Joined a league in Ottoneu last year and had a lot of fun, but it has also become apparent to me that ottoneu suffers from some of the same problems you’d find in any other format. Namely, 1) Owners in last place bailing on season when they are out, 2) Owners who are just in general MIA.
I feel like one way to keep owners involved no matter where they place is to have pyramid-style tiered leagues. At the top would be a 12-man champions league. At the end of the year the bottom 2 owners would each be relegated to one of two leagues in the next rung. They would take over those leagues first place teams while the owners who won the lower division leagues would take over the relegated owners teams in the higher tier league. Obviously, these rungs can be expanded downward with multiple lower divisions based on interest (e.g. next lower rung would have 4 leagues so that relegated owners each have a team to take over and vice versa).
I feel like this would create a lot of completion among the bottom tier of teams in these type of leagues, and would keep things fun and interesting even when your team sucks (Because who would want to be relegated!). I also like the idea of progressing upward when you win a league rather than just settling for an ego boost and an insignificant amount of winnings. I for one would also be willing to pay more for these types of leagues rather than the random public ones you can claim.
There would be a number of other logistics to work out. For instance, what happens when an owner leaves the league? Who gets priority to join a league in a higher tier?
Interested to know what people think.
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I believe some people have private leagues of friends, and some people are on a 2-year quest to tear down and rebuild a team, which requires a longer timeframe than your proposal allows. However, I agree this could add a fun element to some leagues. It seems like it would need to be an option that a league could opt into, to avoid disrupting private leagues and standard leagues. Also, it would probably only work in standard FG Pts format, because the other formats don’t have a lot of leagues, and it would be meaningless if you were in the only opted-in league in your format.
We use relegation within our league (12 team FG H2H). We use 3 divisions: Gold, Silver, Bronze. Last place in the top two divisions is relegated and the first place in the bottom two are promoted. Fun way to keep folks interested and keeps the competitive balance alive, as the division winners get auto berths to the playoffs.
I’m not sure if the takeover system that you’re describing appeals to me, personally. Mostly I’d fear that it could be a race to the bottom for a mediocre team, if they just get to take over a winner the next year. I can see marginally more interest in taking over a last place team in an upper league (some people enjoy the project). But, assuming the upper level are really talented owners, a quick rebuild (as Braveheart mentioned) is a tall order that might have limited appeal as well.
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In a league in which they use Arbitration Coupons mainly to teams to compete for 4-9 place. 4 th place receives the most like $10-12, 5-6 place like 8 dollars, etc. It keeps people not in the hunt competing til the end. I have not seen as many people leaving $100 leagues.
Pinetar.org had exactly what you are proposing for about 20 years until circumstances dictated its demise. The caveat was they required a redraft every season for all 4 levels since it made little sense to take over dynasty teams for the reasons @Dahdscear explained above. At one time there were over 200 teams and it was great fun.
I’m really keen on an Ottoneu league with Promotion/Relegation, and I’ve been contemplating a league for some time, but I have the same feelings as @Dahdscear.
My thought was to instead have a larger league (probably 16 teams) and split the league into two divisions. Bottom two from the top division are relegated and top two from the bottom division are promoted. This way there is one player pool, teams that get promoted keep their team, those relegated keep their team, forcing everyone to continually play out the season.
My struggle was to keep the league fair, whilst also creating a system by which teams were actively trying to get into the top division. I felt if everyone paid an amount for prizes, but only teams from the top division could win, then its not really attractive for people to hang around if they are stuck in the lower division. I came up very quickly with something along the lines of the image below (literally a couple of seconds, so nothing concrete), but I’d love to see what other people thought. I had a second idea which was much crazier, but might hold on to that for the second.
Obviously just a starting point, and if something were to take off, a lot more league rules would have to be fleshed out (e.g. how do you place teams into the set divisions in the first year, or do you wait a year and base of those rankings) and debated in order to create a league where people are committed year in year out.
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I think the best way to do this would be for there to be an option to opt in to official Otto leagues where promotion and relegation is handled by mods according to set criteria.
@nivshah are you familiar with Learned League? It’s a trivia league that uses a really awesome relegation/promotion structure that I think could work here too.
There’s obviously huge structural issues with how do you carry dynasty players over year to year if you move to a different league, though.
