TRICKLE-UP ECONOMICS: Football’s decline has some high schools disbanding teams.

As Daniel J. Flynn told me when I interviewed him in 2013 on his book, The War on Football, “football as a participation sport is really hurting. Last year, youth football lost six percent of its player population…If youth football loses six percent of its player population next season and the season after, there’s not going to be any youth football left in America.” And eventually, that attrition in young players will begin having an impact on recruiting for both the college and the pro game.

Curiously, after Flynn’s book was published, the war on football became pro football’s war on its fans, potentially hastening the NFL’s demise as America’s premiere sport, just as first boxing and then baseball lost their cache as America’s leading pastime.