“There is no particular reason for which I attend more boys games than girls games,” said Blue Reign leader Harry James Freda.

Four fall sports teams at Hall require admissions costs at every game: boys and girls soccer, (boys) football, and (girls) field hockey. Three out of four of them have qualified for states. The other is already out of contention for the state tournament.

Wouldn’t you expect the losing team to have the lowest revenue (in terms of attendance) per game? Wrong. In fact, the losing team has the highest, by far.

So if attendance isn’t based off of team success, what is it? According to the attendance records, there is a dramatic difference between boys sports and girls sports, with boys garnering far more attention.

The Hall High School football team, currently with a record of 1-7, has consistently had the best attendance rates, having sold $2048 worth of tickets in three home games where admissions prices were recorded, or $683 per game. Meanwhile, Hall’s field hockey squad, a team advancing to the state tournament with a record of 9-4-3, has sold $339 worth of tickets in four home games, or $85 per game.

Even comparing boys and girls soccer, equality in attention has been an issue, especially considering both teams have qualified for states. Boys soccer is 10-2-4, while the girls are 6-7-3. In games where admissions prices were recorded, however, the boys team is averaging $157 per game while the girls team is averaging only $136 per game, one of being their breast cancer awareness fundraiser.

Part of the reason for this difference has been the uneven distribution of prime time games played at night under the lights, potentially causing an influx of students at those games. The boys soccer team played five out of eight home games in primetime at 6:00, whereas the girls soccer team only played two. Recently, on October 30th, the boys and girls soccer teams played Conard at home. The girls had their game at 4:00, with minimal fan support partly because of other sports practices and afterschool activities, while the boys had their game at 6:00.

Outside of game time, what attracts students to these sporting events? Most would say the Blue Reign Facebook group attracts the biggest attendance. This is a place where students can all post about their game schedules in hopes of gaining support from the fan section. Usually it is the role of the four group leaders, all of which are male, to make posts for fellow students to come to home games and many follow their advice. These leaders are Harry Freda, Barrett Kanaga, Cole Duzan, and Devin Richards.

Overall these leaders have posted a total of 21 times for various boys games and only 7 times for all girls sports. Additionally, between girls soccer and field hockey, there have been 16 home games compared to the 13 home games between football and boys soccer. The fall sports which have never been posted about online are cross country and girls volleyball. Girls field hockey and girls swim and dive received their first posts coming at the end of their season for their game and meet against Conard.

The Hall vs. Conard rivalry is so intense, causing these games to draw large crowds. This isn’t always the case however when you look at it comparatively through the lens of genders. The biggest causes for large fan support are typically Conard games, senior nights, and fundraising games.

In the Blue Reign group, though, the posts seem to be more influenced simply by sport rather than cause. The boys soccer team, at one point, had two different away games that were posted about, and three posts for their senior night. For girls, however, their senior night was also a game against Conard. There was one joint post, including other Hall sports, sent out mid-afternoon. It didn’t include a call for students to go and attend the girls game, as it was more of an informational post.

On this same night there were three posts for the boys game. The first was a whole paragraph including a theme for the game, then the update that the games were still on, and a third at the start of the game that read “Pull up rn!!!!!!!!!!”

In general, posts about boys sports are mainly paragraphs with incentives, emojis, and a dress-up theme. The rare posts about girls games are mostly a few sentences that serve as a reminder that there is a game.

When asked if the leaders have ever refused to post about a sport, Devin Richards responded “No.” However he did mention one instance when the leaders agreed to post for girls field hockey, but never did. He said, “We told Harry to post and he didn’t.”

But maybe the Facebook posts do not influence attendance at all. Barrett Kanaga pointed out that, “People [will] go to football games no matter what.” Regardless of why, football is undisputedly the most popular sport at Hall. So whether or not Blue Reign leaders give them shout-outs on Facebook, people will still attend games.

If this is truly the case, why haven’t the leaders spent less time posting about football games, and more time posting about girls sports, all of which have less than one-fifth of the attendance? Moreover, when asked about how much influence leaders have on attendance, Barrett and Cole Duzan agreed, “a good amount,” and Harry Freda added, “too much.”

How do leaders select which games to post about? Barrett said, “[The Blue Reign posts are based on] the sports that get the most attendance.”

“It’s based on Devin’s opinions on things” Harry said, who was asked the same question. He was later asked why he personally doesn’t post about girls sports, and said, “I don’t really post so…”

Devin agreed that he was the leader who posts the most out of the four. However, he gave specific reasoning for doing so, “It’s always last minute, to be honest,” Devin said, “None of the leaders will post so I’ll have to post.” In other words, since none of the other Blue Reign leaders post, Devin is forced into a position to put something together last minute, making him an easy scapegoat.

In response to the issue of deciding which sports to post about, he said, “people will ask. Most people will text us and ask, ‘oh are you gonna post for us?’”

This inequality in attendance is not specifically Devin’s fault. Nor is it Barrett’s, Cole’s, or Harry’s. This is something that goes far beyond Hall High School.

Maybe it is time to step back as a community and think about how we can show support to all of our student athletes. As for the fall sports season here at Hall, we wish the best of luck to those continuing to play for a state title.