Potential for dual NFL leagues (ESPN & Madden)

Potential for dual N

As we've been saying the past week or two, the current NFL league is going to stay in standby mode until everyone has had a chance to evaluate both ESPN 2k5 and Madden 2005. Given the early reviews of ESPN, they were a bit mixed, but now most seem happier with the game.

After Madden is released and people have a chance to play it, if we have a strong following of people that want to do a league for it instead of ESPN, Tris10 has agreed to build a 2nd scoreboard for a Madden league with one condition (that I commish it). I agreed, but as I mentioned above both games need to be evaluated first (we may not want anything to do with Madden after we play it, who knows?) All we know at this point is that we want to evalutate both before any planning gets done for the NFL league(s). If there's a 50/50 split in the community, that will help the decision and we'll run both leagues. If there's only a small group of Maddenite's, then we'll probably just stick with ESPN. If, when Madden comes out, a bunch of current ESPN NFL league members want to jump ship to Madden and we don't have enough to run a successful ESPN league seperately, then it might be Madden only here at LG. We shall see.

Anyway, just wanted to address everyone's concerns with this game or the other, so that we can put to rest any of the polls, votes, check in's, etc etc on Madden vs ESPN. After both games are in our hands, there will be loads of that kind of thing (to guage interest for both leagues).

In case you missed it in the other thread, Indigo has stepped down as NFL commish and Marauders/Soadversion7 have taken over. The NFL league needs some new blood in there running it and Marauders (with Papernut's help too) have been doing a great job getting the NCAA league off the ground. The admins thought Marauders could do the same with the NFL league and Soad will be helping out as well. Should we do the 2 league idea, we would essentially have 3 NFL commissioner's to help run both leagues.

As for your current team trading discussions for Season 4, keep in mind that some people might leave for Madden (where it will be treated like a new league, new game, and we'd have our typical signup procedures for all 32 spots...) although existing NFL members would of course be given spots in the league, but not necessarily their same team (undecided so far, we'll have to see how many people want to switch games). Just something to keep in mind (lots of teams could open in the ESPN, potentially) if you're 100% sure that you want nothing to do with Madden under any circumstances.

Some might argue that that the dual league idea didn't work out in MLB, why do it for NFL. Here's my response to that:

The dual league idea with MLB didn't work for a few reasons -

a) same game for both leagues
b) not enough veteran members in the 2nd league
c) should have had seperate commissioners for the 2nd league
d) AAA league had an inferiority complex

If we end up playing around with both games over the course of the next month, but the majority favors one game over the other, I think there will still be plenty of support for the game that didn't win out (especially if it's Madden) for a seperate league, if not, then we don't do it obviously and stick with the game that the large majority wants to play the league with.

Here's why I think a dual league would work (matching the reasons why it didn't work with MLB above):

a) different games, not just an overflow of signups for one game like we had with MLB
b) judging from early comments in the NFL forum, we have a strong following of LG veterans that are almost automatically interested in (without even playing either game, based on past experience with it offline and how NCAA plays online)
c) as mentioned above, I would be running the Madden league if we have 2 leagues. I think most people that have been in the NHL league with us for a while know that I will not let it fail.
d) Obviously neither league would feel inferior to the other, as they are both very passionate about thinking they have the better game.

Thanks for reading, if you've made it this far. Any early comments?

PS. For the love of God, please please no "madden vs ESPN" polls. We can handle that when the time comes.

 

I will support any NFL game that the league commish/admins decide on. Dual leagues sounds great to keep everyone happy. You guys have my support for either game.

 

Good to hear Striker. If we have the demand for both leagues, at least we know now that we'll be able to support them both.

Now, off to the store for me to pick up NFL 2k5.

 

Sounds good. Your reasons on why AAA failed are valid but i still think its going to be difficult to fill 2 NFL leagues with enough quality people to make them both succeed. I'd rather see us go with one league using whatever game is voted on as the choice. But yea, i agree with stiker, ill play whichever game is chosen but just in 1 league

 

Hey, can we play in both leagues? Pending I start sucking really bad at ESPN, I kind of am enjoying the game and have to admit, looks pretty gamn good, LOL. I like Madden to and am pretty interested in that as well.

 

If there's a Madden league, I'll have quality people in it. I know of at least 10 people that have informally told me that they'd want to be in the Madden league that are LG veterans. If anything, I'd worry about the ESPN league if we were running 2 of them.

Rube - no, that's one thing that came up last night when we were tossing this idea around and we decided that it would be best to have people pick one or the other league. It will ensure that both leagues have plenty of quality LG veterans and it's easier for database reasons too. Plus, it's very hard (in my experience) to shift from one game to the other (I did it all last year between the ESPN league here and my PC Madden league).

I'm running out this afternoon to grab ESPN, I'll play w/ you guys tonight if you want as I'm anxious to test it out too.

 

Alright, I really think ESPN's leagues could be very interesting, and seems as if they could almost work as a replacement...could this be happening?

 

Yeah, if someone wants to be in the LG Madden league instead of the LG ESPN league, then doing stuff off-site with ESPN's leagues are always a consideration (something I might do as well if we have a Madden league only or both leagues and I'm running the Madden one but still want to play some ESPN).

 

So we won't be using the ESPN Leagues? That would save tris a lot of time and be really interesting...

 

Not that I wouldn't like to play in both leagues but I really can't afford to fork out another $50 to buy Madden. And don't worry about interest in the ESPN league, i've already talked to a few people and if LG decides to support Madden we'll just set up a mini-league for everyone that would rather play ESPN. It's too good of a game to not use.

 

Man... i dont think it would be too hard to run two leagues.. after milling it around really looking at .. we're talking about two leagues that are totally different as far as gameplay... And if there is only 1 game per week then it would give people like Striker and Socal and Rube a chance to play both games...

Yes the games are different and can be confusing if your trying to change back and forth.. That's why I think 1 game a week would work...

 

Two leagues might work since its two different games.

It didnt work in baseball because it was the same game in both leagues so one league was like the red headed step child to the other.

with it being two seperate games you madden guys could look at the ESPN league and laugh at how some RB has 3500 yards in a season and we can look at madden and laugh that ur highest QB completion percentage is 30%. It'll be great fun!

 

yea this is a good idea but i dont think im gonna get madden, im hooked on espn.

 

At first, I didn't like the idea of having two separate football leagues. After reading your post XBJ, I think it really could work. There's going to be a great following for both games, and it won't have the issues that MLB had. I'm all for it...

 

Just wondering, what would be the rule on being in both leagues? Would it be allowed? I think that it should be disallowed however, as it may have an effect that would slow down the pace of the leagues.

 

As of now we really don't want to see that. We'll have to wait and see how everything pans out.

 

Read my 3rd post, RE: Rube Ranter

PS. Just got home w/ NFL 2k5 if anyone wants to show me the ropes (haven't played 2k4 since the end of Season 2 here).

 

OK Thanks, I think it will be better this way as it will not slow down the leagues with people trying to get both games in.

 

what would slow it down if you were playing 1 game a week? My opinion.. I mean my chance of getting Madden is probably pretty slim.. so im not saying this for me... sheez... Socal your in four different leagues, and some of these others are also in four different leagues.. why would that slow anything down...

 

Well I meant bore them out really. If somebody is in both Madden and ESPN, and they get bored of football, that is twice as many games to play and all.