Use of rankings optional under deal with MaxPreps
5-year contract paying FHSAA $85,000 a year requires schools to put scores into database
Coaches who fear the Florida High School Athletic Association sold their teams down the river by partnering with MaxPreps appear to be missing the boat.
The five-year contract does pay the FHSAA $85,000 annually, through June 2022, but it does not require the association to use MaxPreps online team rankings for any purpose.
A hotly-debated FHSAA proposal to revamp its classification and playoff systems starting with the 2019-20 school year would use MaxPreps to seed teams for district, region and state playoffs in seven sports. But not because the association is required to do so.
“The agreement has nothing to do with rankings,” said Jamie Rohrer, an FHSAA associate executive director. “The revenue benefits our schools. The only obligation FHSAA has is basically to require schools to input their schedules and scores and encourage teams to put their stats into MaxPreps.”
The Orlando Sentinel obtained a copy of the agreement.
The 16-page contract does call for the FHSAA to require schools to enter scores into the MaxPreps platform and to encourage teams to submit detailed statistics for all games and players. But nowhere are power rankings mentioned.
The classification proposal will be debated again during a special meeting of the FHSAA’s athletic directors advisory committee on Wednesday morning in Gainesville. The meeting is open to the public, starting at 9 a.m., and concerns about MaxPreps and its rankings imperfections are likely to again be heard.
“Everybody seems to think we’re tied to MaxPreps,” Roher said. “No, it’s because they’re the only game in town. We’ve not found anybody else who provides power rankings for teams, aside from football.
“If anybody has another recommendation, we’re open to suggestions.”
There is a not an exclusivity clause in the contract. Rohrer confirmed Monday that if the FHSAA wanted to partner with another outlet capable of generating Florida team rankings, it could do so.
The FHSAA devised its own points system for football when it revamped that playoff format last year. Football administrator Frank Beasley oversees a system that awards teams points for wins and losses based on the record of each opponent. Bonus points are available for scheduling teams with recent playoff appearances.
Rohrer said she and other staffers believe MaxPreps is a more accurate system than their own because it factors in more data.
Creating an FHSAA formula for sports that have 25-game regular seasons would be significantly more challenging than football, which has 10-game schedules and scores that are typically readily available.
“It’s just not feasible for our staff to do for all our other sports what Frank does on a weekly basis for football,” Rohrer said. “We don’t have the data that MaxPreps has.”
The initial FHSAA proposal unveiled last spring would have used MaxPreps rankings rather than school sizes to achieve better “competitive balance” in aligning teams into classifications. That concept was shouted down during months of discussion.
The latest FHSAA draft will divide teams above the 1A rural division evenly based on enrollment counts. There would be six classes above the 1A rural division for baseball, boys and girls basketball, softball and volleyball; and six classes for boys and girls soccer, which do not have a rural division.
As written, 32 teams will make the region playoffs in 2A through 7A, with 16 district tournament winners automatically advancing. Those teams will be seeded No. 1 through No. 4 in their regions based on seasonending MaxPrep rankings. MaxPreps ratings will also determine four at-large qualifiers to round out each eight-team region bracket.
Coaches are worried about flaws in a MaxPreps system that has had incorrect schedules and scores and questionable rankings.
In an example from girls volleyball last season, West Orange finished 29-0 and won the state Class 9A championship. But in MaxPreps’ final computerized rankings, the Warriors were rated No. 2 behind Oviedo (25-4), a team West Orange beat in region play.
Oviedo volleyball coach and athletic director Jen Darty recently sent a detailed email to A.D. committee members and others in which she said she’s glad to see the FHSAA considering a change to seeding for its playoff brackets, but she has concerns about a computer based system that has no human element.
“I have been on what I felt the good end of a MaxPreps’ ranking as well as the bad end and with no understanding of exactly how it is calculated,” Darty wrote. “I do not feel that MaxPreps is the ideal source.”
Darty suggested that teams within a district should be required to play at least once against each other to add validity to any seeding system.
The MaxPreps contract includes bonus fees the FHSAA can collect if a certain number of schools use an “official scorer” to provide live scoring updates for all regular season football games, and more bonuses if coaches create team Apps that players can sign into.
“We’re not in this to get the bonus,” Rohrer said. “We’re doing our best to make things as easy for our schools as we possibly can.”
MaxPreps, founded in California in 2002, spotlights high school sports nationwide with a stated goal “to cover every team, every game and every player”. Its calling card is a voluminous database that is populated by high schools who create team pages that can include schedules, scores, rosters and detailed statistics for every player. The service is free to schools and to readers.
With the data punched in by high schools MaxPreps hosts computerized rankings and numerous statistical leader lists that show where a team or player ranks nationally, or within its state, its classification, or its district among teams that enter their stats.
The five-year FHSAA deal with MaxPreps was entered into on July 1, 2017. It can be renewed annually by mutual agreement beyond June 30, 2022.
MaxPreps was purchased in 2007 by CBS Interactive, a division of the CBS Sports network.