People always come at this issue the wrong way. It's not about punishing the tankers, it's about examining the system and identifying the flaws that lead people to see tanking as the more desirable option.
The fact is: winning isn't rewarding enough. Let's look at a scenario: A USA DIII team wins the title and promotes. They get the huge bonus from winning a title, and are making just enough money to support the added salary they need to compete in a tough DII. Let's say they do pretty well in their first season. They win a fair amount of games, make the playoffs as a 3 seed, manage to upset the 2 seed but lose in the next round. I think most managers would consider that a really successful season for a promotee.
The problem is, the game doesn't.
Their attendance will drop the same as if they'd gotten 7th place and won the relegation series. Or gotten 5th place and not had to pay salaries for an extra week. When next season rolls around, and their attendance drops from ~95% to 60% and they can't afford their salary anymore, tanking until they have enough money to support a team capable of winning a bunch of titles in a row seems like the best path.
When the game doesn't accurately reward varying degrees of success (everything besides winning a championship is treated essentially the same), there's no reason to try as hard as you can.
This is music to my ears.
I completely agree. If you make it to the playoffs, the paying customers who support you should be really excited to support you, you should gain some long term fans etc etc. The way it is at the moment, you can come dead last and pfff.. doesn't matter. As long as you fulfil the other requirements on the fan survey, you can still pull good attendances the next season AND even the season you're tanking.