[Steve Kuffrey]

ScottVib’s Guide to Non-Historical (Fictional/Post 2002) League Expansion
Last Updated: April 7, 2002


This is the first draft of a guide of how to do expansion in a fictional league or for those who do not want to follow the “real” history of major league expansion in their league. I will attempt to make this as flexible as possible as this is for a fictional league and you may have your own thoughts on what expansion should be.


1) So you want to expand your league, I would suggest you think out before hand and set up whatever stadium and logo you are going to choose. Additionally begin to think about the new alignment you will use in your league. (Divisional Alignment) At this time increase the number of rounds in your amateur draft by 1. This will allow the game to generate enough rookies for the amateur draft even with the expansion teams.
Tip: Try to avoid teams changing leagues, when teams change leagues OOTP can have problems with potentially scrambling some information (financials and coaches).

2) Finish the current season and click proceed to next season (this ensures that the league history for completed season will be correct with no extra teams). This is a good time to settle on how you are going to stock the teams and whether you are going to have an expansion draft. You will need to have enough players to stock all of the added teams.

3) Add the new teams into the appropriate divisions. Check the Team Setup Screen for the new team number, use this to assign the logo. Select the stadium, using the stadium editor to edit any information you want to change (name, distances, etc.)

4) Edit team financials. If the financial system is off, then you can skip this section. If it is on, then you will need to give your expansion team some revenue. (This simulates the rush on merchandise sales for the new team, and gives them some needed cash to sign free agents and coaches). All of the financial information for the team will be blank. You will want to give the teams TV contracts and also some merchandising revenue from last year. Additionally, set a fan interest level, a market size and fan loyalty for the club. Then give the club some cash. This becomes important, because the merchandising revenue, plus cash and TV contracts will determine the money available for signing free agents. (Be careful not to make these too high or the team will be able to sign too many good players)

5) Coaches Scouts signings/ Free Agency. You will need to sign your coaching/scouting staff if the scouting system is on. Then you will go to the Sign Free Agents section. If you have given your team too much money, you’ll know it; as you’ll have more available than the other teams. Sign up your players.

6) Add Players. There are a couple ways to handle adding players in this stage. The easiest way is to Add Players to one level of the new teams minors, this is done from the teams transactions screen. (I suggest AAA(or AA), it gives you a mix of players close to being ready and yet some room for growth). Another method is to hold an expansion draft, but this is a very time consuming process. (For further tips on how to do this see number 7) If you add players prior to free agency your teams won’t sign as many… so I suggest doing this after free agency.
I would suggest that you try filling the minors, using AAA(or AA) Level, this is quick, painless and almost simulates what Major League Baseball did when they allowed the Arizona and Tampa ownership’s to operate a minor league club one season before they began play. (This will give you the 20 players needed to crashing the game.)

7) Amateur draft. You will need to edit the draft order to give your expansion teams the first picks (or whatever pick you feel they deserve).

8) Generate a new schedule. You will need to generate a new schedule to take into account the new teams you have added. Just to Edit Schedule under League Setup and go to town. (Expansion is a good excuse to change length of the schedule if you so choose).

9) Optional: Conducting an Expansion Draft. OOTP lacks a function to easily conduct an expansion draft. To do this you will need to do a lot of work on your own. The first step is to generate a list of players eligible for the Expansion draft. (Usually allow players to protect between 20 and 30 players and make players under a certain age exempt from the draft, this way you avoid losing young prospects or the core of your established teams. Keep in mind you’ll need to expose enough players to stock the expansion teams so if you have 4 new teams you’ll want to make at least 100 players available to be drafted.) From this list you will want to by hand conduct the expansion draft until all the new teams have selected enough players (generally 25-30) to stock their teams. Once the pre-planning is done, you can deal with moving the players through the game. (If you have financials on you will want to turn them off for this stage) It is easiest if the free agents list is already empty, if its not you’ll just have to be careful (or perhaps send the players to a different team temporarily). Release the players who have been drafted by the expansion teams, from here sign them to the appropriate teams. Note when using free agency you may not need as many players involved in the expansion draft as some players (sometimes quite a few) will be signed during the free agency.
One final tip, to spice things up create a few extra established free agents, a couple for each team. This can act to simulate the Orestes Destrade factor. (Players who come from no where, free agents from Japan, etc.) This can also help to shore up teams when the expansion draft pool is very weak.


I hope this rough draft helps some people, I hope to update this as I get more time to conduct some of the tests that I’d like to conduct and solve some of the reported issues and as people find better methods for fictional league expansion. Have fun!!!!!!!


Scott Vibert