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Well put!

I can tell you I was in this scenario this season. Consider my scenario:

I was 5th with 2 game left in the season. I knew I had a slim chance to win my last 2 games but it would require me to play perfect tactics as they had superior teams and I was also gonna be playing away. I knew that the guy finishing 7th in the other conference is weak and 6th place would have close to a 95%+ chance of winning.

Rather than trying to win these last 2 games, I decided to tank them. Play TIE and scrubs. It was far more important for me to manage GS and have higher enthusiasm going into a relegation series. Also reduces the risk of injury for my starters. So I set myself up at that point to aim for a 6th placed finish.

I would like to reiterate what you said. You can CHOOSE to finish where you want to rather be forced into a situation. With sufficient planning (scouting other conference 7th team, etc), you can migitate a lot of risk and plan accordingly which position finish would be most benefitial to you.

And Naker Virus...you are in div 4 so that money means jack all to you. But here you're talking about an extra half a mill over the course of the 3 game series!

BB-C,

I totally agree that the monetary situation is fair with the 5th place receiving no income from playoff/relegation games against the risk of relegation. However, I have finished 5th this season, and I think the biggest penalty is the loss of training for 3 weeks. I think an extra scrimmage (no gate receipts) for the 5th seeds to let them get one more week of full training would be a fair option. Maybe give the 8th seeds a extra scrimmage too.

My 2 cents...

I guess that would be the 8th place punishment. 3 weeks without full training is tough.

I was in 4th last season and I think the money for the away games was as low as $30,000 so the cash is trivial in DIV IV. However in DIV IV in Australia there is nowhere to be relegated to so you would be crazy to come 5th. There is utterly no risk being in 6th or 7th and there clearly is a reward.

On the one hand it is good to do some stamina training, on the other hand no-one wants to do it for three weeks.

You should make every spot up the ladder better. At the moment in some divisions coming 6th is just 100% better than coming 5th.

Even if we ignore the bottom divisions, if you are a good team and you know your opponents you can make an educated guess and work out that if you do tank for 6th then you will 90% be playing team X who you have a 90% chance of beating. Yes things can go wrong but chance is a part of the game. The Virus is right about people buying players at the last minute the team I played on Tuesday in the first round of the playoffs bought a $1,500,000 player (probably the best guy on his team) just a week before the playoffs. Obviously not the best time to buy but as has already been noted those prices do go up for a reason. People do want a last minute boost.

So I agree that adding a scrimmage (5th vs 5th) is an excellent compromise. It really isn't going to change much but it will make the 5th place teams feel better and may prevent some tanking. We know people tank for the draft at the bottom of leagues but that is realistic, NBA, NFL and AFL teams have all been accused of doing it. Lets not provide any additional reasons to not want to be the best.

Elementary my dear Watson.



Last edited by yodabig at 3/13/2010 3:44:17 AM

Well, our league has both 7-th team winning their relegation games. Shocking!
About tanking for 6-th place. Every time I throw a game it will cost me about 50k in next home game income + some merchandice money. This is not a problem with lower leagues I agree. But I think anyone who just promoted would take that 5-th spot any day of the week. It all depends on how many games per season you have to tank. I would of taken that 6-th spot if I would not have tank too many games. But looking at my league anything can happen. Some CT-s and some TIE-s might land you to the 5-th spot. With highly competitive league even 7-th spot. So to me it's playoffs if I can!

Well, our league has both 7-th team winning their relegation games. Shocking!
About tanking for 6-th place. Every time I throw a game it will cost me about 50k in next home game income + some merchandice money.

i don't think so, normally it cost you the money in the next game - so you could end with more income in concentrating to win your away games and risk more in your home games(at least in league is it different, we use most time the away game for rest for the cup or enthusiam management, and try to make sure to get the "easy" wins at home if you don't have to win that much games you could follow the opposite strategy because you don't need that much wins).

Exactly.

You can't explain the reason why many end of seasons in leagues are modified (indirectly because of their results, not only for those playing 5th/6th) because people let down in order to finish 5th than 6th by giving the example of your league where risks of relegation were far more important.

No one tells that it is a problem that concerns all the leagues.
Just that it concerns so many ones that we should be concerned to find a way for making 5th place more attractive rather than 6th in any case.

I don't think that you would, at least, disagree with that wish ?

Last edited by Dunker Joe at 3/14/2010 3:22:49 PM