The Rival issue I’ve always found to be a strange one. I’ve had the same Rival every season since joining my current league, but the pool guy’s been in the league longer than I have and so he’s played the other older teams more often and he stands no chance getting me as his Rival. He’s had objectively a better team than mine every time we’ve met, and yet I’ve beaten him 7 out of 9 times so far! 21% of my wins in this league have come against this same team! Why? Because I take these games so much more seriously than he does! And for some reason, this one team seems to be the most common team assigned as a rival to newly promoted teams.
I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I can see this being a realistic oddity. In the real world, rivalries are based on issues like geography and important games played. But there’s also notoriety involved, too. Having gone to the University of Texas (in case y’all have ever wondered about that “horn” part of my name), I am aware that every time the Texas football team plays anybody, it’s maybe the biggest win of the season for the other team if they can win it. (No comments on the number of these big wins against Texas this season, please, it’s a sore subject). But if this were BB, what teams would have Texas as their Rival? Texas A&M? For sure, this is the big in-state rival and the Texas game is the biggest of the season for the Aggies. Oklahoma? Definitely, even though they have Oklahoma State in an in-state rivalry, the Texas game is bigger and has more at stake (usually). But what about teams like Texas Tech or Baylor? Let’s face it, those programs might get a win every now and then, but I don’t think anybody would put those football programs on par with Texas, so maybe the fans don’t put as much emotional investment in the Texas game (as that would lead to typical disappointment). And yet, do those teams have a bigger Rival? Is there any other team that they’d rather beat? So maybe BB would make Texas their Rival, too? And what about a team from another conference like Nebraska. Golly, those fans wanted to beat Texas so bad this year you’d have thought they were Oklahoma! But Nebraska probably has a more traditional rival, so Texas probably doesn’t get the Rival label here. So let’s add this up. Texas would probably get Oklahoma as the Rival (sorry Aggies), but would be facing at least two other teams, and maybe as many as four other teams, who all think Texas is their Rival. (It’s truly an honor to when the other teams thinks it warrants tearing down the goal posts when they beat your team, no better way to express respect for a program.)
But, on the flip side, in BB is it really fair to set up teams to have to face this sort of pressure when the Rivalries are not exactly created by real-life sort of traditional rivalry factors? I know which team in my league really should be my rival since we have so many more similarities than I have with my actual Rival (both joined BB not too far apart in time, both climbed lower leagues at a similar rate, both tend maintain about the same total payroll, and I’m actually a bit jealous of the other team’s success!). I actually think that teams that promote at the same time should probably start out as Rivals, barring other factors (such as teams that have a history of playing against each other).
So if it was up to me, I’d think if any change was to be made to the Rival system, it would be to make teams promoting in the same season to the same conference as Rivals.
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Last edited by chihorn at 10/27/2010 8:01:29 PM
Don't ask what sort of Chunks they are, you probably don't want to know. Blowing Chunks since Season 4!