12 teamer -- what's best? 3 divisions or 2? (1 Viewer)

[Sea Leopard of Death]

Our league is considering a change which I don't get really. So I have my own opinion already but I pose the question to the SP for deeper knowledge...

Give me/us some pros and cons of each. For example, I see a 6-team playoff as putting less emphasis on the regular season. I don't like that for obvious reasons...

Okay your turn, go.

 

[Chase Stuart]

I'd go 12 teams, 1 division, 4-team playoff with some bonus for the 1 and 2 seeds.

 

[houdini]

4 divs of 3 teams and 6 make the playoffs

-or-

3 divs of 4 teams and 4 make the playoffs

 

[Sea Leopard of Death]

I'd go 12 teams, 1 division, 4-team playoff with some bonus for the 1 and 2 seeds.

Why 1 division?

 

[Sea Leopard of Death]

4 divs of 3 teams and 6 make the playoffs-or-3 divs of 4 teams and 4 make the playoffs

Our current setup is 12 teams, 3 divisions, 4 make the playoffs. Pretty standard.I'm wondering why 6 teams making the playoffs would be better?...or why 2 divisions is better.

 

[Chase Stuart]

I'd go 12 teams, 1 division, 4-team playoff with some bonus for the 1 and 2 seeds.

Why 1 division?

Why not?

 

[Sea Leopard of Death]

I'd go 12 teams, 1 division, 4-team playoff with some bonus for the 1 and 2 seeds.

Why 1 division?

Why not?

Don't be coy, and don't try some setup.Why 1 division?

 

[Chase Stuart]

I'd go 12 teams, 1 division, 4-team playoff with some bonus for the 1 and 2 seeds.

Why 1 division?

Why not?

Don't be coy, and don't try some setup.Why 1 division?

No really, why not? I don't see a good reason for artificially splitting the teams up. That's why I went with one division.

 

[Lott's Fingertip]

I'm in a 12 team, 3 division, 4 playoff team league.

Most years, one of the divisions sends a team to the playoffs that does not belong, and a deserving team is left out.

Two years ago I was the #2 overall scoring team and had the same record as the winner in another division (who I outscored by about 12%), but missed the playoffs. There is luck in head to head formats, but 3 divisions can magnify that luck factor.

 

[Sea Leopard of Death]

For those not doing 3 division leagues, any interesting ways to set up a more "balanced" schedule? I DO NOT like the randomness of playing certain teams twice.

 

[nittanylion]

How about going with a 5-Team Playoff?

3 Divisions / 4 Teams in each...

Winning your Division earns you a First Round Bye

Playoffs, Week One: The two Wild Card Teams (best teams by record and points that do NOT win their Divisions), duke it out to see who's worthy of a playoff berth. If a money League, neither the Winner nor Loser gets any cash for this game. It's a 'play in', if you will. It might serve as a way of assuring that a deserving team at least gets a fair shot at a playoff berth...

Playoffs, Week Two: Seed #1 vs 'Play-In' Winner, Seed #2 v Seed #3...

...and so on, and so forth...

As an aside, some folks use Head To Head results as a playoff-qualifying tiebreaker between two teams. I'm not in favor of this, as the results of one regular season game provide more of a 'snapshot' of a team, rather than an indicator of a team's overall 'playoff-worthiness'. The only exception to this, in my opinion, would be if the two teams in question were in the same Division and played each other twice, with one team having a 2-0 record vs the other, which would somewhat indicate a superiority. Just throwing my opinion out there...

 

[houdini]

For those not doing 3 division leagues, any interesting ways to set up a more "balanced" schedule? I DO NOT like the randomness of playing certain teams twice.

Then expand to 14 teams. Have 6 playoff teams and a 13 week regular season where you play all opponents once (and none twice). No need for divisions. As long as you keep it at 12 teams, you either have to play some teams twice or you have to schedule bye weeks or games against the league median score.