Bounce back quick, no issue.
Teams also tend to overestimate their ability to bounce right back up. The game is designed to make this more difficult than you would expect. If you do come up, you will almost certainly come up with a weaker team than you went down with. It's doable, but teams go back up only about at a 25-30% rate, on the lower side for older divisions.
I don't disagree with you at all and am glad it's not a simple game model. I think team turnover would be higher if that was the case. My quick bounce back statement was simply to identify how demoting as the 6th or 7th place team could offset the 5th place mainstay.
Obviously for a team to be demoted, the model you had for your team didn't work so it's very apparent changes would need to be made to make a better run in a higher division. The teams that did bounce back quickly, overwhelmed the teams in their divisions to return, but they also remade their teams to make themselves more competitive. Other teams still in Division II are still pretty darn good, but as you commented (paraphrased) in your forum last season, no matter how good you are, take a week off and end up in bad GS, have an injury at the wrong time, or having to try harder to get to the finals can all prevent the best teams from moving back up, staying up or being successful.
The challenge I personally have had (being a very demoted team) was not salary, but talent. I believe teams are overestimating because they have an inflated value of their squads which I think this is in part due to enthusiasm and not having a true understanding of where your value is of the players you have. Again you can take either side of the argument and be right.
Charles, you do not have to defend the game to me. This was a forum post where I commented on the goings on in the league. The league simply wants to you experience the same pain we all have. I have and it really sucks times 2 and the fight to get back sucks even more.
That said, I don't blame you for getting tired of everyone bashing on a game they enjoy. Heck I am glad you responded to my post. If I knew how to talk smack, I wouldn't have to write essays here. But I know you understand the quandary (It's a tough life arguing with knuckleheads)and am sure you know what your doing.
Last edited by Bobos Playhouse at 4/27/2010 12:07:05 PM