Desert high schools to merge into new 14-team sports conference in 2026-27

Get ready for another major change to the desert’s high school sports landscape as a new re-leaguing proposal was voted on and passed Monday that will create one 14-team mega-conference that includes all the teams from the current DEL, DVL and Sun Valley leagues.

On Monday in a meeting at Citrus Valley High School, the members of the Citrus Belt Area Athletic Directors Association — which encompasses 90 schools including all of the desert schools — sifted through up to 40 proposals and landed on proposal No. 15, which will go into effect for the 2026-27 school year.

That proposal will put the 14 desert high schools together in one large conference which will be broken down into three smaller sub-divisions. But here’s the interesting part, those smaller divisions will vary by sport based on competitive equity.

Each sport will be divided into a high, middle and low group, probably in a 6-4-4 split, but it could also be 5-5-4 or maybe even 7 and 7 based on the sport and the competitiveness of the teams and the number of teams that can make the playoffs.

“I kind of like this conference idea because it sort of gives everybody a little bit of everything,” said Palm Desert athletic director Estevan Valencia, who was at the Monday meeting. “Basing things on competitive equity is kind of the new thing, like how they do all the divisions now. The flexibility it provides will be unique and it will be our decision as to how to divide up the leagues. And most of all, I’m happy our desert teams will stay together and we can promote ourselves together.”

Remember this does not take place for the upcoming school year and won’t start until fall 2026. Next school year everything will be the same as it is this year with a six-team Desert Empire League, a four-team Desert Valley League and a four-team Sun Valley League.

Valencia said some desert schools were looking into other options with perhaps a couple joining this league and a couple joining that league, and it felt like this conference idea was the best way to keep all the desert teams together and yet schools can still get the chance for more equitable matchups that they might have been seeking elsewhere.

On the proposal sheet, the conference with all the desert schools is listed as the “Low Desert Conference,” but Valencia said that’s just a place-holder and the league’s athletic director’s will get together and come up with a name.

“Now the work will be to rename the conference and put together a constitution, but there are two other conferences that are already operating like this and we can borrow some of their constitutional language,” Valencia said. “It will be interesting to learn and see how it all works.”

The competitive equity part of the creation of the divisions from sport to sport will be fascinating to see. Imagine Coachella Valley football perhaps being in a top group of six teams and what current DEL team would be relegated to the next group. Or think of teams like Desert Mirage soccer or Indio softball playing in a higher tier against the top DEL teams.

And those divisions would change year to year as well. A team that continues to dominate the middle group, let’s say, would move up into the top group, bumping a team down where they, too, will be playing more equitable teams.

Some sports will notice major changes, and some sports none at all as a 6-4-4 split could break down exactly as it is right now with the six DEL teams together, the four DVL teams together and the four Sun Valley League teams together.

Valencia said there are two large conferences in the area already doing this format and their ADs have come to appreciate the flexibility of this model. The Arrowhead Conference has 14 teams and the Raincross Conference features 18 teams.

“You talk to the ADs in those conferences and they’ve been doing it for a couple years now, and they seem to like it,” Valencia said. “They like the fact that there’s relief for certain teams that are maybe playing above their level, and they can now face more equitable teams. And the variance between sports like if a certain sport struggles at your school, they can be moved down to face more equitable teams, while the sports at your school that are thriving will stay in the upper groups.”

The Low Desert Conference

These are the 14 teams that will be part of a new yet-to-be named large conference that will begin play in the 2026-27 school year in alphabetical order:

• Banning
• Cathedral City
• Coachella Valley
• Desert Hot Springs
• Desert Mirage
• Indio
• La Quinta
• Palm Desert
• Palm Springs
• Rancho Mirage
• Shadow Hills
• Twentynine Palms
• Xavier Prep
• Yucca Valley