By Justin A. Rice, Globe Correspondent

The majority of the Boston City League boys' basketball coaches voted in favor of creating a third basketball division starting this winter, according to Boston schools Athletic Director Ken Still.

“The votes are a majority to implement a new plan and that’s what we are going to go with," Still said during a telephone interview Thursday morning.

Currently, the 15-team boys’ basketball league is divided into North and South divisions.

Teams will be placed in one of three divisions depending on how strong the program has performed in recent years.

Still said the breakdown of the three divisions will be hashed out in the next two or three weeks along with how many times each team plays the teams in their division and outside their division.

“The setup can be changed at any given time as far as something new on the table,” he said.

It’s also unclear how teams will qualify for the city championships. In baseball, the only other City League with three divisions, the top two teams from the North division go to the cities while the top team from the other two divisions qualify as well.

Still said they could either duplicate the baseball format or implement a wild card berth for the team with the best record that doesn’t win its division.

“The logic is to try to get some of the lower level teams to have a successful season and maybe try to bring one of the lower level teams into the championship game,” Still said. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Another option is to reshuffle the divisions every few years based on how well the teams perform, which is what is done for football, Still said.

“We’ll try to please everybody but won’t,” Still said. “We’ll come up with a formula and work on it.”

Boston English coach Barry Robinson said the creation of three divisions will make it easier for teams in the lower divisions to qualify for the state tournament since it is likely that they won’t have to play the Division 1 and 2 teams as much during the regular season.

Last season English failed to qualify for the Division 2 state tournament by a few games.

“Now we’ll have more teams with a better record that can qualify for the states,” he said recently. “We can also give a team lower the lower tiers the opportunity to win the whole thing in the cities rather than have the powers always winning based on their talent.

“But at same time, if I don’t qualify for cities at least my record will be better than in the past and I’ll get a better seeding for states and that’s ultimately the goal and where it’s at.”

Justin A. Rice covers Boston Public school athletics. He can be reached at jrice.globe@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeJustinRice or @BPSspts.