Real money league?

[BEARD Hockey]

I know this has been covered before but it was so long ago, I'm not sure precisely how the discussion went (looked back in various threads to no avail).

I'm considering building a new NHL-realistic sim hockey league from scratch using the STHS simulator, and have been floating the idea in my head of doing a $50 per year per GM fee to join. That money would go to a few different things - namely, website upkeep, domain/hosting (not using the portal...ever), and achievement payouts during the year (with a trophy + top payout to the champ each year). Plus, I'm not getting back into putting 5-6 hours a day (at least - I don't do half-assed) in only to have a handful of dedicated GM's and another handful that can't be bothered to send lines in once a week. Putting a cost into it weeds out a lot of the flakey GM's that like to hit and run, or join and then go silent.

We'd be expecting a lot from GM's, obviously. And they'd rightly expect a lot from me. I want to create as close to being a real GM as you can in a sim league. Real players, teams, drafts, schedules...and so on. A calendar year league mirroring the NHL so things like the draft, free agency, training camps, and the season itself would coincide with the real thing. GM's would be expected to take an active part in the league and team tasks on a daily basis, just like they would if they were at the helm of an NHL franchise. And they'd be expected to be able to remain in communication with all other GM's and the commissioner. Time away is fine - as long as they let me know.

There's obviously going to be justified skepticism. I'm sure a few other scammy commissioners have probably done something like this and then ran off with the dough. That's not me, and hopefully through the dedication shown to potential GM's with building the website and having things all ready to go and in place before recruiting began would alleviate some of that skepticism. But I'm willing to put a verbal or written agreement in place as well. I'm not afraid to put my signature down to solidify my word.

I guess, more or less, I'm asking if this is kosher by Simon. I honestly can't remember if he's been okay with this in the past or not. I've ran a couple leagues back in the day (free ones), and am now at a point in my life that I want to do it more seriously. I'd have a team in the league, but I wouldn't be eligible to win anything (except the Cup, of course).

If it's not okay and/or vociferously against the rules, then I probably won't get back into doing this. I think adults could appreciate the reasons why I'd want to have a fee in place, and I think it raises the bar for both the GM and the commissioner to make the league as good as it can be. I know good GM's are tired of flakey commissioners just as much as commissioners are tired of flakey GM's. Our league would be vastly different than what's out there now, and I've noticed there is a huge void in the 'realistic leagues' category that desperately needs to be filled.

I appreciate any thoughts on this topic. Thanks.

[SimonT]

Hi.

As league commish, you are free to whatever you want with your league including charging money for GM to participate. It was it pro and con.

My only advise to you is that 50$ is maybe a bit pricy for a league but a very personal view.

[eFFeRR]

Let me know what you decide as I might be interested in joining depending on the rules of the league.

$50 is a little steep, I've been in one in the past that set it at $25 and it was fun.

[BEARD Hockey]

Indeed I feel it's a bit of a stretch to think most of the pool of possible GM's would feel $50 is appropriate. But that's kind of the point, too. We want the cream of the crop.

Plus, I'd like to do a little more with giving achievement prizes out, and some more money in the kitty allows for that. Ideally, I'd like to get the site and everything ready to present to potential GM's by September 1st at the absolute latest - that should give us enough time to start slightly behind the NHL schedule (perhaps November when we start regular season games), though we should be able to catch up fairly nicely by April 2015.

I'll keep updates here for now, and then advertise in the appropriate section of the forums when the time comes.

[MALMACIAN_CRUNCH]

Interested for sure! Obviously curious about how the whole payment process works (how do we pay in? how does the league pay out?)
Also curious how your thinking on re distributing the the winnings (what are the prizes? and what are their payouts?)
Would love to see a copy of the rule book, as well.
As I've considered starting something like this myself, I might even have some suggestions worth listening to if your interested..

Jason

[BRHL Hockey]

We've ran a $50 entry fee for almost a decade now. With almost all of the money distributed to the GM's for various accomplishments etc.

We do a lot of the same things you are throwing out there, running in line with the NHL (we basically take August off), and it works splendidly. With almost 20 years of sim hockey experience, and over a decade running the BRHL2 and original free BRHL, we have no problem getting GM's and quite often have a fairly lengthy waiting list. Typically we have 2-3 openings per season.

Can it be done? Yes. The key is having someone who is committed and able to do the day to day simming (which has never been me). And someone who can bring the credibility from a financial, and longstanding standpoint. There will be rough times for sure, and unpopular opinions, but in my opinion, the cash fee each year, results in by far the best group of GM's, many in our case who work inside the business in some aspect.

There's been probably a dozen other cash leagues pop up in the last 5-6 years, but none (to my knowledge) have lasted for any length of time. Our 9th season has it's preseason kick off on the 3rd, and with a switch to v2.1 sim engine, since we have compatible ratings, it figures to be our best yet.

[BEARD Hockey]

Obviously it's nearly a year later and nothing came of this to date. You know the story...met a girl, fell in love...lol.

Anyway, it's the end of another NHL regular season and I'm once again in the extremely early thought process behind what doing something like this would take to do right from a commish standpoint. Obviously last year I couldn't commit to the time it would take, so nothing happened. But if I do decide to go 100% all-in (meaning I would submerse myself in the new sim versions, check out a ton of leagues and see what's going on there, and get real in-depth with how I'd be setting up the rules, rosters, and rhyme/reason of the new league), I'll post it here.

I really appreciate the feedback though. I don't mean to hijack this old thread but since not much seems to get discussed in this section anyway, I had a couple of queries if anyone gets around to answering them.

#1 - Has there been any discussion on having direct Corsi/Fenwick-type impact on how the sim works? It's been a while and I'm a little out of date with the newer versions of the sim. But aside from the obvious, has anyone thought of how these new stats being measured and analyzed in the NHL would affect sim hockey?

#2 - How much different are the later versions of the sim (the past 1-2 years) versus the 2.1 era versions? I remember the last time I was commishing, we were still figuring out whether the 2.0 Sim was better than 1.0 and having some mixed results on dependability.

#3 - Has anyone seen or heard from Siavash Taheri, Dan Bacon, Melodee Gow, Sandy MacPherson, Terry Maughan, Duff McFadden, Steve McConnell, Alex Buitenhuis, Dan Reid, and/or Murray Opstein lately?

[BRHL Hockey]

1. We are incorporating certain aspects of advanced stats into our ratings this year.
2. Sim versions are very different, if you want traditional ratings and forced parity, go 1.5, if you want complete random and nonsensical go 2.0. If you want a big spread between teams, and the power houses to sim as powerhouses, and all the new bells and whistles, go 2.1.
3. Havent seen Sandy or Terry in years, Dan still is kicking around. Don't know the others