Taking over a team is doing WIS and the world a favor. I know it's a "free play" but a many times its only for a few games and almost all of the time it's a really screwed up team. The record then appears on the new guys profile for the entire season. How difficult would it be to just change owners at whatever point the new guy took over and show the records for both? Taking over abandoned teams hurt your chances when trying to get in a solid private world but indicating take overs not only shows the what really took place but also the new guys success in trying to turn things around.

Whenever you take over a team as a mid-season replacement, ADMIN advises you that you are also taking over that team's record and that it will be reflected in your owner profile.  To me, that implies that if you are not willing to take on the record, then you shouldn't be taking on the team.

I would guess that it would not be a trivial programming change to allow for team records to be split among multiple owners for a particular season.

You do have a couple of options: 

(1) if you have an awful season on your profile due to a mid-season takeover of an abandonment, explain it to the commish when you are trying to join a private world.  Unless they are jerks they should understand, because this is hardly an uncommon occurrence.  If they are jerks, then consider that a sign that maybe you shouldn't want to join that world.

(2) If it really bothers you, create a second ID and run the mid-season replacements under that ID.  If you plan to retain the team for future seasons, have the team transferred to your primary ID at or after rollover.  That way, you have a "clean" ID for "your" teams, and a "dirty" ID for the mid-season takeovers.

I take over a lot of replacement teams. I don't mind inheriting the lousy record, but I do wish the incomplete, awful record would stick to the owner who bailed on the team. It would be nice to see some 10-41 records hanging on to some of these guys.

As a commish, I always ask "What the hell happened is World Bozo?  You were 22-140."   If they tell me it's a takeover, I check it out if it looks like some lame "rebuild" attempt(they kept the team, slashed the payroll and continued to lose).   If it's one blemish on their record, I take their word on it.

hypnotoad has a point.  by inheriting the record, you are letting the other guy off the hook

If the other guy has just walked away, it's safe to say that he probably doesn't care about his record.

Some of these owners leave and never return, but some of these miscreants later apply for a team in a private league. When they do,  the commish will have a better idea of the owner's checkered past.

I take over teams primarily to see if I enjoy worlds that interest me and a way to gain a little "rebuild" experience. After my 1st 2 take overs I now note the date and record in the team notes. I'm not complaining and What I know about programming would fill a thimble almost to the brim but seems to me WIS could do something similar. And I do think a permanent record should be created of people that walk away.

Having terrible seasons on your record does not always exclude you from good worlds. I did some stupid sh*t like four years ago. I have also taken abandoned teams. I know several respected owners and they know me or know of me enough to let me play in some pretty elite worlds. Being active, learning from mistakes, and by-and-large being a quality owner is good enough for almost every commish out there. If it is not, then they probably have some sort of personality disorder.

What about a one time chance to change your budget once you take the team over?  Same rules would apply as when budgeting at the beginning of the season, but if you can tinker the budgets a little more to your preference... it make entice you to stay a little longer.  And keep the worlds rolling quicker.

I would like to see this changed. It can't be that hard to split the record. Even, better would be to show the before and after record of when you took over. My only take over team improved thier winning percentage quite a bit in the second half of the season. It shows that you were willing to help another league out and that you are able to improve a team.

I no squat about programming but is seems pretty involved to split the record, how hard to re-assign the team to the new owner at game on 1/2\31/2011? Or leave the team with the original owner making him responsible for the entire season and an asterisk saying "blahblah" took over at game #122, 50-72, 4th, or some such.