Post by Miege22 on Nov 9, 2023 15:52:59 GMT -5
Ok, everyone, I'm just going to put this to a vote now. All of the work is actually done, and it's not like this would really change anything we're doing, so why wait until next year? As a refresh, here is what I proposed in the other thread:
We'll rotate division partners each year, so they'll look like this:
2023-2024
North/Midwest
Southeast/Pacific
2024-2025
North/Pacific
Southeast/Midwest
2025-2026
North/Southeast
Pacific/Midwest
Then back to this year's pairings in 26-27. There would be a minimal amount of additional work for those that make the quarters/semis/finals. Those teams will be playing two match-ups that week, so I will set up a thread for each match-up to allow those involved to make any lineup tweaks (if they want; teams involved are more than welcome to just use whatever lineup they use on ESPN). Here are some of the creative assets:
I think this would be a fun wrinkle to add to our league, give teams another prize to play for, and give divisions back some more of their weight. Maybe in the future we can look at some sort of real reward for winning this (maybe a guaranteed play-in berth at the end of the year?), but I think we just treat this as another banner to add to the trophy case for right now.
GROUP PLAY
We would use the divisions as our groups. The first round of division games all happen by week 7, so we would use the first round as our "in-season tournament" games. Like the NBA is doing, these would also still count towards regular season standings. The top-2 in each division would move onto the knockout round.
Tiebreakers
1. Head-to-head
2. If it’s a three-way tie, and the head-to-head is split, we will use most categories won.
3. If still tied, fewest categories lost
4. Still tied, most points scored
KNOCKOUT ROUND
The knockout rounds would take place in January (we will aim to start in the 2nd week of January to avoid the weirdness of New Year's scheduling... this season that would mean weeks 12-14). We would use World Cup style seeding and randomly partner up divisions. Let's just say, as an example, the North and Midwest are partners and the Southeast and Pacific are partners. Seeing would look like this:
North #1
Midwest #2
Pacific #1
Southeast #2
Midwest #1
North #2
Southeast #1
Pacific #2
So the quarters would be week 12, semis in week 13, and championship in week 14. Now, we wouldn't need to change the schedule at all, we would simply have those involved in the knockout rounds playing in two matches that week, with the tourney games being scored manually via excel (and I can post after each day - shoutout to MemphisGM for the idea).
We would use the divisions as our groups. The first round of division games all happen by week 7, so we would use the first round as our "in-season tournament" games. Like the NBA is doing, these would also still count towards regular season standings. The top-2 in each division would move onto the knockout round.
Tiebreakers
1. Head-to-head
2. If it’s a three-way tie, and the head-to-head is split, we will use most categories won.
3. If still tied, fewest categories lost
4. Still tied, most points scored
KNOCKOUT ROUND
The knockout rounds would take place in January (we will aim to start in the 2nd week of January to avoid the weirdness of New Year's scheduling... this season that would mean weeks 12-14). We would use World Cup style seeding and randomly partner up divisions. Let's just say, as an example, the North and Midwest are partners and the Southeast and Pacific are partners. Seeing would look like this:
North #1
Midwest #2
Pacific #1
Southeast #2
Midwest #1
North #2
Southeast #1
Pacific #2
So the quarters would be week 12, semis in week 13, and championship in week 14. Now, we wouldn't need to change the schedule at all, we would simply have those involved in the knockout rounds playing in two matches that week, with the tourney games being scored manually via excel (and I can post after each day - shoutout to MemphisGM for the idea).
We'll rotate division partners each year, so they'll look like this:
2023-2024
North/Midwest
Southeast/Pacific
2024-2025
North/Pacific
Southeast/Midwest
2025-2026
North/Southeast
Pacific/Midwest
Then back to this year's pairings in 26-27. There would be a minimal amount of additional work for those that make the quarters/semis/finals. Those teams will be playing two match-ups that week, so I will set up a thread for each match-up to allow those involved to make any lineup tweaks (if they want; teams involved are more than welcome to just use whatever lineup they use on ESPN). Here are some of the creative assets:
I think this would be a fun wrinkle to add to our league, give teams another prize to play for, and give divisions back some more of their weight. Maybe in the future we can look at some sort of real reward for winning this (maybe a guaranteed play-in berth at the end of the year?), but I think we just treat this as another banner to add to the trophy case for right now.