FRANKLIN – The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association has set some pretty lofty goals.
The association hosted its annual media day on Thursday afternoon, where executive director Bob Baldwin and Jim Clark, assistant director of communications, spoke about the state of the association and changes that will be coming for student athletes, coaches and fans in the upcoming seasons.
Among the topics of discussion were the role of “margin of victory” for the statewide power rankings, improvements to the website and database tracking, as well as how the process for the statewide tournaments could change with feedback from the members of the MIAA.
“We’re trying to give the association back to the members,” Baldwin said. “It’s the membership who votes in the rules, the membership who puts everything in the handbook. It’s our job to support the members.”
The power rankings have relied on “margin of victory” as a part of the formula since the system’s inception before the 2021-22 high school year. For most sports, the highest possible margin is three while higher-scoring sports like football, basketball and lacrosse have higher maximums.
The basketball committee voted earlier in the week to reduce the maximum number from 10 to six, a change that will be active for the 2025-26 season. Clark said the process to change it showed how the association is attempting to give its members the ability to make changes without the need for a governing body’s approval.
“That committee talked about (making the change), it wasn’t unanimous but ultimately they voted to reduce it,” Clark said. “In the older world, it would have been ‘the MIAA approves a change to margin of victory.’ Now, the committee votes on it and the tournament committee assesses how it fits with the tournament. It could potentially go to a board of directors but in this case, it didn’t need to.”
Other sport committees are discussing what the correct “margin of victory” number would be. Additionally, several sports have created subcommittees to determine whether adding a “Super 8” style tournament is feasible.
In addition to regular rule changes, the MIAA is also working on a database that is expected to launch in January 2026. It will track tournament history dating back to 2006, with earlier years being added after launch.
Clark said the database will help celebrate the history of high school sports in Massachusetts and make it easier to track records and accomplishments when they come up.
“The information is there, the answers are there,” Clark said. “I want to get that all out there so people can use it, look it up and go from there.”
Other features of the database will be landing pages for master schedules for individual schools, rosters and schedules for individual teams and a page displaying recent scores throughout the state.
Other topics discussed at the meeting included developing a referee pipeline with current students and improving the relationship between the MIAA and student athletes, schools and fans.
“When I first started here, the two terms I heard (about the MIAA) were perception and arrogance,” Baldwin said. “We’re trying the best we can to build relationships one person at a time. It takes awhile, it takes time, it takes visibility and it takes a conversation, but that is our ultimate goal.”
