just a quick note G4L - on page 58 it says that the number of boys bball participants for MN is much less than PA. But your football numbers seem to be close. I don’t have an answer for this apparent participation discrepancy, but note that Minnesotans are an active people.
Whoops, I goofed that up! I was looking at the columns for golf!! LOL
Yep definitely very interesting. (Again, assuming these numbers are solid and not still highly influenced by covid)
MN - state pop 5.7M - football 20.7k (0.36 %) - basketball 13.7k (0.24 %)
OH - state pop 11.8M - football 40.3k (0.34 %) - basketball 21.2k (0.18 %)
PA - state pop 13M - football 25k (0.19 %) - basketball 21.4k (0.16 %)
Pennsylvania definitely still way down. Wild guess that a lot of it is due to more extreme poverty in Philly, by a larger chunk of population. Ohio doesn't have a metro like Philly, as while I'm sure there are parts of Cleveland and Cincy with extreme poverty, those are relatively smaller places.
Minnesota doesn't have nearly as much of that sort of thing. We are lucky to live here (other than the damn winters).