Less is better
This is totally my opinion — although I know it is shared by others — but something good just might come out of the down economy our country is going through: the North Carolina High School Athletic Association is considering cutting back on playoff berths in all sports, potentially even in basketball and football.
As a means of cutting costs, the NCHSAA’s board of directors recommended earlier this year that schools voluntarily reduce the number of regular-season games in non-revenue sports. But at regional meetings over the past week, NCHSAA staff members have also discussed reducing the number of playoff teams in basketball and football.
This would be a great idea not only in a struggling economy, but also in times of prosperity. When 256 of 386 teams qualify for the playoffs in those sports, it creates many marginal, and many bad matchups in the early rounds of the playoffs, and it also forces teams — especially in the smaller classifications — to play an extra game that in some cases they might not want to play.
I will be in touch with Rick Strunk of the NCHSAA soon to do a story for the paper, but he has been out of the office this week attending regional meetings.
Less is better. The period when every team making the postseason really earned their way in has been gone for a long time, and shaving the number of participants wouldn’t bring it all the way back. But it sure would make it better.