I will start to post league rules in this thread. The biggest question moving forward is league alignment. We have two options:

1. A normal 24 team league with the PL in the NL and the CL in the AL. The positives are that I don't need to wrangle a volunteer to run whatever league I'm not in and everyone can see how everyone else is doing. There would also be 4 playoff teams per league instead of two so the CL teams would have to win at least one playoff round to move up (that could be a positive or a negative). The negative is that we would have to have interleague play--which kinda runs counter to the league premise.

2. Two simultaneous 12 team leagues separating the PL and the CL. The positive would be that it would stay truer to the league concept but would only have 2 playoff teams per league. Also, I'd need a volunteer every season to run whatever league I'm not running and post regular standings updates so we could track what was going on.

Whatever we choose will start in 2018 after the initial division. Please vote below.

OVERVIEW
This league would be modeled after British soccer (hence the league name). This would be a 24 team league, but actually subdivided into a Premier League (the top tier) and the Championship League (the bottom tier). After every season, the top 2 teams in the Championship League (CL) would move up, while the bottom 2 teams in the Premier League (PL) would get relegated. Logistically, I would probably run this as a standard 24-team league without interleague play, with the NL acting as the Premier League and the AL as the Championship League--so the NL LCS would really determine the true PL champion, while the two teams in the AL LCS would be the ones getting promoted, and then the World Series could be our version of the FA Cup. But the true bragging rights would be for the NL LCS champion.

2019 will be our initial season and will be a normal league -- after that season, the top 12 teams by win% (tiebreakers expected win%, then h2h) will join the PL and the remaining 12 will join the CL.

The PL/CL construct will run from 2018 - 1969 (50 full seasons)

PROMOTION AND RELEGATION

After each regular season, the bottom 2 teams in the PL based on regular season record will be relegated. In case of tie, the team with the worse Expected Win% will be relegated. If still tied, then loser of season-long H2H will be relegated. The top 2 teams in the CL based on playoff performance will be promoted (ie. the teams that make the ALCS if we are a 24 team league or the WS if we are a 12 team league).

DRAFT LOTTERY
The top 4 picks in the 1st round of every draft will be determined by ranked lottery for all non-playoff teams. The initial order will be based on reverse order of regular season record--a team MUST win 40 games by 162 to be lottery eligible.

The lottery (for 16 teams) will consist of 270 "ping pong balls" distributed in ranked order this way [note--i'll update for 20 if we go to 12 team leagues]
1st (34), 2nd (28), 3rd (22), 4th (16), 5th (15), 6th (13), 7th (12), 8th (10), 9th (9), 10th (8), 11th (7), 12th (6), 13th-16th (5)
I will have one owner send me a number between 1 and 270 that will serve as the starting point for ping pong ball distribution. Example, if that number is 121 then the 1st owner will own ping pong balls 121-154, 2nd owner will own 155-182, etc.
A second owner will send me a randomized sequence of 1-270. The first four ping pong balls in that sequence will determine the first 4 picks and then picks 5-16 will revert to the normal draft order. Example: if the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th owners earn the first 4 picks in the lottery, then the 1st owner will get the 5th pick.

Picks 17-18 would be the CL LDS losers. Picks 19-20 would be the PL LDS losers. Pick 21 would be the CL runner-up, Pick 22 would be the PL runner-up, pick 23 would be the CL champion, and pick 24 would be the PL champion.

TRADES

There is NO trading between PL and CL during the season. Draft picks may only be traded one season ahead.

ROSTER SIZE/KEEPERS

We will have rosters up to 28 actual players. You may keep as many as you want but we will only have the regular draft up to 25 roster slots...then we will have a separate 3 round AAA draft for those that want it. So, if you keep 25 guys you will not get to draft until the AAA section. You CANNOT use sim-generated AAA and there will be no DH. You can have as many guys on your DL as you want.

STADIUMS
You cannot switch stadiums after the initial draft....you will change ballparks as your franchise did so all ballparks used will match the season we are playing.

ALIGNMENT

We will realign each season based on regular season record. The promoted teams will be considered to have the two worst records for alignment purposes and the relegated teams will be considered to have the two best records. Then, we'll align so that the East will have teams 1, 6, 7, 12, Central will have 2, 5, 8, 11 and West will have 3, 4, 9, 10. [will adjust for 12 team leagues]

Question: Is there a way to run a 24-team league, with limited interleague play? I think most of my progressives only have a home-and-home with teams in the other league. Do they do that in English soccer?

By the way, I voted for a single 24-team league, but I'm good with either solution, even if two 12-team leagues increases the administrative burden.

yeah...you'd play a home and home with each of the 12 teams in the other league. English soccer does NOT have games between PL and CL teams except for the FA Cup tournament.

It's a tough choice. The main disadvantages of a 24 league I see is that we are also crowning "champion" in the 2nd round of the playoffs so that has an effect in stamina usage and also credits given at the end (and thus makes the WS useless). The main benefits are just having the group together to chat and being able to keep the career stats all in one place.

I think we could work the credits issue with Admin if we had to

Like you, my biggest concern on the 2 x 12 is connectivity but maybe that could be mitigated with forum threads, etc.

I like the 2×12. Relegation should not depend on interleague play. As said above, there is no equivalent interleague play in English soccer. An encompassing forum thread would keep owners of both leagues in contact with each other and we could post standings in both league in that forum
every 30 games or so

I like the 2x12 its truer to the intent :)