Well someone finally poked the hornet's nest and asked me what exactly do I do for my leagues... and I thought about it for a second and I came to the realization that most of it is just jumbled up in my head and even I don't get all the details right. So I figured I'd post a little overview of each one of the leagues and just provide some background on how they run.
MBFL - MBFL is our first league and longest running league. It's based on the NFL and utilizes the 32 NFL teams only. It strongly ties in to what occurs in real life.
League: MBFL
Simulation Used: Madden 07' with mods
Rule Set: Standard NFL Rules Package
Duration of League: Season 4 Super Bowl is next Sunday
Financial System: Integrated Salary Cap structure with Free Agency and Cap Penalties
Draft: 2x 4 Round Drafts a Year
Seasons: 2x Seasons per 12 Month period
Trade Rules: Must receive approval from 2 other GMs
Re-Rates: Handled by Madden during the season with off-season re-rates based on NFL Performance
Retirements: Players are aged 1 year for every 2 seasons and retirements are done as players retire from the NFL
Player Type: All Players are real NFL players only
Website Type: Produced Utilizing MadCat and some other personal touches to give some more detail to team records and career leaders
League Overview: Very competitve with occasional shouting matches and some real emotional attachment. Some GMs have been in this league for a few years in this run. I ran MBFL before for 4 years as well and we have about 10 guys who have been in since day 1.
MBCFA-
League: MBCFA
Simulation Used: Bowl Bound College Football with Extensive Mods
Rule Set: NCAA Rules Package - 2 Divisions now the Bowl Subdivision and the Championship Subdivision. The Bowl Subdivision includes a National Title game following the Bowls. If necessary a 1 v. 4/2 v. 3 playoff will be held - so far in two seasons we have not had the need for the extra round 1 v. 2 has been perfect.
Duration of League: Season 2 Championships to be determined this week
Draft: Players come in thru multiple methods. Non-Real players are brought in thru a recruiting session which is similar to how the NCAA series handles recruiting where you can determine values of how hard you want to pursue a player. Real life players are brought in via a draft where teams have between 3 and 5 picks after the recruiting. The draft order is set by a series of calculations based upon the team's performance. Only human controlled teams are in the draft.
Team Ownership: Each GM controls 3 teams due to the size<118 total teams yikes> and difficulty in trying to find and manage that size of a group. 2 of the teams can come from BCS conferences while one must come from a smaller conference IE the MAC.
Seasons: 2x Seasons per 12 Month period
Trade Rules: No Trades
Re-Rates: All Internal. Players are brought in with an initial rating and a potential rating, but this is determined by the player's performance and how the team chooses to use him.
Retirements: Eligiblity is for 4 seasons, however you are able to choose players to redshirt to gain an additional year of eligiblity
League Overview: Less involved then MBFL because you can't trade and there are some limitations to what can be done during the season. Bowl Bound builds most of the files so aside from the news I don't have too much to do. I use NCAA on my handy PS2 in order to get screenshots. Just brought in the FCS within the last few days so that is a little bit new to me, but enjoyable.
MBCFL
League: MBCFL
Simulation Used: Maximum Football with a ton of work done to it
Rule Set: CFL Based Rules - IE short clock, 110 yard field, 12 men
Duration of League: Season 3 kicked off last week
Financial System: None
Draft: 2x 3 Round Drafts a Year: Players from the draft come from a few sources. CFL players not currently on a roster are brought in, as well as graduates from MBCFA and MBCIS.
Seasons: 2x Seasons per 12 Month period
Trade Rules: General Approval from MB - anything not insane will be approved
Re-Rates: Handled by the sim and by MB. For real players if they've undergone a major change in their playing level then we try to follow that. Non-real players we let MaxFB make the decisions
Retirements: Players are aged 1 year for every season and retirements are done thru MaxFb albeit with some strong mods to lengthen careers a bit. You still won't see 47 year old linebackers, but you're less likely to see 26 year old stud retirements
Player Type: Mix of CFL, Arena Football, NFL and Non-Real Players. We allow Free Agents from MBFL to be signed in the CFL. A few players have landed there for the time being including Isaac Bruce, Chris Simms, and TJ Duckett.
Website Type: Produced Utilizing MadCat which was developed for Madden. Have done an extensive amount of modding to get this to function. I really like the views it provides though.
League Overview: Starting to pick up in interest among GMs. We have 16 teams now which is exciting and we are looking to add a few more after Season 3 wraps up. Overall this started off as my "for fun" league and while some guys don't take it as seriously as I would like, I have a lot of fun running this one.
MBCIS
League: MBCIS
Simulation Used: Maximum Football with a ton of work done to it - Utilizes Mykals fantastic CIS mods
Rule Set: CIS Based Rules - IE short clock, 110 yard field, 12 men, k/o spot modified
Duration of League: Season 1 kicks off in the next few weeks
Draft: Custom built recruiting matrix by mb to give players some features such as academic, prestige, and location concerns
Seasons: 2x Seasons per 12 Month period
Trade Rules: Nada folks
Re-Rates: Handled by the sim and by MB. For real players if they've undergone a major change in their playing level then we try to follow that. Non-real players we let MaxFB make the decisions
Retirements: Players are aged 1 year for every season and have 5 seasons of eligiblity. Upon graduation the top players will become eligible for the MBCFL draft
Website Type: Produced Utilizing MadCat again but modded for MaxFB Use
League Overview: This one is mostly just for me, but with the "just for me" leagues I like to kick them open so other people can get some fun out of them as well. Mykal, Reaser, Olsan, and Koz have signed on to grab teams so we at least have some human interaction and rivalry. The first season kicks off soon, I'm working on establishing a firm date - I want to get the US college leagues wrapped up first and the Super Bowl.
Typically I try to run MBFL & MBCFA from April/May thru September as a season and then from Mid October thru Late March as a season. MBCIS and MBCFL run as almost exact opposites so that I don't get burned out by having everything going at once.
Plans for additional leagues
Arena - I've thought about it, but the rule set for MaxFB isn't Arena football and I struggle with some of the playbook planning for it. I'm looking at it long term but without a realistic set of rules I may pass for now
Developmental - We've been looking into MBFL-Europa a little bit more over the past few months. One of the reasons for looking at it happens today in particular, cut day. One thing that Madden doesn't let us do is have practice team rosters. The idea behind MBFL-Europa would be to have 8 teams. Each team would receive practice squad players from 4 teams giving a chance for some of those guys that just get cut in the MBFL. The eventual format could be like NFL-Europa, the AAFL, or the UFL. I have thought about it but haven't worked out the details. I know there's an absolutely scrumptious new set of NFL-Europa uniforms out there that I'm dying to find a use for.
Other Work - Currently I'm also working on an International Football Name Generator. This will be integrated in with a few different creations so that what you'll do is assign nationalities and then the darned thing will spit out names, sizes, ratings, and positions for ya. Part of this is pulling off of the CIS player creator that I've put together but a good portion of it is brand spankin' new. Trust me you haven't had fun until you research the most popular names of Samoa, China, and Japan. BTW - Everyone in China has the same 9 names - meaning the randomization for familial names for China needs to be handled in a much different fashion then Sweden. I also need to look into character handling in MaxFB as umlauts and accents are more used in other languages then in good old fashioned rule bending english.
Anyways, if you're at all interested in any of the leagues we run, just hunt me down via pm here, email at
mb@mbsportsnet.com or via AIM at bergkamp4birdie.
Thanks,
Mb