New school year brings new high school sports seasons with plenty of changes

WISCONSIN (Civic Media) – As the calendar turns to August, it marks the start of a new school year, and in turn, new high school sports seasons for 2025-26.

In Wisconsin, the first high school sports action is the beginning of football practices on Aug. 5. The rest of the WIAA-sponsored fall sports get underway by mid-August, with competition beginning as early as Aug. 14 (girls golf).

With the new school year, there are plenty of changes to sports on tap for the 2025-26 season. Here are a few of the most notable impacts to high school sports as a whole in Wisconsin, as well as individual sport changes.

Name, Image, and Likeness

Perhaps the biggest change to high school sports in Wisconsin — and one of the most misunderstood changes — is the introduction of name, image, and likeness policy to the WIAA.

NIL, which was one of four constitutional amendments approved by school administrators around the state at April’s WIAA Annual Meeting, comes as nearly every state has passed some regulation about amateur eligibility and NIL in the past few years, with Wisconsin being one of the last handful to approve an NIL rule.

High school NIL opportunities in Wisconsin are much different than what is available to NCAA college athletes, and also different than what is available in other states.

The new NIL rules note several ways in which deals must be executed in order to preserve amateur eligibility. NIL appearances can’t involve any school, conference, or WIAA mentions, uniforms, or logos. That’s one key difference from NCAA rules.

Another difference is that high school students can’t endorse products that are age-inappropriate, such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, firearms, or adult entertainment, to name a few.

High school students also can’t have an agent or other professional representation to make NIL deals, and anyone associated with a school program can’t act as a facilitator for deals. That’s a big departure from the NCAA rules that allow for agent representation.

One area where the WIAA rule and the NCAA rule are in agreement on: So-called “pay for play” practices are illegal. That means student-athletes can’t enter into NIL deals that reward athletic performance, influence a student to transfer or remain in a particular school, or are otherwise contingent on player or team achievements.

Other restrictions on high school student-athletes include hosting and running their own camps or clinics, school-based activities for NIL-related activities, or missing class to participate in an NIL-related activity.

The WIAA’s constitutional amendment change also doesn’t forbid individual schools from adding additional requirements for NIL.

One major component of the new rule is the clause that people associated with the school can’t contribute to NIL deals. The list is long, but it includes parents of other student-athletes, coaches, school staff, volunteers, or anyone that takes part in any activity at the student’s school.

A more cumbersome list of people considered associated with the school includes former coaches or staff members during the student’s tenure in the district, any person, business, or organization that has contributed financially or materially to a school, or booster clubs. Wisconsin’s rule on personal association with a school is considered to be much more restrictive than what other states have in place for NIL.

WIAA membership easily passed the rule at April’s meeting. The same amendment was considered in 2024, where it failed 170 to 219. It easily passed 293 to 108 in 2025.

New sportsmanship rule

Before this spring’s rule change, anyone ejected from a game had to miss one additional home game, a rule the WIAA member schools adopted in 2021.

Now, ejected spectators have an additional requirement to satisfy before being allowed to return to attending events. WIAA membership easily approved the measure at the 2025 WIAA Annual Meeting by a 335 to 67 margin.

The new rule, which passed each stage unanimously before being approved by administrators statewide, requires anyone tossed from a game or meet to take a free online course from the NFHS on sportsmanship. Spectators ejected from a contest would still have to miss one additional home event, even if they take and pass the course before the next event.

Fan behavior has been an important topic, especially in the age of declining participation by students, officials, and coaches, who all cite unruly behavior as one of the drawbacks towards taking part in high school athletics. In 2019, a bill was introduced to make harassing sports officials a crime. the bill was brought back in 2021.

Expanded summer coaching contact

One change has already happened and was in place for this past summer. For the first time, expanded coaching contact was allowed, meaning that instead of only five summer coaching contact days, coaches could now work with student-athletes for all of June and part of July without the five-day restriction.

The rule allows for unrestricted coaching contact days during the summer except July 1 to July 7 for the Independence Day holiday, as well as the seven days leading up to the first day of football practice, known colloquially as the “dead week.” Football is further restricted in not allowing fully-padded summer practices. Student-athletes are restricted to helmets and shoulder pads only after heat acclimation.

