Quote:
Originally Posted by beorn
As to new leagues forming, that usually peaks when a major new edition of the game comes out and/or early in the baseball season. However, you are usually better off grabbing a vacant team in a long standing league, because the last thing you want is to put a lot of time into building your team, and then see that the commish or a bunch of the owners are not really in for the long haul, and the whole thing falls apart.
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Not in any way intended to pick on you here, because it's absolutely true that any first-year league is at far greater risk of collapse than an established one. However, this becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy if taken too far. Amongst the numerous fly-by-nights there are a handful of quality start-ups out there. The problem is that most people aren't interested in making a young league better; they want to join a league where everything's 100% setup and there's little-to-no work to be done. That makes life particularly difficult for those start-ups that really
are serious about becoming long-term players.
I think our own league is a good example of this.
PEBA has been extremely fortunate to have 20 stable owners since we began play, a luxury few start-ups have. While I definitely am counting my blessings for that, we've been challenged by the remaining 4 teams which have featured revolving-door ownership situations. Whenever a vacancy comes up for one of those 4 teams I make a
post in this forum, yet invariably I receive no reply. Or the person replying decides not to join because we're not established. Again, the question becomes: How does a league become established if people aren't willing to help it grow?
I think there's a certain amount of common sense "due diligence" that prospective owners should undertake when considering new leagues. If you see that there's no activity on their forums (or they have no forums at all), that the membership isn't well-spoken, that people are arguing or bad-mouthing the league... all these are good signs to stay away. And oftentimes that's exactly what you'll find. But if you see that the league has a number of stable ownership positions, that people are engaging in at least some level of meaningful chatter, that there's creative writing going on, etc.... make a leap of faith. Playing in an established league is great fun, but it can be an equally rewarding experience to help a dedicated start-up reach its full potential.