Horizon League Modernizes McCafferty Trophy and All-Sports Awards Calculation
Rachel White
INDIANAPOLIS (September 3, 2026) – The Horizon League will be using a revamped approach to calculate our McCafferty Trophy and All-Sports Awards, starting with the 2026-27 academic year.
Why it Matters:
The updated approach emphasizes men’s and women’s basketball while also better rewarding overall performance across all 19 League-sponsored sports.
The new formula also helps balance membership priorities and emphasizes competitive excellence over broad sport sponsorship without requiring institutions with greater sport sponsorship to drop scores.
Dig Deeper:
- The institution with the greatest number of performance points will win the McCafferty Trophy.
- All-Sports Awards will be awarded to the institution with the greatest number of performance points for men’s and women’s sports.
- Final point totals will be now be presented on a 0-100 scale.
- Between 0-10 points can be earned by each institution in each League sport it sponsors.
- In sports with a League regular season, 67 percent of the score will be earned in the regular season with 33 percent earned through championship competition.
- In sports without a League regular season, points will be awarded solely based on championship performance.
- Basketball will comprise 25 percent (12.5 percent each for men’s and women’s basketball) of each institution’s overall points total compared to 75 percent for all non-basketball sports combined.
- In men’s sports, basketball and the three greatest point totals in non-basketball sports will be counted in full.
- In women’s sports, basketball and the four greatest point totals in non-basketball sports will be counted in full.
- Point totals in additional League-sponsored sports will be included in the total but will be modified on a descending scale.