In neighboring states, Illinois schools voted to trim summer coaching contact days from 25 to 20. Minnesota allows varying levels of coaching contact days during the summer, but football is limited to 11 practices, four of which can be full contact. Iowa already allows unrestricted summer contact.

Per NFHS rules, all summer coaching contact can’t be mandatory – student-athletes can choose whether to participate.

Football playoff qualification overhauled

Football is the most-participated-in sport in Wisconsin by student-athletes, and this year will be historic in that there are major changes to the postseason qualification structure for the sport.

A proposal by the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association to change playoff qualification to a transparent wins-based metric was approved by a 10-1 vote. The approved proposal means that high school football playoff qualification will change from winning over 50% of conference games to a win-based formula against all opponents.

It also means that seeding and regional grouping in the postseason will be done by the metric, as opposed to the current computer algorithm that is unknown to coaches. The lack of transparency frustrated coaches after some questionable seeding in recent playoff fields. The measure to change how regional groupings are done passed with an 8-3 vote.

A third major decision expanded the field for 8-player football playoffs to 32 teams. The change also moves the season start date to line up with 11-player football. 8-player football will still play eight regular-season games, with five weeks of playoffs culminating in a championship game played in Wisconsin Rapids. The change was approved unanimously.

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READ MORE: WIAA approves high school football playoff changes beginning with 2025 season

READ MORE: Proposal to overhaul prep football playoff system receives overwhelming support from coaches

READ MORE: Wisconsin coaches, officials address challenges in playoff qualifying system for high school football

WATCH/LISTEN: Jesse Norris explains the details of the WFCA’s proposal on The Dom Salvia Show

WATCH/LISTEN: Brian Kaminski reveals that the WFCA’s survey shows overwhelming support from coaches and explains what is next for the proposal on The Maggie Daun Show

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Changes for other fall sports

Some of the other changes for this year include seven new rules for tennis, with the majority of those changes for seeding at subsectionals. The rules for tennis were also changed to include a minimum match requirement, banning smart watches or electronic communication devices from play, and adjusting the tournament schedule to account for Memorial Day.

Volleyball will see two changes affecting the state tournament. One change is increasing the number of students in uniform from 15 to 18. The other is criteria for who is the home team at neutral sites.

In golf, practicing at a regional tournament site during the regular season on non-school days is now allowed. Finally, in cross country, language was changed to match track and field rules for permitted headgear.

A rule to exclude cross country from the Tournament Performance Factor failed at the WIAA Annual Meeting.

Postseason changes coming for wrestling, basketball

Winter sports also will see some significant changes, while basketball’s hottest topics failed to advance for a vote.

In wrestling, the state tournament series is being completely redone. The individual regional tournament is now gone, replaced by an expanded team sectional on the calendar. The expanded sectionals are part of the biggest changes for the sport. Updates to the girls wrestling tournament were also made as part of the change in tournament structures.

For basketball, some of the bigger changes proposed were voted down before they could be considered by the WIAA Board of Control. That includes implementing a shot clock, which has been done by most states, as well as expanding the state tournament.

The changes that did get approved for basketball address the electronic seeding process in efforts to make it more transparent, flexibility with tournament scheduling on weekends, and the ability to switch home and away uniforms with mutual consent up to three times per season.

Transgender participation

Following changes to federal law in February, the WIAA updated its policy and now bans transgender student-athletes from competing in girls sports.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning anyone assigned male at birth from competing in girls or women’s sports. The federal directive essentially reverted Title IX requirements to what they were during the first Trump administration, last updated in 2020, doing away with changes made by former President Joe Biden.

The NCAA made a similar decision in updating its transgender student-athlete policy following federal guidance.

The start of a new sports calendar year

High school sports begin officially on Aug. 5, when football programs can hold their first practices.

Golf, tennis, and swimming and diving can begin practices the following week, while cross country, volleyball, and soccer are the final fall sports to get underway on Aug. 18.

The first high school sports competitions can be held on Aug. 14 with girls golf, followed by girls tennis on Aug. 16. Swimming and diving can begin their meets on Aug. 20, and the earliest date for high school football is Aug. 21. All remaining sports can begin competing on Aug. 26.

Fall sports typically run through October or November, culminating with the high school football state finals the week before thanksgiving. Winter sports practices begin in late October or November and last until February or March. Spring sports get underway in late February or March and run well into June.

You can view specific start dates and tournament series dates on the WIAA website.