Seems kinda random.
The rival is not chosen randomly, as long as you have some history with the teams in your conference. If you come to a new league, the selection may very well be random.
The exact process is not known, but past games (number of games and how close they were) affect the rivalry between two teams. You get the team that you have the "strongest" (not necessarily longest I guess) history with as your rival. However, one team can only appear as the rival of two other teams, so you may end up with your second biggest rival or so.
My guess is the process uses similar calculations as country/world ranking, which BB-Charles discusses here:
(131496.29). I quote:
"The rankings take into account the importance of each game, the result, and the strength of the opponent (the strength of the players actually playing in the game, not the overall strength of the roster)."It would make sense to me both from programming and conceptual point of view that the rival is chosen based on similar calculations.
Last edited by GM-WallyOop at 9/13/2010 4:00:38 AM