COLUMBUS — If some is good, then more is better — especially as far as the bean counters at the Ohio High School Athletic Association are concerned.
Coaches and athletic officials have extolled the virtues of the newly-adopted football playoff expansion because it allows more athletes and communities to experience the postseason atmosphere. Beginning in the fall of 2021, 12 teams per region will qualify for the playoffs instead of eight.
As important as the experience is, it’s impossible to overlook the financial implications of an expanded playoff field.
According to the financial report taken from the minutes of the OHSAA Board of Directors’ April 22, 2020 meeting, the 2019 football tournament netted $1,131,763.80 after tournament expenses were paid by the OHSAA. Most of that money ($966,271.83) was earned at the regional level.
There are 28 regions across the state, four for each of the OHSAA’s seven enrollment divisions. With eight teams per region qualifying for the playoffs, seven tournament games must be played to crown a regional champion (four quarterfinals, two semifinals and a regional final).
That means there are 196 regional games played to determine the four state semifinalists in each of the seven enrollment divisions. If those 196 regional games netted the OHSAA $966,271.83 last fall, then each regional game was worth, on average, $4,929.96.
The addition of four playoff teams per region adds four games to each regional tournament. Instead of seven games per region, it will take 11 games to determine a regional champion.
If each of those additional regional games nets roughly $5,000, that’s an additional $20,000 per region. That means the OHSAA stands to make an additional $560,000 from expansion beginning in fall of 2021.
“The OHSAA makes a ton of money off the football playoffs,” Clear Fork coach Dave Carroll said. “It is kind of what drives their finances.”
The football tournament is traditionally the OHSAA’s biggest money-maker every year. The other nine fall sports combined netted the OHSAA $310,801.40 last year, according to financial reports.
“Football is an income generator for us,” OHSAA interim executive director Bob Goldring said recently.
About 80 percent of OHSAA revenue comes from tournament ticket sales, OHSAA director of communications Tim Stried said. With the loss of the boys and girls basketball and individual wrestling state tournaments, as well as all spring sports regional and state tournaments because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the OHSAA absorbed a $1 million hit. The expanded playoffs will allow the organization to recoup that loss in two years.
“The financial piece is big,” Mansfield Senior coach Chioke Bradley said. “There is a lot of money to be made by expanding the playoffs.”
But does expanding the playoffs put too much physical stress on young bodies?
The new format would call for the top four teams in each region to get a bye. The No. 5 seed will host the No. 12 seed, while the No. 6 seed will host the No. 11 seed, the No. 7 seed will host the No. 10 seed and the No. 8 seed will host the No. 9 seed.
If a team seeded fifth or lower were to win a state title (and the precedent exists) then that team would play 16 games — the equivalent of an NFL regular season. When Ohio State won its most recent national championship in January of 2015, the Buckeye played 15 games.
As it stands now, teams that advance to the state championship game traditionally play 15 games — 10 in the regular season and five in the playoffs.
“We’re talking about one additional game as opposed to 15 to win a state title,” Ontario coach Chris Miller said. “I don’t think anybody would complain.”
Some area coaches also had reservations about taking a first-round bye as a top-four team in the region.
“Obviously it would be good, if you are banged up, to have a week off to get kids heeled up and rested,” said Lucas coach Scott Spitler, who steered the Cubs to the Division VII state finals last fall. “We don’t know how that’s going to look, though. How is it going to be when you take a week off and get kids out of their routine?”
Football is the only OHSAA-sanctioned sport that doesn’t allow every team into the playoffs. Higher-seeded teams in other major team sports often have an option to take a first-round bye or play and its’s not unusual for a team to forego the bye in favor of maintaining its rhythm.
“Talking to basketball and baseball and softball coaches, so many of them would rather play a first-round game instead of taking that bye,” Spitler said. “High school kids are creatures of habit.”
The top-seeded team in the new-look regional bracket would either host the No. 8 team or the No. 9 team in the second round. The No. 4 seed would host the winner of the 5-12 matchup, while the third seed would host the winner of the 6-11 game and the No. 2 seed would host the 7-10 winner.
As it stands, one-sided first-round games are not all that unusual. Will adding four teams potentially make blowouts more common?
“I’m all for taking 12 teams but I also see the other side, too,” said Hillsdale’s Trevor Cline, who has piloted his alma mater to the second round of the playoffs in each of his first two seasons. “If you’re taking that many more teams per region, then there’s a chance that some of those first-round games could be blowouts. But that happens now, too.”
Clear Fork’s Carroll, who has coached through several rounds of playoff expansion, agreed.
“I remember when there were fewer teams that got in and some teams still went out and got blown out,” Carroll said. “It happened to us a couple of years ago against St. Marys. We were in the regional final and we got hammered (38-7). When you get down in a playoff game, it’s the finality of it and some times you shut it down.
“I don’t care about mismatches or whatever it may be.”
Even if the new system isn’t perfect, it’s as good as any around.
“Every state is different. I want to say in Indiana, as long as you win six or more games you make their postseason. In Michigan it’s a little different, too, because they only play nine regular season games,” Spitler said. “I’m not sure there is such thing as a perfect system, but I like the way we do things here.”
For veterans like Carroll, another round of playoffs means another chance to celebrate the game he has spent a lifetime teaching.
“Football has taken some unfair hits over the last 10 years with the injury stuff,” Carroll said. “The truth is the equipment is better now than ever. The protocols we all have to follow are better now than ever. Football is a much safer game than it’s ever been at the high school level.
“For a team to get an extra week, that’s an extra week of excitement. I think the more the better.”