I was looking at the standings, and noticed that 4 teams in my division had a better W-L record than the 4th division winner (likely winner) and wondered if this was a common occurrence in the NABO48?
I went with 4 divisions because I thought it would be a more competitive environment for the smaller market teams or keep them in "building/competitive mode" for more seasons, but I didn't see any evidence of that. So, I went back and looked at each season since I took over the Mesa job and noted how many non-playoff teams had a better record than the 4th playoff team (worst division winner).
2043 - East: 6, West: 1, Total: 7
2044 - East: 1, West: 7, Total: 8
2045 - East: 2, West: 0, Total: 2
2046 - East: 0, West: 7, Total: 7
2047 - East: 8, West: 7, Total: 15
2048 - East: 6, West: 1, Total: 7
2049 - East: 0, West: 5, Total: 5
2050 - East: 2, West: 4, Total: 6
Over 8 NABO48 seasons, an average of 7 teams have a better record than the worst playoff qualifier. That's a lot of teams.
So, I jumped back to the original NABO48 version of having all 24 teams in 2 leagues, no divisions, top 8 teams make the postseason. I'm going to try this a few seasons and see if it leads to better results regarding consistent competitiveness among teams. I use a balanced scheduled where each team plays the other teams in each league the same number of times, so this probably makes more sense.