An idea came to me, so I started working on a new baseball universe/template. But I don't want to go through the many hours of effort if nobody would be interested in using it.
Here's the "backstory" and league structure idea:
Early 2000s: Scandals rock major baseball leagues around the world, from steroids in North America, to gambling in Asia, to age disputes in Central America.
The scandals were so bad, that all organized professional baseball leagues around the world basically shut down, including MLB in North America & *** in Japan.
Following this difficult period, owners of former baseball teams around the world started meeting in 2004 to discuss starting up a new global baseball league.
Out of these meetings would come the "International Baseball Alliance", scheduled to start play in 2007.
The basic structure of the league is 2 sub-leagues with 2 divisions each, and 6 teams in each division, for a total of 24 teams. Each team would have a full minor league system below it, along with high school & college feeder leagues.
Each IBA division is comprised of some of the most well known and successful FORMER teams from their old baseball leagues. For instance...
The North American Division would consist of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, & St. Louis Cardinals.
Other well known teams in other divsions would be the Yomiuri Giants & Seibu Lions from Japan, as well as teams from South Korea, China, Taiwan, Mexico Venezuela, Puerto Rico, & the Dominican Republic.
The IBA would get back to baseball's "roots". There will be no interleauge play and no DH rule (unless you want to turn them on). Each team would play a balanced schedule of 12 regular season games against the other 11 teams in it's league, making a 132 game schedule.
The Western League would be all western hemisphere teams, with eastern hemisphere teams playing in the eastern league.
This would keep travel issues to a minimum, except of course for the "Global Championship Series", which would decide the league winner each year. However, due to the strenuous travel required to even compete in your own league, the season would be lengthened, with play starting in March.
Wherever possible, the minor leagues would consist of the real minor league teams. The Yanks, Sox, etc.. would have all their current minor league affiliations. The Japanese teams would have their AAA affiliations.
Where it's not possible to include real minor league teams, I'll use other current teams from the real leagues I'm pulling teams from.
And finally, if I can't use a real team for a minor league team, I'll create fictional teams based in cities in the same nation as the parent team.
So that's the basic structure that I have in mind. This would be a template, so fictional players would be used. However, I will try my best use real logos, jerseys, & stadiums wherever possible.
I've already begun work on this, but to be honest it will take me a long time to finish it if I'm working alone as I have to gather logo images, stadium images, etc for ~200 teams.
That's why I'm posting here, to see if there's genuine interest in a template like this. And also, if you want to help out, feel free to PM me.
If I don't see some positive responses by next week, I won't continue working on this.
Sorry it's so late in the season, but I don't usually pay much attention to baseball until July or August. If I finish this project, I'll get it out as quickly as I can.
So, sound like a fun idea?