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For reference, remember 4/16=25% of teams demote every season, and so a guess of 25% would mean that newly promoted teams were just as likely as the average D1 team to demote. I would posit that the ideal percentage should be higher than that... but how much higher is an open question.. what do you think?

I don't think that (using BB-Charles terminology) there should be any programmer's intervention to alter this percentage: the best teams win and the best teams stay in the division or they are promoted. I just demoted because I was the worst team in my conference (that, by the way, was way stronger than the other, but that's another story, although a relevant one). Demotion should not be a dramatic event: the manager just made an experience of what it means to play in a higher division and should have a clear idea on how to improve his/her own team to get back and stay there.

My point is that a demoted team is being overly punished for trying to make it to a higher division, because the programmer's intervention on demoted team is simply excessive:
- fans are reduced to one half or even less; their satisfaction in the new season will never be 5 balls simply because of the last season; they will increase but I seriously doubt I will be able to exploit the size of my arena (that was moderately expanded to exploit the opportunity of being a higher division);
- if it's not the end of the month you don't have the opportunity to lower ticket prices, which further increases the fans problem: they are unhappy and they have to pay prices that would be reasonable only for a higher division;
- merchandising does not only drop on the first week in the lower division, but even in the second week after a row of 4 wins, one of which against my rival team (please note that I did not dismantle my team: in overall my salaries have increased slightly); we'll see if this week the drop will stop after 7 wins in a row.

All the above means of income reduction (I didn't mention TV rights) are reasonable in their motivation, I just say that they are excessive when aggregated. While fans of a team that is going to demote are easily calmed by a win or two, when you are demoted they simply disappear and they do not come back just as quickly. In this way demotion becomes a nightmare since it is extremely hard to keep a competitive team while not being at a constant loss.

I think that you should gather another information about users' behaviour: how many of them leave the game after a demotion?

i don't know it exactly, but i think the risk of promoting is something you should take, ebcause you could make a lot of money at the current state, don't if this was salso so in the future, but i think this total income each week of div one -> Total: $ 719 977 will be also in future remarkable higher then the one out of league two which i expect around 500k(for the good ones).

I currently have the problem with the money we make each week(i make a plus of 299k this week, without cup, the league average is 161k), i hope this will be smaller in the future but the gap betwen 2cd and first league is pretty high, and even betwenn succesfull and unsuccesfull teams.

Last edited by CrazyEye at 1/3/2010 7:50:12 AM

i don't know it exactly, but i think the risk of promoting is something you should take, ebcause you could make a lot of money at the current state, don't if this was salso so in the future, but i think this total income each week of div one -> Total: $ 719 977 will be also in future remarkable higher then the one out of league two which i expect around 500k(for the good ones).

I'm telling you something different: I agree that promoting is a business opportunity, in addition to being one of the basic objectives in any game (i.e. winning), so I did go for a promotion two seasons ago. I firmly believe that, given the current state of affairs, in the medium/long run if you cannot avoid demoting the following season, it easily becomes a way to go bankrupt.

I had around 1400 supporters in a III serie division, now I have 730 supporters in a IV serie division. Now I'm pretty sure that I won't have 1400 supporters next year, even if I manage to win the playoffs (and it's not easy to do that). The system is telling me that I should reduce costs, but I'm trying not to dismantle the team because I want to achieve a new promotion and basically because I don't want to. I don't think I'm being unreasonable, I just don't want to wait two or more seasons in an attempt to make enough money to do the jump.

Last edited by giona at 1/3/2010 8:26:55 AM

so maybe it the difference betwen promoting in Ii and II league, too. because most of the promoted teams in my league are surprised about their weekly balance - and i don't think that they get that much less when demoting again but i could ask opalla about it but till now i didn't ehard something in this direction.

Thanks for your interest.

My information about fans drop in teams demoting from Serie A to II serie in Italy is that it has similar order of magnitude as my demotion (from III to IV). In a few words, the system currently gives a good prize for promoting teams but it is unforgiving about demotions.

Consider, however, that the additional money that newly promoted teams got last year was not so much in terms of purchasing power given the high inflation: players I had to buy to try not to be demoted currently have lower prices (and they got some training last year).

Honestly Giona I think that it could be acceptable the duty you've to pay for relegation cause everyone must try to fight till the end to not be relegated; I did it last season and I'll never chose again to be relegated, the focus of the matter is that in our case in serie A there are always the same teams and often the teams coming from IInd division go back immediately because the difference between the 2 divs is very high and the 1m bonus is not enough to make your team stronger.

Thanks for your point of view and also thanks to Josef.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to survive, but I'm convinced that this state of affairs will lead to an even more stable structure of divisions. Since demotion is so severely penalizing the managers will have to think twice before promoting, because they risk an immediate demotion if they are not strong enough (in terms of team quality and economical resources). Demoted teams will have a very hard time achieving an immediate promotion back to their previous division, due to possible financial problems.

I don't know if the game becomes more interesting in this way (can we call this phenomenon 'fan deflation' or 'fan recession'?)... time will tell, and I'd look at actual data to have an answer. Personally I won't dismantle the team and I'll try to get back immediately.

P.S. @ned: I fought until the end to avoid relegation, but I really had no chance in my conference: I demoted with 8 victories, in the other conference I would have been probably safe...

managers will have to think twice before promoting

Exactly! I've written about it some posts ago, some managers prefer to win the tournament and lose the final match to be promoted.

I'd ask the community to think about what that percentage should be. For reference, remember 4/16=25% of teams demote every season, and so a guess of 25% would mean that newly promoted teams were just as likely as the average D1 team to demote. I would posit that the ideal percentage should be higher than that... but how much higher is an open question.. what do you think?

My short answer is 50%. Newly promoted teams should expect to be less competitive than those who made the playoff, but about as competitive as those who ended in 5th and 6th position (supposing the latter won the playout).
But the long answer is much more complex. This 50% is only valid if the league has reached an equilibrium (not too much difference between teams) and if there are not too many teams turning into bots (or relegating on purpose, like in the italian serie A last season).
For the lowest divisions my answer would probably be less than 25%.

managers will have to think twice before promoting

Exactly! I've written about it some posts ago, some managers prefer to win the tournament and lose the final match to be promoted.

I would like to hear from a BB about this. My impression is that a promotion followed by a demotion brings more money to that team than no promotion/demotion. I might be wrong though.
For what counts, in my league, in the last three seasons there were two teams able to promote again, after such a promotion/relegation pattern.