That sucks that they gave the big 8 another strong division two demotee, which is now the second straight season that this has happened.
I do apologize for being that team last season, and I felt a little bad for running a bit of a train through a fun league that seemed to have an active group of managers that could have anyone come out on top. It seems like a few of you that I was worried facing last season are still in playoff position this season.
I enjoyed this league a lot (not just because I was able to find success in it). It genuinely seems to be a league where there are more than just one or two teams getting some big wins.
Honestly going into last season, I noticed that I could’ve very easily gotten stuck in III.9 for a while if I did not play the transfer market aggressively coming off of a season where I sold a bunch of players off in D2.
I admit I partially wanted to come back to Division 3 at the time to try chasing that 750k promotion again. Ultimately that’s not a great game plan to bank on, but as a consolation prize to that I feel like this league tested me just the right amount. Not too much, but enough to really have me monitoring my team on a daily basis. I went way over my budget at the time (bought a few 40-60k weekly salary players and even bought an 80k salary player).
Ultimately I feel like I was not that much further ahead than other teams here, scheduling just worked out in my favor and I got a few lucky breaks.
Little did I know early on into that season, my team was facing sanctions for “tanking” in division 2 and faced ticket sales penalties. According to Buzzerbeater, you have you win at least one out of every 8 games or it ruins the fanbases enthusiasm for the next season. And if you have a few million dollars sitting in your economy on top of that and you choose not to spend it, it can make things even worse.
Again I did not realize these new buzzerbeater anti-tanking policies at the time (first few weeks of last season) and I was losing over 50k a week. I was very close to panicking but by second half of the season my attendances recovered and I was able to make a lucky flip or two on the transfer market.
I hope that this division 3.9 will produce some more strong active managers coming out of it for the seasons to come so that you can taste division two like I am now.
While the money flow is not nearly as good here as it is in division two, I think that it’s a very critical level for measuring your team against other teams and building a base foundation for being a high level USA team.
Most importantly division three forces you to have to create an economically efficient team. Now that i’m in division two, you face a bunch of teams with 150k salary players and it’s scary. It doesn’t mean they can’t be beaten by teams with much lesser salaries though as many teams at the D2 level tend to be much less economically efficient relative to a strong division three team that is in position to promote.
I feel like I am now more prepared for division two because of my challenging experience here and as of now it looks like I’m set up to survive this season down here in the second level (knock on wood, very young/vulnerable roster that isn’t too deep).
Last edited by Nate.Dowdy at 7/8/2024 4:57:50 AM