Goal(s):

Can we build on the Traditional Ladder League format to appeal to a wider variety of teams while still maintaining competitive integrity?

Background:

At the time, the league had averaged between 24 - 30 teams which were split across A, B, C, D and E flights where a win in each flight would net you 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2 points, and a loss would be 1. Going 5-0 in each flight would net you 50, 40, 30, 20 and 10 points plus a bonus 2 points for winning the series. New teams would be seeded into D or E Flight (new teams made of “known” players would occasionally be seeded in C flight if space allowed, or if a season saw particularly high turnover), regardless of actual or perceived skill level. The Club Champion was determined based on Regular Season Overall Points. Playoff Champions were seeded based on Overall Points into groups of 6-8 (typically 1st to 6th , 7th -12th , etc).

Proposed Solutions / Observations:

Implement a more accurate seeding system:

INTENT: Look at each individual’s flight experience from the previous season and put it into a basic calculation to determine the appropriate Flight to start the team. Returning teams would continue to have precedence over new teams.

RESULT: The seeding system worked as a great baseline for teams made from players familiar with the league. However, the system was ineffective regarding teams entirely new to the league; without any player history, teams would be given a poor rank and inappropriately seeded. Returning teams always had precedence so even when teams were accurately ranked, often there was no room for them and they would be placed in C Flight regardless

VERDICT: IMPLEMENTED

Implement bigger and/or additional series win bonuses:

INTENT: Look at doubling or tripling series winners bonuses and/or expanding the bonus structure to include all teams that move up a flight. It was thought that this would benefit low-ranking, yet high-performing teams, and boost them to a more appropriate rank.

RESULT: We performed these calculations on seasons that had already occurred and found that, while a very small number of teams did benefit from the bonus points, it ultimately only resulted in moving a team up 1 or 2 spots in the overall rankings. Aside from adding overall complexity to the league, it didn’t make a significant difference.

VERDICT: REJECTED

Implement Win-Loss record bonuses:

INTENT: Post Season adjustment bonus depending on W-L record (eg. A team finishing 13-7 would get a 13 – 7 = 6 pts bonus

RESULT: Essentially the same results as above - the top records for a season aren't typically good enough to see the bonus make a tremendous difference in the final standings and typically just benefitted the top teams who would almost always have a positive Win-Loss record.

VERDICT: REJECTED

Tighten points per win:

INTENT: Move from 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 to 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. By making the point difference between each flight smaller, you reduce many of the problems associated with the lower flights receiving so few points.

RESULT: While it did make a substantial difference for lower ranked teams, it swung the balance too far in the opposite direction. It was determined that it would be detrimental to teams in A Flight and you’d be better off to say in B or C flight as a 5-0 record would net you only 5 and 10 fewer points than A.

VERDICT: REJECTED

Removal of D and E Flight. Replace with multiple C Flights:

INTENT: Removing D and E altogether to have each C flight contain essentially 2x C, 2x D and 2x E teams and have only the top team (instead of top two) move to B flight after each series. Team staying in C would be shifted across the other C flights to prevent repeated games.

While we acknowledged that C Flight teams were likely better than E Flight, we didn't believe the gap to be so large that the teams couldn't have competitive games. So, rather than try to deal with the symptoms of a "broken" system caused by D and E flights, we would eliminate the problem by removing them entirely, which should solve of 4/4 of our stated league issues.

RESULT: Unfortunately, due to low membership numbers at the club, the league only had 22-24 teams for the next 7 seasons and we were only ever able to test a A, B, C1, and C2 league format. The system did prove to be successful in multiple areas:

• Making wins the driving factor in rank, although did not eliminate the problem entirely
• Eliminating the repetitive matchups that occurred with the lower ranked teams, generally limiting repeating matchups to 2 games a season rather than 4. The problem continued to exist with the top ranked teams.
• Teams starting in C Flight were able to keep up with top ranked teams if they were mis-seeded and were easily able to participate in the A flight playoffs. A typical result would see them about 20 points back from first place after the first two series.
• Raising the competitiveness of the league without driving away "weaker" teams. Teams who won their C Flight were typically more competitive in B Flight and averaged about a 0.500 win percentage after promotion. Previously D and E ranked teams were exposed to higher quality of play without any noticable drop in W-L records (a substantial concern at the time).
• While never a stated goal, we found that it removed the negative stigma behind being in the bottom flight, as now 50% of the league participated in that same flight.

There were, however, some negatives:

• While design-wise the format was performing as expected, the reality is that players in C flight often felt “stuck” and that they couldn’t advance unless they had a 5-0 series or fortunate 4-1 series. This was true as the number of promotions dropped from 8 to 4 per flight (or 16 to 8 for all of C Flight) over the course of a season. The format could also be punishing to C/B "bubble" teams as a drop from B flight could mean you wouldn't make it back the remainder of the season.
• Due to the limited promotions, saw the rise of the C flight “bridesmaid” who would consistently have good 3-2 or 4-1 records but just happen to lose the wrong game. They would still rank highly in the overall rankings (typically high in the B Flight playoffs) but certainly debatable if this was a better or worse situation than being promoted from E to D to C and finishing lower in the overall rankings.
• Some long-time veterans of the league didn’t like the change and felt the old system “worked fine” or that it split the league into “competitive” (A and B) and “casual” (C) leagues
• Even to this day, there is some confusion on the difference between C1 and C2 (eg. C1 is better than C2, C2 is just D Flight renamed)

VERDICT: IMPLEMENTED

Conclusion:

After a few seasons, it was deemed that the seeding system was “fine” but, between its shortcomings and the league sticking with the A-C format, it was deemed unnecessary and redundant and was retired after the 2011-12 season.

Ultimately we felt that switching the ladder format solved a lot of the biggest issues we had with the league, primarily making Wins the primary driver and eliminating the point-gap. However, it was not without its own unforseen subtantial shortcoming of "being stuck in C Flight". After some post-season discussion we came to the following agreements on how best to deal with the problem:

• Since we based all our initial plans on the "typical" 30 team league, increasing the scale fo the league back to that level (we assumed our blip year was due to construction in the building) would naturally solve many of the issues.
• We needed to move away from the original plan of A, B, C1, C2, and C3 and instead move to A, B1, B2, C1, and C2 (and eventually, A1 and A2). This would allow for more promotions/demotions between B and C and move the single promotion bottleneck from C -> B to B -> A, which felt more appropriate and added to the "exclusivity" reserved for the "top" teams in the league. Being "stuck" in B was less of an issue as 3/6 teams were still moving each series (vs the typical 4/6), and the point differential between A and B was fairly minor.