground up in 2018 after many years overdue for modernizing. the entire school (including all athletic facilities) was the cost of this stadium. of course there are many schools struggling to modernize aging buildings or get basic supplies.
About 10 miles north of Allen and Mckinney stadiums is the town of Melissa with a population of about 13,000 that recently built a $35m facility. Frisco is a little to the west and they have a dome.
Dome? a H.S. has a dome? I was wondering, when #5 starts in an area everyone knows about. They made a movie! a TV show! Then #4? holy cow, somebody's got a dome in #1 HAHA!!!
McKinney had the first indoor practice field in the State. They also got it for free. It was a deal with Coca-Cola. At the time the district owned and maintained their own soda machines and Coke offered to come in and replace all of them, run and maintain them and give the district a 5% cut of the sales. To sweeten the pot they included paying for the building of an 85 yard indoor practice field.