OHIO, USA — The 2023-24 athletic year has begun and arguably the biggest storyline heading into it revolves around expansion. No longer are there just eight teams in the Northern Lakes League; 11 different schools now make up the Northwest Ohio athletic association.
Clay, Findlay, Fremont Ross and Whitmer have all shifted over following the demise of the Three Rivers Athletic Conference. On top of that, Maumee decided to leave the NLL and pursue a future in the Northern Buckeye Conference.
"They are suburban schools, which is what the NLL has been for years and years. Schools like Findlay and Whitmer are bigger schools with bigger student populations," NLL commissioner Richard Browne said. "They compete well with the numbers at Perrysburg and Anthony Wayne. Then, when you look at Fremont Ross and Clay, their numbers are in the lower part of our student enrollment. It just brings more balance to our league."
With an odd number of programs and a wide disparity of school sizes, Browne and company chose a divisions format. The Buckeye and Cardinal divisions now break up the NLL by OHSAA enrollment numbers.
The Buckeye Division includes Anthony Wayne, Findlay, Northview, Perrysburg and Whitmer. The Cardinal Division includes Bowling Green, Clay, Fremont Ross, Napoleon, Springfield and Southview.
"It's odd to have 11 teams, but that's where we ended up. We went through the process of expansion and Maumee chose to leave and go to the NBC," Browne said. "We are always looking for more teams. Ideally, we'd love to get to 16 teams with two eight-team divisions setup. Right now, we've got 11 and that's what we're going to roll with and we've worked hard for two years to develop all of our schedules and bylaws to make sure we are accommodating those 11 teams."
The one caveat is that Springfield will play in the Buckeye Division for football in 2023 and 2024. They will move down to the Cardinal Division beginning with the 2025 season. Clay will shift up to the Buckeye Division starting in 2025.
Football schedules are made far in advance, which means the league has to utilize enrollment numbers from 2019-20 and so on to determine where each school falls into place. For all other sports, the NLL is using 2022-23 and 2023-24 final total enrollment figures for boys and girls.
Since the NLL's inception, there has only been one league championship awarded for each sport (not counting co-champions in the same season). That now changes with multiple divisions as two NLL titles will be sought after, one for the Buckeye Division and one for the Cardinal Division.
"When we get done with the fall season, we're going to reevaluate all of our sports in the fall season and make any adjustments we need to moving forward," Browne said. "That's how you grow as a family and that's what we're going to do."
The NLL originated in 1956 and has never possessed 11 schools. Despite this expansion marking the largest number of teams the NLL has held, Browne said he's still aiming to grow even further.
"Anytime you grow, there are questions about how that growth will look. But for us, we're just ready to go play games and see how all this materializes," Browne said. "I keep telling people that the expanded Northern Lakes League is going to continue to grow and we're going to continue to look for growth."