The largest expansion proposal in the history of the Ohio High School Athletic Association was approved by the organization’s board of directors on Thursday morning.
After months of discussion and meetings around Ohio to gather feedback, the OHSAA’s board of directors unanimously approved a proposal to utilize a new formula to determine how many divisions will be offered for postseason tournaments.
Girls and boys soccer will expand from three divisions to five while volleyball, girls and boys basketball, softball and baseball will all expand from four divisions to seven. In those sports, Division I and Division II will only include 64 schools; the remaining teams will be split evenly among the remaining divisions.
The new divisions will go into effect in the fall of 2024. The board will continue to discuss additional sports, noting several recent meetings regarding track and field.
There are no changes to the number of football divisions, which is already at seven. In addition, any changes to the current deployment of the Competitive Balance process would need to be voted upon by OHSAA member schools during the annual referendum voting process.
The OHSAA will announce structural and dates changes for future state tournaments at a later date.
Divisions I, II smaller than the rest
The following scale to be used to guide the board’s decision on the number of divisions for volleyball, football, soccer, basketball, softball and baseball:
199 or fewer teams: 1 Division
200 to 299 teams: 2 Divisions
300 to 399 teams: 3 Divisions
400 to 499 teams: 4 Divisions
500 to 599 teams: 5 Divisions
600 to 699 teams: 6 Divisions
700 and more teams: 7 Divisions
For volleyball, soccer, basketball, softball and baseball, the largest 64 schools would be placed into Division I. The next largest 64 schools would be placed into Division II. The remaining schools would be divided as evenly as possible into the remaining divisions.
The OHSAA already does something similar to this in football, in which the largest 10 percent of schools are placed into Division I and the remaining schools are divided evenly in Divisions II through VII.
Sidney is the lone area school which would stand to benefit the most from the difference between how divisions are proposed to be determined in these sports as compared to football. Sidney would be Division III in those sports as opposed to Division II in football.
Click here to see projected divisional breakdowns for each sport affected by the proposal, based on current enrollment numbers. The OHSAA will announce official divisional breakdowns for each sport at later dates.
Ute praises decision
OHSAA executive director Doug Ute praised the board’s decision as a step toward to level the playing field of OHSAA tournaments.
“It’s the right thing to do for the student-athletes who have been competing at this disadvantage,” Ute said. “For too long, the largest schools in our divisions have been so much larger than the smaller schools in the same division, which has resulted in many schools accepting that they realistically have little chance at making a run in the tournament. In some of our sports, there have been more than 200 schools competing for a state title in that division, which is significantly more than what most other states do, and what we do in many of our own sports.
“We know that there is a lot of work to do in the coming months to prepare for additional divisions this fall. We have already started working on the details to accomplish this, but one thing we know for sure is that having two or three more state champions in these sports doesn’t water them down or diminish winning a state title. And we anticipate that this new format will be revenue neutral, since every school makes the tournament already.”
