This may have been brought up before, but it popped in my head late last night, by-passing any filter it may have gone through while I was fully cognizant, so here it is for your reading enjoyment.  

Should WifS consider the idea of treating openings in worlds as heterogeneous products rather than homogeneous? What I mean by that is a team in one world does not carry the same value as a team in a different world.  Not all teams/worlds are created equal.

If you think of an opening as an item that sits on a shelf at Wal-Mart, the longer that item stays in inventory, the more Wal-Mart realizes that the quantity demanded for that product at that price is less than their current inventory. IOW, if there is only 1 left and it's been sitting on the shelf for $25 for 2 months, it's clear that people aren't willing to pay $25 for it and it's time to put that item on clearance and move the inventory along. HBD is slightly different since an HBD team is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) that must be renewed rather than a video game you buy and own forever, but the supply/demand premise can still apply.  But, also, because it's a SaaS, WifS is missing out on renewed revenue from worlds that are waiting to fill.

Hopefully it's obvious by now, but what I'm getting at is perhaps they should consider offering teams at a discount for worlds that struggle to fill? Or discounted rates for public world openings. I'm not talking about free teams, as we all know how that worked a couple years ago, but discounts for folks that join these worlds (which would probably require credits for folks that are currently in the world to keep everyone happy). The specifics would be tricky to figure out to ensure that the system were not exploited, but it may be something to explore.

I think the specifics is the thing.

Bargain shoppers will wait to join a world.   Most HBD owners have multiple teams so there's no "down time" from HBD.    While $5 wouldn't encourage many to hold off adding a team, it will for some.  $10 would be even better.   So, the slow to fill worlds will likely fill slower and the quick turn worlds may get held up by bargain shoppers.  I don't think it would have an effect on the top worlds(If someone joining MG said "I'm gonna wait until the price drops", I'd say "Well, you're gonna wait 90+ days because I'm giving the team to the next guy") but it would affect 2nd tier worlds that take 7-10 days to fill.  Assuming, of course, you discount plan is in the two week range. 

Yeah, the struggle is similar to that of professional sports teams who have excess tickets.  Do you give them away to get folks in so you can at least get the concessions revenue?  If you do that, do your customers who paid for tickets get upset and not come back?

Perhaps offering a discount after a certain length of time has too many issues, but let me think more about discounted rates for public worlds.  I'm sure WifS has the numbers of the average length of time public worlds spend in rollover, and how much revenue is lost per day by having them sit, so maybe the lost dollars caused by a discount doesn't make it worth it.  Right now they make $800 per season (assuming every team paid $25 for that season, which we know isn't the case).  So that's $61.54 per week (assuming 4.33 weeks per month, 3 month season) they lose as a world sits in rollover.  If public worlds were $20/team, they'd lose $160 for that 3 month period (compared to $25/team).  So the average wait time for a public world to roll would have to be 3+ weeks in order for it to be worth it.  Since this likely isn't the case, the current method still sounds like the best way to go.

The objective, though, is simply to keep worlds moving along so, A) paying customers continue to enjoy the game, and B) worlds cycling faster gets to the next renewal period faster, meaning more $$ for WifS.  Neither are really a huge concern to me at this point, as the worlds I'm in tend to roll quickly, but it may benefit the HBD world as a whole.

Watch what you wish for. I doubt you get this + the credit for existing HBD teams.