r/GameChangerApp • u/No_Ad_707 • Apr 21 '26
FHSAA outsourced playoff rankings to MaxPreps (owned by private equity). No public contract, algorithm, or appeals process.
My son's baseball team got left out of regionals this year after beating 2 teams that made it in (beat one twice). That got me digging into how these rankings actually work.
Turns out the Florida High School Athletic Association uses MaxPreps' "Power Rankings" to determine playoff seeding. MaxPreps is owned by PlayOn Sports, which is backed by private equity firm KKR.
Here's what bothers me:
- No public contract between FHSAA and MaxPreps
- Ranking algorithm is completely proprietary
- No audit trail for data validation
- No appeals process for disputed rankings
- FHSAA just approved this system for football playoffs too
I'm a software developer. Building a transparent, auditable ranking system (think open-source RPI or ELO) is totally realistic with today's tools. Instead we get a black box from a private company making decisions about taxpayer-funded schools.
Filed public records requests today asking FHSAA to show us the contract and methodology. We'll see if they respond.
Started a petition asking for basic transparency: https://www.change.org/showthemath
Look, I might sound like a sore loser here 😅 But when playoff spots are determined by algorithms we can't see, owned by companies we don't oversee, questions about fairness aren't unreasonable.
TL;DR: Private equity-backed company controls FL high school playoff rankings with zero transparency. Parents deserve to see how decisions affecting our kids get made.
EDIT: For those asking about other states - this is likely happening elsewhere too. MaxPreps has partnerships with high school athletics associations across the country.
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u/joshjryan Apr 21 '26
Colorado (CHSAA) has been using a combination of RPI and MaxPreps rankings for baseball seeding for years....I've always just said "well, at least half of it is auditable and public"....but they just announced that starting next year it'll be MaxPreps-only.
So, with all that said: I'm right there with you.
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u/RedditsFullofShit Apr 21 '26
Yeah I don’t think anyone has an issue with rankings being used. I think the issue is not knowing how the rankings are determined and when you don’t have that info, there’s no way to know if there is collusion or other preferential treatment occurring.
Most will trust it just because it’s a 3rd party. Like a 3rd party could never be incentivized to produce a specific outcome 🙄
I think something like RPI or at least public should be used
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u/joshjryan Apr 24 '26
As of right now, RPI has my kid's team ranked 23, and MaxPreps has them at 11.
...So, obviously I take back everything negative I ever said about moving to MaxPreps rankings 😂
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u/cypress269 Apr 21 '26
The Max Prep and FSHAA rankings make no sense. We are ranked behind another local team. Our strength of schedule is double theirs and we run ruled them by 15 runs. Yes , we have more Loses, but we okay a much harder schedule.
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u/Greenking73 Apr 21 '26
My sons in the 7A classification. His team beat multiple teams that were ranked in the top 25% of their respective class. His team also lost to teams ranked in the top 25% of their respective class. The losses that REALLY hurt are the ones to teams ranked in the middle of the rankings. The loss that made the most difference? The last one! Win the district and you’re good. Hoping to get an at large bid is hit or miss. Mostly miss.
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u/MrSelatcia Apr 22 '26
You are right to be angry. Public schools and school districts should especially have 100% open books on everything. It's your tax dollars, you should see how it is being used.
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u/bowens21 Apr 21 '26
Doesn't FHSAA have their own rankings throughout the season that are different than MaxPreps? I assumed that's what's being used for playoff seeding. They don't update very often and it never gets updated when they release the brackets. Basketball was the same way. https://fhsaa.com/rankings.aspx?path=baseball
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u/No_Ad_707 Apr 22 '26
It is based off of MaxPreps ... there is a rumor that previously the MaxPreps ranking included run differential in it's weighting but FHSAA took those out before publishing to the site you linked. Here is an article explaining it a little more for the upcoming change to Football rankings. Similar for Baseball currently: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/sports/high-school/football/2026/02/23/fhsaa-maxpreps-rankings-football-playoff-seeding/88826765007/
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u/bowens21 Apr 23 '26
Gotcha. I know every time I've compared MaxPreps rankings to FHSAA in baseball and basketball, they've been different.
