The Ohio High School Athletic Association Board of Directors and staff have been discussing expanding tournament divisions in several sports, Executive Director Doug Ute has announced. The OHSAA will hold statewide meetings in January to present data and gather feedback on the topic, which seeks to address the wide enrollment differences from the top to bottom of the current divisional structure. Changes could mirror the OHSAA’s current football model, which puts a smaller number of the state’s largest schools in Division I.
Of note, the proposal does not add any additional tournament games and would be expected to be a revenue neutral expansion. The Board of Directors could act on a proposal as soon as early 2024. The sports currently being discussed include the sports of girls volleyball, girls and boys soccer, girls and boys basketball, softball and baseball.
While the OHSAA Board of Directors has not recently been asked to act on formal proposals specifically on expansion, the Board has heard proposals that addressed the enrollment disparity between the schools at the top to the bottom of Division I in both 2006 and 2019. The only modification the OHSAA currently has in place addressing that issue is in football, where Division I is comprised of the top 10 percent of schools based on enrollment and the other six divisions are divided as evenly as possible. Currently in the sports of baseball, basketball, soccer, softball and girls volleyball, the enrollment difference from the top to the bottom of schools in Division I is an average of 939 students, with highs of 955 in boys soccer (an enrollment range of 346 to 1,301); 954 in boys basketball (346 to 1,300); 944 in baseball (356 to 1,300) and 940 in girls volleyball (319 to 1,249).