BuzzerBeater Forums

I have been following this discussion for a while now. While I do agree that some steps should be taken to discourage intentional walkovers, I rarely see anybody talking about making winning more attractive.
Basically the only team being rewarded is the actual league champion. What is in it for the other 7 teams making the playoffs? Nothing.
I said this earlier, put out incentives for winning games and making the playoffs, either through a much increased amount of merchandise earnings or a fixed amount for winning a game (just like in advancing in the cup). And then add bonuses for teams making the playoffs, conference finals and finals.

As for evidence of tanking being a good strategy, my first full season in BB was S14. I promoted to D.III in S16. It turned out to be just too fast. My arena wasn't ready, I had two trainees at that time. The one was a NT PG prospect and was eating up salary. After finishing first my first season in D.III and then being kicked out of the playoffs in the first game (albeit a bit unlucky) I was basically broke. I then had a decision to make. Being stuck in a treadmill and playing mediocre with no real chance to improve in the future with no assets, or rebuild. I opted for the latter and it was the best decision I could have made.
I sold all my players spare for my homegrown trainee and finished last the next season with a 0-22 record (no walkovers though). With the first pick I selected a great PG talent who can make the U21 within the next two years. I put a load of money into adding seats to my arena and got myself two more trainees. I promoted right back into D. III the next year having a cash reserve. I finished this season first overall and am now on the verge of promoting to D. II with a much larger arena and future improvement through trainees.
Your call if you wanna count that as evidence.

Last edited by Fonzi at 8/15/2012 3:41:02 AM

No one really acknowledged my post, so I'll try again :)

Now I may not be such an experienced bb player BUT a simple a way I've figured out to fix this IS: Depending on what league you are in, introduce sponsorship contracts. At the moment I'm in league 3. Earning roughly 20k a week with a full arena. A tanker however would be earning 100k a week, if I'm not correct.

Sooo, why not make a sponsorship contract which determines how much money you earn per game won, but not only that, but also how much money you will win if you make the playoffs.

Eg. In III.2 (random) team A earns 30k a week. Through the contract he earns another 20k per game + 10k for every time the fan favourite is played 40+ minutes (listed in the fan survey) therefore 50k all up and 80k per week. Team B however has 5 players, all of which are scrubs. He has the same sponsorship contract, although he is tanking so the only extra money he is earning is from the star player earning or the fan favourite. As an enticing factor for both teams, if you make the playoffs, you earn an extra 100k...

Newly promoted players will have larger contracts though. Simply because they have to adapt to a harder league therefore they'll be earning something like 80k in EXTRA money. Any flaws, or further ideas, let me know. :)

Everyone in my league said I 'semi tanked' this season, does a semi tank get punished or not punished?

I think the best managers 'find a way' to get to the top, no matter what rules are in place. So you can introduce anti tank rules, but at the end of the day the best managers will still be in div 1, the next best in div 2 etc...it's just the way it works.

This semi confession of a semi tank by Bryce for this current season is somewhat ironic and surprisingly he escaped ridicule

I doubt if in the history of the game of buzzerbeater there has ever been a more successful tanker than the manager Bryce_Gibbs.

The history of Bryce is as follows;

Started in season 3 in div 3 and won championships in his first 2 seasons to take him to the ABBL (Div 1 in Australia) in season 5, where he won the Championsip the following season (season 6)..

In season 11 around Feb 2010 he appears to have undertaken " a massive tank" and sold up 4 players netting a cool 16 mill but was demoted.

He survived a div 2 relegation series in season 12 and then won the championship in div 2 in season 13, enabling him to reenter the ABBL where he won championships in seasons 14, 15, 16 and 18.


So succesful was Bryce at tanking, that tanking in Australian Buzzerbeater circles is now known as "Brycing"

And for those of you from other countries where you play football with funny shaped totally round balls, and who are not familar with the Aussie Rules Footballer by the name of Bryce Gibbs, surprise surprise he played for Carlton, other wise known as Carltank for very obvious reasons (winning priority draft picks for coming last)

No, tanking isn't an issue at all!

Jokes.. Nice post +1

It could also be fixed by correcting the fan survey.

LOL, but that could still bring about problems, the weaker teams in the league will then suffer a loss of income making it harder and longer for them to become successful in the league.

Not only that but if introduce this idea - people might think the BB's are doing something to improve the game.

It works /= it's a problem

And since everyone seems to love examples so much, I'll give a couple of it not working(looked through a couple US leagues) :)

Not amazing examples, but what I could find while browsing(also no offense to any of these managers, and if my take is wrong in any way feel free to correct it-just going off what I can see)

(29864) Season 17 dominates D.III, tanks in D.II season 18, seasons 19-20 is stuck as middling playoff team in D.III

(29230) Could take a season or two to tell on this one whether it worked or not. Season 15 absolutely destroys D.III 22-0, Season 16 tanks out of D.II 0-22, Season 17 finishes 5th in D.III, Season 18 relegates to D.IV(on purpose), season 19 promotes back to D.III, Season 20 in a fight to promote back to D.II

(23325) Joined in season 2, basically bounce between D.II and D.III from seasons 5-14, decides to tank for first time in season 15, apparently tanks season 16 too down to D.IV, Season 17 promotes back to D.III, Season 18 demotes back to D.IV, Season 19 promotes back to D.III, Season 20 middling playoff team in D.III

We have an answer now. From the news post:

Offseason update

As we have mentioned in our last season news post, we are a bit worried about the number of users that have chosen to follow the strategy called “tanking” lately. Even though the strategy is not very successful, some teams still pursue it and it's frustrating for their fellow league members to see less competing teams. Therefore, we have decided to take some measures. “Tanking” should still be an option and we don't want to eliminate it completely, but from now on, the profit, we predict, won’t be so high. Starting from season 21, the salary floor will change for the first three divisions. First division salary floor will be 180% of the tv contract, second division will increase to 140% and third division to 100%. The other divisions will remain the same.

not really a big solution though. 60/40/20 percent increase only from each division.

Hmm, I was really hoping for a walkovers punishment as well, I suppose this will make it slightly tougher at the top level.

i don't really get the fans. i mean, they know that their team have no players, yet they buy tickets to watch the game. and voila, no game to watch because home team gave walkover. just saying