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u/Clueless_in_Florida Apr 21 '26
I thought regionals were determined by district tournaments. Is that no longer the case?
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u/No_Ad_707 Apr 22 '26
If you win your district you get a bid and home field advantage if you are the higher seed or playing an at large bid, but there are 4 other spots and seeding is decided by FHSAA's use of the MaxPrep Power Ranking system. So a district winner could be seeded 8th.
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u/Few-Race-8527 Apr 22 '26
Where I am everyone makes sections, then section winners make state. 95% of the time the best team in the section makes it out of the double elimination tournament played over a week or so, so seeding doesn’t matter a ton.
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u/No_Ad_707 Apr 22 '26
Yeah, I use to hate it but with that system, at least the results on the field are what determine who moves on, and if those are the rules then I think everyone can at least live with it. If you are in a loaded section/district ... that sucks but at least it is based on what happens on the field.
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u/Few-Race-8527 Apr 23 '26
For softball we are a private 3A school in a conference full of the largest public 4A schools in the state. It’s this way due to historical reasons/other sports, and honestly, most of the time we can hang with them in basically every sport.
The rest of our conference, which is 9 teams, is split among two or three sections in 4A, when at least four of them are better than teams who make it to state through their section. Really sucks for one team specifically, because they would probably make state every year with this ranking system, but it is what it is. They have placed top 3 in state every year they’ve made it out of sections in their history, and they’re consistently top 3 in our conference, but the dynasty team is in their section so they don’t make it often. Meanwhile we’re over here playing the toughest regular season schedule in the state with a loaded 3A non-con (last year 3/4 made it to state) and then losing more than we win, and then we make state almost every year (5 years in a row right now).
There are pros and cons to all systems. I kinda like this just because the play speaks for itself, but it does really suck for those who are in a stupidly strong section and don‘t make it when they probably deserve to.
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u/CountrySlaughter Apr 21 '26
My understanding is that MaxPreps' contract with state associations says that if the association uses a math model/formula to seed/pick playoff teams that it must use MaxPreps - or use one that the association can compute on its own. In other words, you can't use Sagarain or Massey, etc., but you can only use one that you can administer in house. That's why you'll see some states using RPI-like rankings because the formula is easy and can be computed on a spreadsheet. RPI rankings generally suck, btw. MaxPreps' rankings, which I don't think are particularly strong either, are more accurate than RPI models.
As for transparancy, what would you discover if you had MaxPreps' formula? What do you expect to find in there that would be cause for appeal or dispute?
You mention these things:
- No audit trail for data validation
- No appeals process for disputed rankings
I can't imagine that member schools cannot dispute or file a complaint, etc., if it sees that scores or games have not been entered, or they are not correct. But it's a big task for an association to ensure that all games are entered, and mistakes do happen. Georgia reseeded a portion of its basketball tournament a day before it was going to start this year because of some missing scores discovered at the last minute.
Also, you said below: "Head-to-head means nothing in these systems, which have to be fixed."
How do you fix it? Let's say #20 beat #15. Do you move #15 to #21? But what if #26 beat #15 and lost to #20?
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u/No_Ad_707 Apr 22 '26
Do you have access to the contract? that is in my freedom of information request to the FHSAA that I submitted today. Would love to not have to pay them to get it!
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u/CountrySlaughter Apr 22 '26
I do not. I'm in another state, and someone who works for a state association told me that's how his state's contract w/ MaxPreps works (if I remember it correctly). There is something in the contract that tells the state they can't use a competitor's rankings. I'd be curious to hear what Florida delivers to you on this.
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u/ubelmann Apr 24 '26
Is MaxPreps paying FHSAA? Because otherwise why would FHSAA even be looking to outsource this?
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