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In Sweden we are suffering from fewer and fewer users for each season that goes. In fact, very few new teams have popped up at top level. Despite only 214 teams in the whole country was 12 of 16 teams created season 6 or earlier and only one after season 10 (second active team to finish without a win in our highest division).

I think that one of the main reasons for the decreasing activity in Swedish community is that the league structure is to flat. In our second and third division the difference in team strength is huge. This means that teams that are not good enough to promote but good enough to not risk relegation will be in a nowhere land season after season.

I suggest 2 leagues for each division instead of current 4 leagues by division. For the Swedish league this would mean that we have active teams in 4 divisions instead of 3 divisions. More importantly it would mean that we only have 32 teams in second division instead of 64 and we would have 64 teams instead of 128 in third division. In fourth there would be only very few and any active team would easily win their first season and potentially like the game better. Mu suggestion is that instead of 1 team that promote will 2 teams promote.

The consequence in other countries would be a larger number of divisions as well. In e.g. Italy it would mean 9 divisions instead of 5 divisions. Maybe would this be a bit too many. A suggestion is to keep current factor of 4 from division 5 and lower. For Italy that would lead to 7 divisions instead of current 5.

In smaller countries I think that it really is necessary to increase number of divisions so that you don't end up in second highest division and is in the gap I just explained. Less team in a division will make it more challenging for the team to avoid relegation than it currently is so I expect less team to be stuck in the gap.

Poll:  How many leagues per division? Factor refers to have many teams that relegate in relation to number of promoted teams from lower division.

Putting aside the problem of having the logic work differently for different countries and different size leagues and the problem of the massive upheaval it would take to initially set this up, a more fundamental problem is that not only does it create more levels that teams must promote through to reach the top, but it also dramatically effects the promotion-relegation numbers.

The current paradigm says that four teams will be relegated from I, and the four champions in II will promote. Although there's still the problem of teams tanking most of the season and then loading up for the relegation series, there's still inherent risk in finishing below fifth place, and the top league will have four new managers each year. In your proposal, there are two leagues below, so the two champions promote and that means only two teams must be relegated. This would likely lead to even less turnover at the top and slower progress up the ladder, as the possibility of falling out of your league is pretty much only something faced as the very worst team in your conference or by intentional decision. Of course, you could also promote the runners up or whatever else, but I like the "win your league to promote" concept. I also don't like opening up 8th place to a relegation playoff, which would be the other alternative - at that point the idea of tanking all season and buying your place another season is even easier, and I also think the idea of finishing last in your conference and not demoting is the wrong direction to go.

I think there are real problems with small nations, but the solution is more likely to be found in how new teams are apportioned into the lowest leagues. That's a side effect of stagnating userbases - I don't know if it's dropped enough now to no longer be the case, but in Hattrick the USA had the exact same problem, where teams would go 14-0 in VI, promote to V and get clobbered pretty much every game, and yo-yo back and forth for RL years. Maybe breaking up the leagues every year and making sure that teams are distributed across all the series at the lowest level rather than all clustered in III.1 would help? (I don't claim to know how BB does this, and they may very well do so differently.)

I buy your arguments and maybe is this a small problem in bigger countries like USA. In Sweden, however, we have a really big problem with teams getting stucked in second league. I could also see an alternative where number of teams are reduced from 16 to 12. I do not favor it though because I very much like that as it is now.

Re-drawing leagues in divisions is nothing that I recommend. I think that most times actually likes to play same teams season by season so that you don't have to analyze other teams more. As it is now you have 5 new teams per season of 15 opponents so you do not lack new opponents.

214 users is not enough for current league structure in Sweden. New users will have to play in a really inactive third league for many seasons and either they play old teams that are too good for first 3-4 seasons or they play inactive teams that they will beat easily even if they created the team a week ago. If you lack a good team, e.g. allocated to a high III division then you can get promoted fastly but getting promoted after 2-3 seasons to division II is not nice. Even if there are many inactive teams in division II these inactive teams are usually way too good for you. They have had money to bring in 20k guys or so gradually and even with poor game shape they will win the games for them.

The unevenness of teams are really not good. Over 10 seasons ago we actually managed to fill some leagues in division IV. The experience from users that started at that time was good. They thought it was nice to have a first season where you could win your matches and get to know the game. Having just 2 division II and 4 division III would make these leagues much more even and the fourth division would be a playground for new teams that rather soon would be able to move up to division II and have the challenge there.

That Sweden would merge with another country is something I certainly do not favor. In that sense I certainly think that you are right about country having too many users. In competing basket manager game they discussed a Nordic (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark) league due to few active users in each of the countries but I think that it was good that this never happened.

Still, I am in favor of merging smaller countries in a suitable way. Can't be funny to play in a country with just 6 users or so. I have tried that in other manager games and you get bored by such a small community. In rather decent football manager game we got about 20 Swedish teams and that really kills the interest in the game no matter how good it is. And for new teams there you really get a terribly boring situation. It would take them at least 6 seasons to get close to the 12-14 old teams and the other teams they will never or very rarely play ...

I buy your arguments and maybe is this a small problem in bigger countries like USA. In Sweden, however, we have a really big problem with teams getting stucked in second league. I could also see an alternative where number of teams are reduced from 16 to 12. I do not favor it though because I very much like that as it is now.

Re-drawing leagues in divisions is nothing that I recommend. I think that most times actually likes to play same teams season by season so that you don't have to analyze other teams more. As it is now you have 5 new teams per season of 15 opponents so you do not lack new opponents.

Right, but as I was saying, if you instead change it to a power of two rather than power of four, teams will be stuck in those series even longer, as only three teams will turn over instead of five each season. Redrawing isn't an ideal fix, either, and I'm not sure I'd actually want that, but what it would do is at least ensure that there isn't one league that's impossible to compete in for a new team while another new team may end up in a league where they pound bots and promote to I.

Right, but as I was saying, if you instead change it to a power of two rather than power of four, teams will be stuck in those series even longer, as only three teams will turn over instead of five each season.

I don't believe in only two teams being relegated. I suggested 2 teams to promote. If only two teams should relegate then the size of the leagues needs to be changed as well, logically to 12 teams for each division. Then suddenly things would change a lot and I would rather suggest a factor of 3 for each division, i.e. 36 teams in second division instead of current 64 and so on.

It is not optimal with two teams promoting but that is at least something I prefer to get fewer teams at each level. It could still be important to win playoff final due to higher prize money and similar so the value of winning your division could still be there. That would of course lead to teams wanting to avoid second spot as they get punished with a smaller award.

I don't have an optimal solution and that is also why the suggestion thread is good, i.e. so that you can improve each others suggestions. I only know that I am not happy with current situation in Sweden where teams are likely to quit because there are too few challenging games.