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