Lehi Sports
New sports are sanctioned when the demand is high enough
The Utah High School Activities Association governs all sanctioned sports and activities at member schools. As of this writing, there are 160 member schools in Utah, along with a handful of others who have opted to be independent in all or certain specific activities.
Like the programs that it oversees, the UHSAA has to be self-supporting. The organization’s budget for the 2024-25 school year was just under $4.5 million.
About half that amount is paid for with ticket sales at state-level events. The rest comes from corporate sponsorships, membership dues and fees, passes, endowment games and a few other miscellaneous sources.
The UHSAA does not provide any funds to schools for their programs, but the conditions of membership include that all sanctioned activities must follow the UHSAA’s by-laws and regulations.
In the past five years, the UHSAA has added boys and girls lacrosse and boys volleyball to the list of sanctioned sports. Beginning in this school year, Esports has been added to the list of sanctioned activities.
Once done in a rather informal way, the consideration for adding new sanctioned programs is governed by the formal UHSAA emerging sports policy.
The UHSAA handbook describes the purpose of the policy this way:
“The Emerging Sport Program (the “Program”) was developed with the oversight of the UHSAA Female Equity Committee. The purpose of the Program is to grow meaningful interscholastic athletic participation opportunities for student-athletes, particularly for female student athletes, in sports that have the potential to reach the required number of studentparticipants to be considered for UHSAA-sanctioned, state tournament status.”
Schools are now surveyed periodically about non-sanctioned sports and activities in which their students participate. When at least 20 percent of member schools have teams in a female sport or 30 percent for a coed or male sport, that sport is considered for sanctioned status.
The UHSAA Emerging Sports Committee then evaluates the sport using a list of 15 criteria, including such things as Title IX compliance, competition opportunities, the existence of national governing bodies, the extent of prep participation in other states, safety concerns and more.
When warranted by this review, the Committee will make a recommendation that a new sport be sanctioned, which is then voted on by the UHSAA Board of Trustees. If it is approved, interscholastic competition will begin no later than the third academic year following approval.
The initial seasons for boys and girls lacrosse were scheduled for the spring of 2020, but were pushed back a year because of the COVID suspension.
Rob Cuff, UHSAA executive director, said sanctioning a sport does not force any schools to offer it. “It’s all voluntary on how the schools do it,” he said. “Local school boards decide whether to offer the sport in their districts, and individual schools can also decide whether they will participate or not.”
For example, boys and girls lacrosse was adopted by most schools in classes 4A, 5A and 6A but not by those in other classifications. However, Waterford, a small 2A school, has a well-developed lacrosse program and its teams compete in Class 4A just in that sport.
Matt Norman, athletics supervisor at the Alpine School District, said that once the decision is made to offer a sport, the district does provide funding for the start-up costs, which can be considerable.
“The start-up costs for lacrosse were massive, second only to football,” he said. “The district purchased all of the helmets and a lot of sticks for all of the schools and also gave them a budget for uniforms. After the first season, those programs had to be self-supporting like all of the others.”
For the most recent addition, boys volleyball, Norman said the district provided about $18,000 per program. The district does continue to cover the costs of staffing events and coaches stipends as it does for all other extracurricular activities.
“All other routine costs associated with sanctioned activities are covered by fees,” Norman said. “Administrators at each school have flexibility in their budgets.
“Other expenses, such as field maintenance of facilities upgrades, are considered and funded through a different process at the district level based on recommendations from school administration,” he added.
“Of course there are many challenges associated with building great programs and supporting our coaches and athletes, but those challenges exist for our other sports and activities too,” said Jon Lehman, athletic director at Skyridge High School.
“I believe that high school sports can have a great impact on the experience and development of our young people,” he went on. I believe all of the financial and logistical challenges are worth it.
“With each ‘new’ program added, we have dozens or potentially hundreds of students that have the opportunity to be part of a team. My experience has been positive with the addition of new sports,” he Jan Whittaker, assistant director at the UHSAA, saidthe current list of emerging sports includes mountain biking, ice hockey, rugby, rodeo, pickleball and water polo.
