WIAA competitive balance to factor into ‘24-’25 playoffs
The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association competitive balance initiative completed its first full year of applying the performance factor for division placements, which will begin with the 2024-25 sports seasons.
The Classification Committee assembled to discuss and review the performance factor process and criteria in July. The committee recommended no changes to the process or criteria, citing results of performance factor couldn’t be appropriately evaluated until competition results are recorded to fully determine its impact.
An ad hoc committee consisting of 11 superintendents/district administrators, six athletic directors, one principal and one principal/athletic director proposed the performance factor process, which was approved by a 265-115 membership vote at the 2023 Annual Meeting for implementation in 2024-25. The initiative promotes school programs that reach a threshold of tournament success based on a performance point system allocated over a three-year period.
School programs reaching the six-point performance factor threshold during the past three seasons are placed in the division containing the next largest set of enrollments from where the schools’ enrollments would place them for each respective sport other than track & field and swimming & diving–which do not have a team component to advance in the tournament series–and sports with only one division. Schools are restricted to moving up a maximum of one division from the previous year’s placement.
This performance factor initiative affords schools the opportunity to request to move down a division with lower enrollments. The Classification Committee reviewed 46 such requests in 2023-24. Eighteen of those requests were approved.
The number of sports programs that have accumulated at least six points to engage a promotion to a division with higher enrollments–if their 2024-25 tournament placement enrollment doesn’t initially move them up a division–was 136 this year. It is noteworthy that 45 of those programs that achieved the six-point threshold competed in Division 1 in 2023-24 and will be promoted only if their enrollment places them in a division with lower enrollments.
The performance factor process also affords schools the opportunity to appeal their promotion to the division with the next largest enrollments based on performance points. Of the 136 programs reaching the three-year, six-point threshold in all respective sports in 2023-24 resulting in a promotion, 46 appeals were submitted. The Classification Committee reviewed and evaluated these appeals with three approvals.
Additional information will be reported by members of the Classification Committee at the area meetings in September. For more on the performance factor process, visit the Classification Committee homepage on the WIAA website.
The WIAA, as defined by its Constitution, is a voluntary, unincorporated, and nonprofit organization. The membership oversees interscholastic athletic programs for 513 senior high schools and 45 junior high/middle level schools in its membership.
