I posted this on the Canadian forum, what do you guys think about it?
What about allowing a second "development" team for each manager?
Some kind of optional teams that would compete in regular leagues but with more restriction than primary teams (for example only u21 players, players can only be transfered a limited number of time between major team and development team before having to be put on the TL, no promotion to DII or Naismith to keep some sort of "amateur" vs "professional" league status...).
That would allow a lot more young players to be trained while giving managers more options and more games per week hence more fun, and the number of active teams would be at least 50% greater and would improve the competition level in lower leagues.
Anyway that's just something I though about today, I don't know if it has been discussed/proposed yet!
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A youth academy like in HT would be a lot of work to integrate in the game. I was more thinking in terms of development teams like in NBA or NHL, or even some amateur teams in Europe where the professional teams send their young players when they are not ready to play in the "big league". And they compete with real amateur teams, not only young teams, they just can't promote to pro leagues, and once a player has signed a pro contract with the primary team he can't go back to the amateur team.
I don't think it would need a lot of modification to the game, it's just a matter of putting restrictions on certain teams and certain transfers...