So it just depends on your skill level?? I consider whoever is still in division 4 tanking on purpose to be intermediate and below. I have basically done every possible way to play. Even when you win a championship in the lowest division its still a intermediate championship as Trainer man has said many times this is the equivalent to middle school basketball in the USA.
I would say if someone in IV has to tank and amass enough money to win promotion via financial advantage, they're not going to be particularly successful in higher level play where those advantages become harder to acquire and the level of competition is greater. My advice to anyone who asks is to spend their early time in the game investing in their arena and trying to learn how to compete and win with lower salaries than your opponents. That way you're building up the economy that will sustain you when you do move up, and you develop the managerial chops to help you have a much better chance of staying up when you go up.
But we're getting way off the point here now. This is all suited for a help forum thread more than this one, which exists for those weird BB games where you can't figure out why you've lost.
