Nothing moves the needle in Baton Rouge like football, whether it’s Friday Night Lights, Saturday morning youth football games or Saturday night in Death Valley. Football creates community, fuels the economy and stirs passion.

Now imagine Baton Rouge and other Louisiana communities with fewer football game days. It’s expected.

Changes in the climate increasingly expose football players (and all athletes in outdoor sports) to higher temperatures and dangerous levels of humidity that surpass recommended safety thresholds. Baton Rouge’s average temperature in 2024 (72.5 degrees) was the warmest ever for the second straight year, and the city recorded its latest 90-degree day on Nov. 6, 2024.

The current trajectory of climate change means a shrinking football season for the next generation of players. By the 2050s, East Baton Rouge Parish can expect 34 to 70 fewer days each year suitable for football, according to a study by the Climate Impact Lab. That’s the third-most playing days expected to be lost nationally, behind Lafayette Parish and Beauregard Parish.

The good news is most sports opportunities for children can be preserved. But it will eventually require divorcing ourselves from traditional sports schedules. There will likely come a time when the start of football season will need to be delayed, perhaps until October or even moved to the spring, given the sweltering summer temperatures that carry into the season. Other fall outdoor sports could also flip seasons with indoor sports like basketball and volleyball.

The climate is already impacting sports decisions by Baton Rouge families. In the Aspen Institute’s recently released State of Play Baton Rouge report, many children and families said they factor in heat and rain when deciding whether a child plays sports at all, which sports to play if they do and when and where to play them.

Adjustments are happening to help children play. The Korey Stringer Institute ranks Louisiana as the fourth-best state in the U.S. for high school sports safety policies. The state has adopted several laws addressing heat illness and heat acclimatization in sports, although they only apply to school sports.

Community-based leagues, travel sports and other recreational activities in East Baton Rouge Parish and across Louisiana often make their own decisions on how to handle heat based on their resources, interests and sometimes conflicting information. In that sense, Louisiana’s communities are no different from many around the country, making developing policies very challenging.

Baton Rouge could become a national leader in how sports and public health officials work together on health policies. The Aspen Institute recommends Baton Rouge create a local athletic council to support climate policies in sports and other ways to coordinate more quality and safe sports opportunities for all children. Baton Rouge needs a way for leaders from schools, parks and rec departments, travel teams, local governments and others to align goals around what a healthy sports experience should look like. 

The athletic council could proactively begin thinking through the thorny issue of moving football to another season. This won’t be easy. Residents build their calendars around football in the fall. Shifting seasons would be complicated and controversial with possible unintended consequences for participation and college opportunities. 

Most likely, youth and school sports providers will wait to consider changing seasons until/if the NFL and colleges adjust their schedules first. That’s understandable given how the pipeline works. But it’s possible seasonal changes never happen at the highest levels.

The NFL and major college football conferences have resources to play indoors, hire enough athletic trainers, and invest in state-of-the-art safety measures. Youth and high school sports providers lack the resources and preparation to adapt to climate change the way pro and college sports will. In the near term, youth sports organizations will likely continue to make tweaks, such as reducing the length of games, playing more at night, and providing more water breaks.

Whether parents and children feel safe to play sports impacts participation. Changing football season would be hard. But as the Earth continues to warm and impact playing conditions, adjustments around the margins will eventually not be enough.