The fall sports schedules are out. Now it’s time to see what the fancy new-ish North Puget Sound League can do.

After a failed experiment and a 26-year hiatus, the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association finalized enrollment figures in early January and the new, remixed version of the NPSL came to consensus on league alignment for the 2016-17 school year, the first of a four-year cycle.

The Olympic division, which is comprised of schools from the Federal Way school district (Decatur, Federal Way, Thomas Jefferson and Todd Beamer), the Auburn School District (Auburn, Auburn Mountainview and Auburn Riverside) and Enumclaw, got underway Thursday with football as Jefferson took on Kentridge. Decatur, Federal Way and Todd Beamer all have games Friday, Sept. 2.

Federal Way Public Schools Director of Athletics Jerry Peterson said the goal of realignment for city schools was ensuring they could compete against each other.

“We wanted to stay together,” he said. “Our four high schools. That was really our primary goal, was to keep our district together.”

There were four criteria the district looked at in its attempt to keep Federal Way schools together: schools in the same district staying in the same league, proximity to other schools, travel time and lessening the amount of time kids spent outside class for sports.

Driving north and south on Interstate 5 has become increasingly difficult, and fans and parents of athletes have found traveling to games more and more challenging. That challenge led to looking at schools’ proximity to one another.

“North-south travel around the Puget Sound is getting harder and harder,” Peterson said. “So being together was really important for our district for a number of reasons dealing with being together.”

The league is slated to host 16 teams between the Olympic and Cascade divisions, but Peterson said the school district wanted to focus on bringing back programs that met the needs of the community.

When the divisions were designed, school districts and the WIAA wanted to make sure the divisions were designed to have schools of similar size. Peterson said he felt that point was a major benefit to Federal Way schools.

“Look at Decatur,” he said. “Their numbers are a little lower, but it fits within this division. We felt that was best for competition and our kids.”

With the league designed the way it is now, the travel times for Federal Way schools were slashed significantly, allowing families to spend far less time stuck in I-5 traffic.

With the realignment into the new NPSL, the school district gained one team and has moved forward with creating fall schedules.

Peterson said now that all local schools are together and can compete with relatively similar numbers, the 2016 sports season could be the most exciting yet.

“We are so excited to see how this continues to play out,” he said. ” We have our first games this week – good ones, too. And we’re just excited about promoting it on the website and making this the best league it can be.”