Welcome to the "Drop the Bullpen" blog! My name is Ryan Strauss and I have been a tabletop sports gamer since c.1999, when I started playing MLB Showdown and APBA Baseball.
The exception, as those who follow the community know, is for baseball. The advent of BallStat, the ease of playing games quickly, and the lack of a salary cap in real life all are likely contributing factors to the popularity of baseball leagues.
What at first was an enjoyable solo pastime, over the years I realized that it's more fun to game with other people.
As the hobby supposedly hasn't seen its heyday since the 1980's (before video games emerged), it became tough for most gamers to find other gamers to game with over time. The advent of the internet, social media, and smart phones has made people more distant and less connected, in ways. Kind of lame when you really think about it! Though, these online communities are also making "play-by-mail" leagues, co-ops, and community projects start from afar, too.
On a person level, my high school friends and I did have an APBA Baseball league with six coaches running for a season and a half (complete with a rainout in the league's World Series, game 6) in Pennsylvania at the end of high school, but once I got older I too realized that many folks do not want to game together, and would prefer to play solo, or do not know the games yet. Life had understandably gotten in the way for many folks and that leagues were pretty tough to get started.
The exception, as those who follow the community know, is for baseball. The advent of BallStat, the ease of playing games quickly, and the lack of a salary cap in real life all are likely contributing factors to the popularity of baseball leagues.
For other sports, however, getting together a league can be quite difficult, as it's not too commonplace. Games take longer. They are too free-flowing and prone to nuanced instructions. On top of this, there's no real good dedicated statkeeping solutions (outside of Excel) for those sports.
As many of us enjoy the challenge of managing a roster year-to-year, pretending to be a G.M. in the process, many of us have thought of starting leagues over the years, be it face-to-face or online, retro or draft-based. Having helped start the APBA Soccer Premier League (ASPL) and Strat-O-Matic National Hockey League (SNHL), two projects that persist today despite my abandoning them, and many failed projects (which are worth learning from!), here are some tips for getting your project off the ground:
1. Make sure you're committed to it: If you're going to start something new, make sure that it is a project that you will feel invested in and want to lead the league through organizing rules, a draft, playing their games and keeping things organized. It starts with you as founder and likely commissioner.
2. Be flexible with deadlines: As we all know, life comes before gaming.
3. Don't schedule too many games: Less is more here. This is especially true in the first few years, before inertia and habit kick-in.
4. Consider allowing people to incorporate home-brew rules: Personalization of the game shows that you want to empower each coach to help maximize their enjoyment gaming.
5. Make sure all league members are committed before starting: Obviously, life is unpredictable and can get in the way. Though, it really only takes a sour apple or two to lessen league morale overall.
6. For draft leagues, don't draft from too many teams or alternatively implement a salary cap: From experience, All-Star rosters can significantly throw off a game engine, making the stats and gameplay significantly less fun.
7. Don't keep too many stats: Less is more here also. It will help keep people invested and playing games if it doesn't take them as long.
8. Communicate over email, not Facebook or Delphi: Email is something that most people check more often than social media or forums. More than this, email has a consistent format for replies and avoids complicated threads with nested discussions.
9. Ensure that stats are kept in Excel, not by hand: This will help significantly in compiling everything. It will also likely speed up gameplay for folks.
10. Consider appointing a league statistician to help with stat-keeping: I'm on the fence on this one, as having a Commissioner/Statistician single contact point can be good too. Though, sometimes it's too much work for one person or beyond their scope.
11. Create a league website, and share your progress and stat leaders on social media monthly: This will help with recruiting, brand building, and building morale for league coaches.
12. Send out weekly or biweekly internal status emails: This helps let everyone know what games are to-be-played and helps hold everyone accountable collectively.
13. Don't take your league too seriously!: I have done this before, and, frankly it becomes something that you'll end up putting in more time into than you should!
Hope that helps!
Remember, #DropTheBullpen, and roll on!!!
-Ryan
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