NMAA to schools: Want to host a football playoff game? Get everything in order

A New Mexico high school that hopes to host a state playoff football game is going to have to meet certain facility standards or run the risk of losing the right to have the game on their campus.

During a relatively quiet New Mexico Activities Association Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday morning, the first of the 2024-25 school year, there was one piece of football information that was of note.

The NMAA wants high school campuses that have a football facility to have the appropriate amenities. The organization has informed athletic directors that their schools must:

• have adequate spectator facilities, which includes seating areas, restrooms, concessions and crowd control;
• have adequate locker rooms, including location and access to utilities such as showers and restrooms;
• have adequate field conditions, whether turf or grass, that “will not take away from game play” with the caveat that poor weather may interfere with the field from time to time;
• have adequate press box areas for coaches, media and event staff;
• have other adequate infrastructure, which includes things like parking.

There have, the NMAA has said on multiple occasions at previous board meetings, been concerns expressed to them that not every high school has the proper facility to host such an important football game.

Schools that cannot meet these requirements will face “a forfeiture of a school’s ability to host a state football playoff contest” and in that instance, an alternate site will be located.

Schools also run the risk of forfeiting playoff revenue share, or the possibility of hosting a playoff game in future years, if they fail to follow the NMAA protocols.

SOFTBALL: The board didn’t vote on any action to alter the playoff format for state tournaments, but there was an interesting idea floated by NMAA Executive Director Sally Marquez to the board during Wednesday’s meeting about how to better streamline state tournaments.

As it stands now in Class 5A, for example, there is a 16-team field. There are eight, first-round games, single elimination at school sites. The eight surviving teams come to the Albuquerque metro area, and the remainder of the event is double elimination.

Marquez talked about perhaps having the top four seeds each hosting a four-team pod on their home field. In other words, the No. 1 seed would host the Nos. 8, 9 and 16 seeds, and there would be two single-elimination games, in the first round and also the quarterfinals. The 1 vs. 16 and 8 vs. 9 winners would meet in the quarters.

The Nos. 2, 3 and 4 seeds would host similar pods, before the surviving four teams come to the metro area for the semifinal and championship rounds, which would remain double elimination.

One of the drawbacks in this proposal: seeds 5-8, which ordinarily would host a first-round game, would no longer have that benefit.

The NMAA also talked about looking into moving some of the Week 2 action to the newly renovated Los Altos complex at Eubank and I-40.

DEFICIT: The NMAA announced Wednesday that it was down about $166,000 to budget for the 2023-24 school year as it pertained to its sports. (The NMAA also oversees a large number of activities).

“We had a hard year,” Marquez said. “That’s all there is to it.”

Marquez said it could be chalked up to the cost of personnel needed to operate the NMAA’s many state championships — an area Marquez said the NMAA needs to address — and also to a recent decision the NMAA made to increase officials’ fees for working in the postseason.

“That absolutely killed us,” she told the board. “We are just struggling when it comes to the state championships.”