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There are few things in sports as sacred as a level playing field. After all, what sense is there to competing if the winner is predetermined? That’s the reason high school sports are split into classifications by enrollment—so that schools compete against other schools of similar size.

But that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that schools will be on an even footing, as The Oregonian detailed in a three-part series last month. The paper found almost every school that reached the state football finals in the largest classification over the past 10 years was wealthier than average. This marked a sharp change from the late 1980s and 1990s, when poorer-than-average schools were well-represented in state championships.

“The trend of finalists coming from wealthier schools is pronounced: The probability of it occurring randomly is less than one in 1,000, according to analysis by Portland State statistics professor Bob Fountain. Schools with large enrollments have no advantage over smaller schools in reaching the state football final, a similar analysis showed.”

The Oregonian points to a 1990 tax cap as the turning point.

“Measure 5, the statewide property-tax cap that voters passed in 1990, slashed extracurricular spending by an inflation-adjusted average of 30 percent in 10 school districts with prominent football teams. Wealthier communities are better equipped to fill the gap, especially in the flagship sport of football, and supplement athletes' preparation with extra coaches and personal trainers."

The Oregonian demonstrated its point by chronicling the experiences of two teams: Benson Polytechnic, a poorer than average school in inner-city Portland that won a state title 20 years ago, and Lake Oswego, a school in an affluent suburb outside the city that was mediocre 20 years ago but has recently enjoyed great success. Although money, or the lack of it, does not ensure success or failure, the series shows how it can be an important factor.

The second part of the series examined the difference in resources and facilities between the schools. For example, Lake Oswego has a well-maintained synthetic turf field, while Benson can’t play games on its home field because its lumpy, rutted landscape makes it unsafe. Lake Oswego has an athletic trainer to treat players’ injuries while Benson players are usually left to arrange their own treatment.

The final part of the series looked at differences in community support for the two teams. Lake Oswego has been able to make up for tax funding cuts through fundraising and pay-to-play fees while Benson has little access to fundraising and struggles just to pay for uniforms.

These two schools are hardly unique. A sidebar to the series details the struggles faced by a much smaller Oregon school decimated by a loss of timber industry jobs.

In the effort to provide a level playing field, new strategies are being used in other parts of the country. For example, the Minnesota State High School League factors free and reduced school lunch counts when establishing classifications.

In California, some people are rallying to allow leagues to force a team to leave if it dominates for too long. One proposal made to the Southern Section of the California Interscholastic Federation would allow leagues to sanction teams that qualify for section playoffs for five consecutive years, have a dominant win-loss record, and win most of their games by an excessive margin. Although the proposal is not supported by the section’s Executive Committee, 10 schools in the Southern Section could have been forced out this year under such rules.

A complicating factor is that victory itself confers certain benefits on the winners. For example, Nike holds clinics for coaches from schools that wear its uniforms. These are generally already successful, high-profile, well-staffed teams.

While successful teams are often accused of recruiting players, many simply don’t need to recruit because their success attracts potential student-athletes without any prompting for team representatives. Although private schools and public school with open-enrollment policies are typically the subject of these accusations, the same factor applies to public schools with attendance boundaries, as seen in Charlotte, N.C., where some athletes lied about their residence in order to attend a different school than they were assigned to.

In reality, the system where every team competes on an even playing field will remain elusive. Sports are a competitive exercise, which by definition requires that there be losers. But looking beyond traditional factors and solutions can only help the field sit a little more level than it does today.

Dennis Read is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.