At any home football game this past fall, the bleachers were full. Now, months into winter sports, they’re not. Soccer, basketball and other Van Nuys teams have played most of their seasons to near-empty bleachers, and students say they have their reasons.
The pattern holds across nearly every sport. Soccer, basketball, volleyball and other teams play home games with few or no students in the stands, while football regularly draws the school’s largest crowds. Students and athletes offered different explanations for the gap, from scheduling conflicts to simple disinterest.
Senior quarterback Carlos Herrera said football draws students because of the culture around it, not just the sport itself.
“I think people attend football games because it’s the most popular sport around the school,” Herrera said. “Playing on Friday nights makes the vibe better and people look forward to hanging out with friends, especially when we win games like we did this year. No other sport has the support that football has because it’s nowhere near the excitement.”
Not every student who skips games does so out of indifference to sports.
“I usually don’t go to home games because I live far away,” junior Nia Tachin said. “A lot of the time it doesn’t make sense for me to stay at school when it takes me an hour to get home.”
Van Nuys draws students from all across the San Fernando Valley, which makes after-school attendance harder than at neighborhood schools.
For other students, the issue is simpler. They don’t like sports.
“I don’t go to home games because they’re boring and I don’t like sports,” senior Dana Flores said. “I feel like the idea of watching them play is very overhyped. What if we lose and we’re around all of these people who did win — you just feel like a loser at a loser school.”
Or, other commitments might call their name.
“We’re in high school, so some people might have a job or other stuff to do, and not many people can attend after school,” senior Jacob Fajardo said.
The athletes notice.
“The stands are always empty,” varsity soccer junior Manuel Perez-Gomez said. “I think the bench looks more full than the stands. I’m not really disappointed, but I do wish that more people would attend games.”
However in order to fix this, Fajardo believes it requires effort from both the ASB and teams.
“I’m not going to lie, we’re not the best school in the whole world,” Fajardo said. “But if we played better and had more activities to do during the game or halftime, then I feel like other people would attend. ASB is a big part of this. They should go around, advertising and offering extra credit.”
