BuzzerBeater Forums

Rather than us continuing to debate the pros and cons of every detail indefinitely...I think we need to make a decision:

Random schedule or not?
1 Division or not?

My very strong opinion is, that at least for the first season of BBHG there should be 1 league tier (all teams play in the same level league).

Also I think we should play with 1 league table only including all 14 teams - that´s the approach most top sports leagues in Europe are using, and using 1 league table would eliminate any controversies/problems of placing teams to conferences totally fairly (which frankly is next to impossible task, as one group would always be tougher to advance/avoid relegation from than advance from other group), and results of regular season would be 100% fair as there's only one league table (there's no difference between groups how difficult it is to advance to playoffs or avoid possible relegation).

This one league table would be like the one what you can see in buzzer-manager when you look at your regular season table - it compares all 16 teams of the league in one table (by wins and then by point differential) which in many cases makes my point and underlines the problems associated with two different groups - teams are most often not at their "expected" positions in buzzer-manager league table where they're "supposed" to be but several positions upper or lower than "expected" compared to normal BB league tables (which are divided into two groups), which underlines the problems.

It's highly irritating and frustrating to see in a regular BB league, especially where strong imbalance between same level groups exist, that in say 'west group' you can get to playoffs with certain regular season record, while in 'east group' you'd be fighting to avoid relegation at best with the exactly same win-loss record. I league table within the same league tier, as used in most top sports leagues around Europe, solves all these problems, simple as that. I realize this problem isn't nearly as pronounced as in regular BB leagues as we play against each other only once (instead of twice against our own group opponents), but still problems with 2 groups of 7 teams in terms of total fairness persists at some level.

In an attempt to make this conversation easier in the future I'd like to mention that I think these terms (especially term division but also league and group) can sometimes cause confusion, as there are parallel level leagues (for example USA II.3 and USA II.4 etc.) and of course parallel level groups in one same level league (there's 'east' and 'west' group in all regular BB leagues) within BB.
It doesn't help that for some reason in BB world "real" division 1 is called for example "USA II.3" (refers to division 2, which many use in writings) and not division "USA I.3" which it actually is, as it's really the second highest league tier, and the name should reflect that. I've always had a mindset (maybe it's because in Europe we do that predominantly?) that if we talk about division, division is never the main/top league of the country, so therefore I'd consider aforementioned "USA II.3" a 3rd highest league tier (which it obviously isn't in classical BB terminology for some reason).

I've had more discussions about this "1 division or not?"-question with MrJ, so I don't know whether or not it's necessary to copy paste my reasoning for this here in the forum (I won't add them to this post yet). But I think I made my point already... :)

You shouldn't ruin this before it's even started, get it out there and then we'll see how it can or should continue.

You shouldn't ruin this before it's even started, get it out there and then we'll see how it can or should continue.

I agree.

You shouldn't ruin this before it's even started, get it out there and then we'll see how it can or should continue.

Well, I'm not sure if you referred to my messages, but I was just wondering who's trying to ruin something here? :) I feel that my messages have got absolutely nothing to do with an attempt of ruining anything - this is called planning, optimizing and discussion in my opinion. And we still have, what, 8-9 weeks till the beginning of the season? It is plenty of time to get everything organized, especially if we keep on doing necessary things (as we have in the past weeks, more than ever).

So there's no need to make rushed decisions either, as long as we stick with some kind timetable which enables us enough safety net/flexibility. But having said that, I am glad most people seem to be happy to go with proposed things, as it speeds up things. Maybe understandably, as I proposed creation of this league back in September (I have no clue if someone has proposed similar in earlier, original Homegrown teams-thread), I have many visions and opinions (of which some are on the strong side) on what I think this league should/could look like.

And I agree 100%, it is absolutely a good idea to get it started soon, and personally I have no doubt that will happen starting next season. We do have MrJ here too now to help with practical stuff, and that has made this process to speed up quite a bit (like all you have noticed from the forum).

However, I'm not the kind of person myself who just likes to "throw something out and see what it becomes, if it becomes anything at all" (and to state the obvious, I'm not saying you are either, and you didn't say exactly like that, but I used those words to make it more clear what I mean), if you know what I mean, and I think properly planned structure and rules (this kind of planning I've personally done a lot today) gives us the best foundation to start from (and possibly to continue on in the future).

Why postpone it until next season? I thought it would be played this season. 14 participants, 13 matches for each on neutral ground and then the placement matches. No need to make anything difficult out of it.

I didn't want to offend anyone or demean the mission.

Just do it, it could be good.

A few simple rules and that's it, there won't be a perfect schedule that everyone agrees with:
- all games on neutral ground
- all games at a specific time
- all results of the season are neutralized (not counted) if a team deviates from homegrown criterias

What else you should think about:
- who is responsible for the invitation anyway?
- What happens if the game/invitation doesn't take place on time and a team doesn't have enough time to line up?

Have fun and good luck …

I didn't want to offend anyone or demean the mission.

Just do it, it could be good.

A few simple rules and that's it, there won't be a perfect schedule that everyone agrees with:
- all games on neutral ground
- all games at a specific time
- all results of the season are neutralized (not counted) if a team deviates from homegrown criterias

What else you should think about:
- who is responsible for the invitation anyway?
- What happens if the game/invitation doesn't take place on time and a team doesn't have enough time to line up?

Have fun and good luck …

You are right, Erik.

However, as Wagner noted, he has some strong views/opinions on what the league should look like.

Personally, I think we have enough details to get it up and going.



Last edited by MrJ at 2/20/2025 5:46:15 AM

Personally, the fairest system is always to do it as randomly as possible - a draw is always more fair than a fixture.

Personally, the fairest system is always to do it as randomly as possible - a draw is always more fair than a fixture.

That's my view too

I agree with the idea of one table of all 14 teams and one division.
What would finals look like? A bracket of the top 4 where one plays 4 and 2
Plays 3? Or expand it further?

I agree with the idea of one table of all 14 teams and one division.
What would finals look like? A bracket of the top 4 where one plays 4 and 2
Plays 3? Or expand it further?