Would you be interested?

[rnt6685]

I want to judge interest in a start up league. (or to even find out if this is possible – all aspects open for discussion) This is just the basic outline and idea, specifics can be hammered out once the league is about to go live.

Vision:

An ever-expanding league that concentrates on everyday people as players and to compete in a large level league for true OOTP Championship bragging rights


Imagine, if you will, the US in economic turmoil. Unemployment is at an all-time high and the cost-of-living rises everyday due to inflation. Professional ballplayers are making Multi-Millions a year to play games, while their fans are struggling to pay the electric and cable bills just to watch the boys of summer play Americas favorite game. In the rural area of eastern Tennessee, a small baseball league is formed for fans to play and enjoy the game. Local fans flock to the games to cheer on their local heroes and money begins to roll in for the teams through gate and concession fees. Small franchise organizations are born. The owners begin to put this money back into the local economy, paying the players on a game-by-game basis. Unexpectedly, these small franchises begin to pop up all across the states. Fans begin to flock to local area tryouts in hopes to have the talent to make the team and have a chance at a second income. States begin to see the benefits of economic growth among the communities and begin to organize the teams into divisions, sponsor playoffs and crown champions. Once again baseball is the center of raising the morale of Americans during a dismal and dreary generation. The Premier Varsity Champions League (PVCL) was created to bring the State Champions together, and to crown the true, pure US champion of America’s favorite past time.
Details


Teams will be named at the GM’s discretion, but the commissioner would like for the teams to be located within the county, city or town in which the GM resides. The team name should also represent the physical location, mascots can be named at will and duplicates accepted as long as the teams location name is not.

For example:

• GM lives in Knoxville TN, Bearden Hill area, in Knox County on Raven Hill Rd

Possible Team Names:

• Bearden Hill Tigers
• Raven Hill BF (Baseball Franchise) – Mascot is a Raven (Even put a Premier League Soccer twist on this one)
• Knoxville Volunteers
• Knox Tigers
• University of Tennessee BF (No College players – To be explained below)

Teams will be in sub-leagues based on location, as the league builds divisions will change. I would ultimately like to have a league for each state with 4-6 sub-divisions. Playoffs would adjust as the leagues do, with a Round-Robin style, UEFA style or World Cup style championship.
League Settings

• No Draft – Free Agent (FA) signings only during allotted FA periods (to be determined) throughout the year. FA signings will be done in game, but all FA signings done outside the FA period will be revoked by Commish.
• Fictional players
• Simulation – 7 days Mon – Wed – Fri (8PM Eastern) I’ve considered setting up the schedules as 3 night games a week and double headers on Saturday and the series would consist of 5 games between teams. This would allow for Starting Pitchers to rest and be able to take advantage of 3 and 4day rotations.
• Trades allowed
• Injuries – Normal
• Fatigue – High (Negotiable)
• Designated Hitter – To be voted on by GM’s in division after re-orgs during preseason
• Coaches - On
• Scouts – On
• No Star rating
• Potential ratings only 1 – 20 (Negotiable)
• Player Personality ratings – ON
• Morale system – On
• Arbitration – Off (If possible)
• Waivers – Off (If possible)
• 80-100 games schedule – division and inter-division play (schedule to be custom built)
• Round Robin Style Playoffs (depending on OOTP12 capabilities) – At least top two teams from each division (depending on league participants and schedule

there would be wildcards – Tie breakers to be determined)

Franchise and Player Settings



As stated above, the focus of the league is everyday players. Franchises will consist of a Varsity team (Major League) and B-Team (Minor League). The Varsity will be a 15-player roster and B-Team can be up to 20 players (for development and depth). The players will not have Major League talent like you see in all the other OOTP leagues, spending Millions of Dollars for players. Think of it as if 2-Ton Bob from accounting making a little extra doe in the evenings playing baseball. Imagine being in a local league and getting paid $80 - $200 per game, depending on your talent level. This would make the average salary for the common player to be between $12,000 and $16,000 per year. All players, Varsity and B-Team, should be paid. This also puts large responsibility for your team’s salary management. I think it only fair that teams who go deep into the hole financially by spending unwisely will result in probation periods. Stadiums will be small and house 500-1000 fans at first (negotiable), but additions can be made for a fee (in game). Fan interest will start out normal and market sizes vary depending on size and population of the county and how many teams are located near each other (but none will be larger the “average”). No media revenue. Inactive GM teams will have players released at seasons end and team deleted. If the GM were to rejoin, he would be able to keep his team name, but start over with signing new FA’s during the allotted time.

My experience as a league Commish is non-existent other than personal leagues that I have played. And have had in the past one that was that was 96 team, 8 state league, I built once and would play around with different playoff and schedule settings. I haven’t been able to successfully import the league into 12. I thought I would attempt it once again and that a league such as this would thrive online if players were active and I had a few experienced OOTP veterans to assist with input and opinions of how to run the league smoothly. On start up, I was going to create the league on a large scale, create the settings, simulate 5-10 years to allow players to mature, and monitor the league structure and settings before going live, then release all players and GM’s are to submit contracts to FA’s. Of course the league would have a website and board for league wide communications.

I know that a build like this is possible by setting up as one league with many different divisions. The main question I have, (and would like to have input on)

• Would the build and playoff system be possible by creating the state leagues separately in game?
• Would I still be able to move teams to different divisions and leagues as needed (along with it’s current players)?
• Can you combine two or more separate leagues in game and have a playoff?

Ok… that was more than one question.

Well, congratulations for hanging in this long. Hopefully this vision has been explained well enough and has sparked interest. I know the league files will be large and much time will be put into the running, updating and hopefully playing a league of this nature. But I would like for this league to thrive and be very successful. It could be the ultimate OOTP league. GM’s to see it as the league to compete in, to be crowned the Champion of so many participants. When new OOTP fans arrive on the board looking for an online league to compete and GM’s first thought of reference is the PVCL.

I would like to have input of all aspects. Please let me know if you would be interested in participating in a league of this nature. Please discuss the flaws or suggestions among this post, but PM me if you are interested with a preliminary team name in the format noted earlier. (I would also like to know the city and state.)


Regards

Rich