5 teams demote out of every league (6 in Utopia).
1 champion promotes out of every league, and there are 4 leagues in a lower division for every 1 league in the division above (except for Utopia div IV, which has 96 leagues compared to 16 leagues in Utopia div III).
So for every 1 league in the division above, there's 1 auto promotion spot available -- 1 auto promotion spot from II into I, 4 auto promotion spots from III into II, 16 auto promotion spots from IV into III. (except Utopia which gets weirder -- 2 auto promotion spots into div 1, 8 auto promotion spots into div II, and 0 auto promotion spots into div III).
Auto promotion rankings are determined by:
1. Regular season conference ranking (you MUST have won your conference in the regular season standings)
2. Total wins, descending
3. Point differential, descending
So Elan was one of 4 France d.III teams to go 22-0 in the regular season and has secured auto-promotion.
Thank you for an explanation on my part as well! I think I may have seen this kind of discussion somewhere before, but as far as I can remember
such a detailed explanation isn't a part of an official game manual, even though it should! Game manual only mentions about this (not official translation): "In addition, one extra promotion spot will be granted to a team that has a best regular season record (which is a team that hasn't already secured the promotion by other means).".
Speaking of different kind of league formats, that I was writing about in some previous posts when we were discussing in the possible establishing of BBHG (Buzzerbeater Homegrown) league, I did some initial "research" on different kind of league formats used in different sports leagues (mainly in Finnish top division sports, but some others as well).
I can share some of those in the near future if people are interested in hearing about them, when I'll have more time to write and when I have confirmed all of those leagues are actually played in the format it seems they are being played. Those comparisons could possibly work as an inspiration/as a starting point/even as a final solution to our challenge of finding "a perfect" league format for BBHG league.
But already now, for instance, if manager of S.F 29-team, Fattuhi, would be interested in joining the BBHG league, we would already have 9 participating teams. That would be exactly the same as in Finnish mens volleyball league, in which 8 will proceed to playoffs. And 9 would already be more than in Finnish bandy league (8 teams), rinkball (7 teams), and handball league (7 teams). If top leagues in a country can (and will) operate with such a low amount of teams and have meaningful league systems in function to determine a league winner, I don't see why BBHG would need to wait for, say 16 participants to announce their interest before we can start such league. I don't recall anyone saying that we should wait anyway, but I'm just saying. :)