mbsports -> RE: A Smelly Morning for MBCFL and the Expansion Draft is in the books (7/24/2008 10:41:53 PM)
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LOL there will always be a market for a good 20-30 football leagues that run well online. That number has been pretty static over the last 10 years. You can search around and you'll find all sorts of different types, most run on Madden, some are fantasy, some are real, some on MaxFB do Canada, some do indoor, some to modified variants and all of them have a place. What any Commish will always tend to run into is that there is a finite number of people that they know and can get in contact with who are going to participate at the level demanded of them. Some leagues are so detailed that people are posting daily updates for their team, I know that I cannot run something of that magnitude and do it well. The level of time that something of that sort takes is an invitation to have a revolving GM door. You'll get some really good ones but the majority of people have lives that require more of their attention then a simulated football league. So what is it that I do... I run my leagues with a fairly realistic set of parameters for the GMs to operate under. For instance our NFL sim has a cap, cap penalties for trades, 2 4 round drafts a year. It's entirely based on real life players. The NCAA we loosen it a bit, we have a draft for real life players and then recruiting for the fantasy players. Again, fairly normal stuff, you set your offense/defense can setup the lineup if you'd like, but if someone is ultra busy, it's not a huge deal we'll let the cpu handle the day to day operations. CFL is again pretty straightforward, we allow CFL and fantasy players after they graduate from the NCAA league. CIS I want to do fairly similar, you have players come in, play, and go out in a 4 season span and that's it. They're all going to be fantasy players, if I can find guys who want to participate, great, if not I want to make it so that there is a reasonable chance for the cpu to build a team on it's own throughout the years and then those CIS players will move into the CFL league as well as some of the choice guys from the NCAA league. In the end though I tend to run my leagues for my enjoyment, if I were to do it on someone elses terms or with a rule set that I didn't develop and put together I don't think I would be able to bring a lot of vigor to it. With what I do today I get to work with a lot of different data, I get to hone my skills on some outside of work stuff, I get to enjoy it a lot of the time. It's a grind at times, but that's why I try to run it on a schedule that works. IE We will sim games at the backend of the week and weekend only. Monday thru Wednesday are my days to myself and for development. Thursday-Sunday all games get simmed, usually the update comes on Sunday afternoon and I do live games with updates throughout the other days. The keys to all of this are having multiple computers so that a lot of things can be going on at once and just being relaxed about it. Any commish who is demanding a level of activity from his GMs is going to end up disappointed. The best you can really do is get a nice core group together and then work with them to build the league. You'll have good guys in, bad guys in, and guys who want more then you can deliver. Those are the toughest ones because 90% of the time the things they want are totally legitimate, but time, resources, or ability just doesn't allow it. After this collection of paragraphs I've come to the conclusion I'm way too passionate about this, but really this is my hobby and after 10 years of honing the craft of running leagues I like to imagine that I do an alright job. I'm nowhere near perfect in what I do and there are guys out there that can run circles around me or have more time to devote to it. I just like to have something going on that I enjoy and can spend time on and socialize a bit with. MBFL, MBCFL, and MBCFA do that for me. MBCIS is a natural addition just as MBAFL will most likely become one in the future. I should note that nothing would make me happier then a few guys from here hopping into the CFL over the next few seasons but again, it's on the terms that we keep it realistic and that means you're not going to move the Argonauts to Berlin or have the B.C. Lions become the Baracudas. Now if you want the Kitchener Admirals or the new team in New Brunswick or something like that, then we talk about it and see if it's a fit. I mean we have a few GMs that pay no attention to the CFL league, which is a shame but I believe we'll always be able to find a spot for someone who wants to participate on their terms at a level that fits in with what we offer. My commitment is that I'll continue to do the best I can and continue to post games regularly at least until we have some kids around here and that looks like a 3-5 year deal at this time meaning 6-10 seasons at least. As long as the software keeps functioning, we'll be around.
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