In the leagues I've been involved in, the most heated topic is the notion of franchises "tanking". Since there is no incentive built into the game for non-contenders to field the best team they're capable of, leagues have taken it upon themselves to enforce minimum win totals, various caps etc.

What I'm wondering is: was it ever discussed the idea of a prestige score for franchises? this could be based on a club's 2 or 3 year average win totals, and would affect hiring coaches, signing FA's, extending contracts, even draft pick signability. If a new owner takes over a club, they could either get a boost or reset at a median level. i think this would be a simple way to encourage people from "tanking".

thoughts?

The obvious downside to that is if a frachise's "prestige" goes down, it just encourages the owner to leave and come back under an alias to get the prestige reset.

It's a nice idea, and probably about the only way to get people to shape up.... but this might actually encourage the use of several aliai, since you'd get cheaper seasons, and have no impact on your franchise's prestige score.

DAMNIT TEC!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by tecwrg on 9/15/2010 1:43:00 PM (view original):
The obvious downside to that is if a frachise's "prestige" goes down, it just encourages the owner to leave and come back under an alias to get the prestige reset.

True, but it would work well in good private worlds where you can police such things, and wouldn't particularly change the status quo in public worlds. And actually, having to constantly get set back to the default budget settings in order to keep your prestige score up would be less than ideal for tankers.

I like the idea. I just wish I could think of a way it could actually be applied.

Yeah, I think it would be difficult to do correctly, but there really should be something built into the game to penalize a team for perpetual suckitude (intentional or otherwise). It's one of the disconnects with reality that harms the game the most, IMO. There's no real negative impact to a franchise for losing beyond the losing itself.

I like the idea of a Hall-of-Famer increasing the Prestige Score of the team that he represents.

Yea, except most players get passed around more than Ginger Lynn on the day of a shoot. Who gets that score?

My team gets that score.

The rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer.  I agree the incentives are off.  But who wants to see the world series winner have an advantage in signing free agents and coaches (and able to make high risk/reward draft picks) because of there prestige.   

Maybe no bonus for winning but penalties for losing.   IOW, the highest prestige score you can have is zero.    If you go below zero, you can regain it in one season with a playoff appearance or two seasons with back to back winning records.

Agreed. new makes a very valid point, but I think it's just a reason to re-think how the idea would be implemented, rather than a strike against the entire concept.