As suggested - start a new thread to discuss the future structure.
From the comments of players who post on here, it seems there is a broad agreement on a move to Leagues of 10 with 3 up & 3 down.
I think we've established that the pyramid system is our preferred system, so we don't need to worry about otyher league styles.
Therefore we have a few dscisions to make.
We currently have 37 teams spread over 5 leagues - so if we move to 10 teams per league that leaves us with a decision to make on whether we go with 3 or 4 leagues.
3 Leagues means, in effect, we will have to cull 7 teams. Currently there are only 3 teams that haven't logged in since the end of May and another 2 who haven't logged in for just over a week. So, in order to move to 3 leagues of 10 we are looking at the possibility of having to shed current managers. Not a great situation, I'm sure we will all agree - we might be able to achieve this by voluntary resignations, and there is also the possibility that more managers might drop off as the season progresses.
I know no-one wants to see us loose managers, but we have to consider it a possibility.
Another option is that we change to 4 leagues of 10 - which means we would need to recruit at least 3 new managers. I say at least, because that is based on retaining the current 37 players - but there is a strong chance that we may need to recruit 5+ new managers. The important thing here will be to start the recruitment process early - the current season ends on the 1sy August, so we have a little over a month - which is plenty of time - but we would need to start signing people up by mid-July.
The other key issue here is where are we going to get these players from - we've managed to get a few from SCM, but the feeling is that the well is running pretty dry. We've managed to pull a few players that are friends of current managers and we've managed to pull a few random players from other leagues. I don't know whether casting a wide net within the Xpert community will do much good - competition for signing up new managers is tough; we are a relatively closed shop in that we post more on here about the leagues than within the game - so we'd be pretty cliquie; and we don't offer incentives to managers in the way of VIP prizes, etc that many Leagues do. I'm not saying we should, just that I wouldn't hold out too much hope that people will flock to the League if we put out an invitation - I seem to recall putting one out a few seaosn ago and getting nothing back.
What we have to be careful of is going to 4 Leagues and not being able to maintain 40 active players
Another alternative is to go to 3 Leagues of 12 teams - which matches more closely to our current active manager roster - however that will add 8 games or 4 weeks to a current season. My own experience of Leagus this size is that it' just a little bit too long - 10 would be the optimum length imo.
So...... I guess what we need to do first is for people to post their views in here and then we can get to some sort of consensus and roll out the discussion to some of the other managers that don't post on here.
Thoughts.............
From the comments of players who post on here, it seems there is a broad agreement on a move to Leagues of 10 with 3 up & 3 down.
I think we've established that the pyramid system is our preferred system, so we don't need to worry about otyher league styles.
Therefore we have a few dscisions to make.
We currently have 37 teams spread over 5 leagues - so if we move to 10 teams per league that leaves us with a decision to make on whether we go with 3 or 4 leagues.
3 Leagues means, in effect, we will have to cull 7 teams. Currently there are only 3 teams that haven't logged in since the end of May and another 2 who haven't logged in for just over a week. So, in order to move to 3 leagues of 10 we are looking at the possibility of having to shed current managers. Not a great situation, I'm sure we will all agree - we might be able to achieve this by voluntary resignations, and there is also the possibility that more managers might drop off as the season progresses.
I know no-one wants to see us loose managers, but we have to consider it a possibility.
Another option is that we change to 4 leagues of 10 - which means we would need to recruit at least 3 new managers. I say at least, because that is based on retaining the current 37 players - but there is a strong chance that we may need to recruit 5+ new managers. The important thing here will be to start the recruitment process early - the current season ends on the 1sy August, so we have a little over a month - which is plenty of time - but we would need to start signing people up by mid-July.
The other key issue here is where are we going to get these players from - we've managed to get a few from SCM, but the feeling is that the well is running pretty dry. We've managed to pull a few players that are friends of current managers and we've managed to pull a few random players from other leagues. I don't know whether casting a wide net within the Xpert community will do much good - competition for signing up new managers is tough; we are a relatively closed shop in that we post more on here about the leagues than within the game - so we'd be pretty cliquie; and we don't offer incentives to managers in the way of VIP prizes, etc that many Leagues do. I'm not saying we should, just that I wouldn't hold out too much hope that people will flock to the League if we put out an invitation - I seem to recall putting one out a few seaosn ago and getting nothing back.
What we have to be careful of is going to 4 Leagues and not being able to maintain 40 active players
Another alternative is to go to 3 Leagues of 12 teams - which matches more closely to our current active manager roster - however that will add 8 games or 4 weeks to a current season. My own experience of Leagus this size is that it' just a little bit too long - 10 would be the optimum length imo.
So...... I guess what we need to do first is for people to post their views in here and then we can get to some sort of consensus and roll out the discussion to some of the other managers that don't post on here.
Thoughts.............
