STEVENS POINT (NBC 26) — Changes are coming to the competitive landscape of high school sports in Wisconsin.
A new WIAA competitive balance plan goes into effect for the upcoming academic year, meaning some programs will be moved up a division based on their previous performance.
- In April of 2023, WIAA member schools voted 265-115 to implement a "performance factor" that will bump up teams that meet a point threshold based on previous postseason success.
- Teams in bracketed sports like football, basketball, and baseball receive four points for a state championship, three for a state runner-up finish, two for a state semifinal appearance and one for a state quarterfinal appearance.
- If a team has six or more points during a three-year window, that team is moved up one division for the next year. If at the end of the season the team falls back below six points, they would return to their previous division.
- Sports like golf, tennis, and cross country have a slightly different point system, which can be seen here; track & field and swim & dive are not impacted by the change.
- Several local programs - such as Notre Dame girls basketball, Brillion boys basketball, and Xavier girls volleyball - will be affected when the plan goes into place for the upcoming academic year.
"For many, many, many years - decades - the WIAA used only school school enrollment to determine your divisional placement," Stephanie Hauser, the WIAA's executive director, said. "The committee's statement is that in 2024 they just don't feel it's that simple anymore."
Hauser cited more frequent open enrollment, transfers, changing socioeconomics and access to things like club sports and specialized training as reasons for the change.
Hauser said at least a dozen other states around the country have a similar system. Still, she said it's a monumental moment for Wisconsin.
"This is big," Hauser said. "This is different than the WIAA has done things in the history of the WIAA."
63 fall sports teams and 37 winter sports teams met the point threshold. The spring results were recently finalized and are expected to be released later this week or early next week.
Schools can appeal their promotion, though according to the WIAA website, through the fall and winter seasons only two appeals were approved despite a total of 36 being submitted.
"Enrollment is still the starting point but then from there there's some other things that play in," Hauser said. "The membership - I believe - spoke pretty loudly when they supported it by 70 percent to say: 'We agree, it's not that simple anymore.'"
"I think the membership would tell you that they also agree that this is not a perfect system, either," she added.
Matthew Koenig, Notre Dame Academy's athletic director, is among that group.
Notre Dame was one of the 115 schools that voted "no" on the measure in April of 2023.
Now, the school has four sports affected. Most notably girls basketball, where the Tritons have won three of the last four Division 2 state titles and finished runner-up in the other.
"You almost look at it as like a punishment for kids that have to be moved up," Koenig said.
Notre Dame had 727 students enrolled last year, nearly 500 fewer than the Division 1 cut-off of 1,200 students.
"You're going to come here to play basketball and now you're going to be going up against schools that are two times, three times the size of you," Koenig said. "I get it, but we also have to give credit where credit is due."
Brillion boys basketball and Xavier girls volleyball face similar challenges.
Brillion was the Division 3 runner-up in 2022 and won a Division 3 state title two years ago, but didn't advance past the regional last season. Still, the Lions meet the six-point threshold and are moving up.
"When you win a state championship, if you've had other success around that, it's a pretty good indication that you're going to move up," Brillion head coach Chad Shimek said.
Shimek said that - at 319 students - Brillion would have been the smallest school in Division 3.
Instead, they're now moving up to the Division 2 postseason tournament and will compete against schools like West De Pere and Ashwaubenon, which have around three times their enrollment.
Shimek said his team will accept the challenge, but implied he hopes to see some changes to the system down the road.
"I think definitely maybe as this goes on, the WIAA or the schools that are a part of it will look at it and tweak some things," Shimek said. "I really do believe in looking at different factors. Maybe it's more years. Maybe it's looking at conferences."
In cases like Notre Dame and Brillion, there are concerns that one great class of players could have success and bump a team up. After those players graduate, the younger classes then have to face more difficult competition.
Some schools have also expressed that a three-year window is not a big enough sample size to determine if a team is consistently good enough to warrant a move up.
Hauser said the WIAA's competitive balance committee will continue to look at the system and make changes as they learn more.
"What they want to see in the first year of actual implementation of it is: How does that play out?" Hauser said. "So I believe one year from now they're going to have a lot more meaningful data to look at and determine if they feel like there are some major changes they should look to add in."
She said she believes the 2024-25 year, being the first, is crucial in terms of collecting data and surveying how the performance factor impacts competition.
In the meantime, the affected schools are hoping to make the most of their new challenge. Like Xavier girls volleyball, which has won back-to-back Division 2 state championships.
Head coach Luke Herriges isn't ruling out a third straight, this time in Division 1.
"It's another mountain to climb. Can we make it an opportunity?" Herriges said. "I think the perception is Division 1 or a higher division with more kids, maybe there's more talent and maybe it's more competitive. I think that could be a good opportunity for us at Xavier to get our name out there a little bit more."
There are specific concerns surrounding the impact on cross country. Earlier this year, leaders in that sport launched a petition in hopes of exempting cross country from the performance factor.
Hauser said the WIAA's competitive balance committee is open to feedback from all sports, including but not limited to cross country.
