NCHSAA BOARD: Ends Endowment games, adopts RPI use for playoff seeding - Hobbs Daily Report

Teams will play 10-game schedule in football in fall

By CHRIS HOBBS

HobbsDailyReport.com

CHAPEL HILL – The concept of endowment games – where part of the gate receipts in return for adding a regular-season contest goes to the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) — is off the table moving forward.

In moves voted upon by the NCHSAA Board of Directors at a specially called meeting on Wednesday, the board:

No endowment games

Endowment Fund games are not allowed moving forward.

The decision comes on the heels of news this week of the N.C. Legislature reviewing and expressing some concerns about the NCHSAA.

One of the most vocal concerns expressed by senators who gave media interviews was the amount of money the NCHSAA currently has. Estimates of the Endowment Fund balance exceed $23 million and estimates of the NCHSAA’s finances at more than $40 million.

During last 30 years or so, monies from endowment games – which are voluntarily added by schools, who report to the NCHSAA they have scheduled them – included a period of time when $1 was added to the admission cost statewide with that $1 going to the Endowment Fund.

New seeding method

Altered how state playoffs will be structured and seeded, starting in August.

The NCHSAA will go to an RPI formula for seeding purposes, moving away from a seeding method that has – for the past few years – originated with a MaxPreps-developed rating and system.

The in-depth process used by MaxPreps was never publically revealed, making the bracketing difficult to project.

The new system will use an RPI formula for all teams in bracketed playoffs, consisting of using 30% of a team’s winning percentage, 40% of that team’s opponents’ winning percentage and 30% of the winning percentage of the opponents of a team’s opponents. In all calculations of opponent winning percentages, games involving the team whose RPI is being calculated is ignored.

East and West regions are pre-determined and will be seeded independently of one another utilizing the RPI rating of each school.

Conference champions will still be seeded prior to any other qualifying teams, based on their RPI rating. All other teams will be seeded after the conference champions by RPI rating regardless of conference finish.

A full listing of the newly approved playoff qualification and seeding procedure has been posted on the NCHSAA calendar web page, as well as an FAQ document to answer questions about the RPI formula.

10 football games, season limitations

In football, teams will be limited to 10 regular season contests per year. In boys’ and girls’ lacrosse, teams will be limited to 20 regular season contests, up from four in the current season.

In wrestling, there are no changes to the current season limitation.

In all other sports, teams can play up to 22 games.

Except for football and wrestling, all sports will be permitted one in-season tournament with a three-game maximum that would only count as one game or match.

Any game beyond the third game of an in-season tournament would count as an individual game towards the season limitation.