What are some of your favorite theme leagues? Preferably, the ones where you say that was fun let’s do that again.

Savage, Scattergories, URAPP Progressive league.

I love any league that either add some randomness to make teams not so cookie cutter and easy to make, or that are first time leagues that don't have a blueprint left by previous owners over many iterations. The ODL and 52 league got stale pretty quickly to me thanks to the latter.

Triple Era progressive, Savage, $20M super low cap with 1-1-1-A rookies

I enjoyed the old position draft where you you picked each position over 5 rounds. The PPL was my favorite competitive progressive league (my only two titles come from that league). I would be interested in a 49/50mil draft league maybe with a twist like earls idea to just draft player years.

Savage for sure.
I love my progressives.
If you want a blast from the past, until Savage my favorite theme was the legendary BOWIS that was a theme of themes. 24 owners voted on the top 6 themes (one was always a 47m draft) and the themes were run concurrently with prizes for the overall champs.

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=431169&TopicsTimeframe=0&page=1

I’m digging the $52M draft league and URAPP. I like scattergory too but I’m bad at it haha. Silent auction is fun too when it gets going again

Albatross, No Allstar Allstars, Autodraft, Two Man Show... Those ones were at least hard enough to present a challenge and be balanced. Most theme leagues I avoid at this point for the following reasons:
1) They have a combination of too high of a cap + not enough limitations that every team is so good that variance is a bigger determining factor on the outcomes than skill (eg. 52, countdown)
2) There are a limited number of combinations that can win and so either you sign up first or luck of the draw get one of them or you lose (eg. OSF, alumni)
3) Complete luck based (eg. scattegories)
4) I am not sure who the intended audience is (the stupid anti-state farm ones that get posted every week even though state farm doesn't exist anymore)

I played only progs for I dunno, like 6 years but as a never-tanker it was a choice between constant bridesmaid or play only in extremely complex to manage leagues like SCPL.

Posted by jcred5 on 4/17/2023 3:09:00 PM (view original):
Savage for sure.
I love my progressives.
If you want a blast from the past, until Savage my favorite theme was the legendary BOWIS that was a theme of themes. 24 owners voted on the top 6 themes (one was always a 47m draft) and the themes were run concurrently with prizes for the overall champs.

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=431169&TopicsTimeframe=0&page=1

The reason I am asking is that I would like to do another BOWIS, even though I have never heard of BOWIS. Where I stand right now is to do a mini-Savage, where we do a 12 round draft, but instead of building five teams everyone would build three teams. I would also like to do a six round, seven player draft like the ODL and the 52, but have a $50 million salary cap. I would like to throw a Silent Auction League in there too, because it is different and fun. I’m searching for league #6. I’m also not set in stone on any of the first five themes. If I can get 24 interested people, I’m open to theme league suggestions and voting on which leagues to play, like we used to do in the Theme League Co-op.

Also, I would want to start drafting and building and whatever when the next Savage is around the All-Star break. I assume nobody would want to do this at the same time as Savage. Also, also, I would like to do this once a year, like the baseball championships that they have been doing for 20 years. My hope is that if they can get 96 people to sign up for baseball, we should be able to get 24 for basketball.

If this happens, I want to call it a tournament, not a championship. If all or most of the absolute best players aren’t playing we can hardly call it a championship.

Any thoughts?

bowis was what got me hooked on wis...amazing league and definitely an inspiration for savage

id play in whatever type of bowis gets set up now

I think it sounds pretty cool. With a goal of 24 owners committing that much $$$ and time I might suggestion having owners contribute theme league ideas and then voting on them, to promote involvement.

What does BOWIS stand for?

It is only a little bit more money and a little more time than Savage and people love Savage.

In the baseball championship they have 96 people play six different theme leagues, then the top 24 play six more. When compared to that, having 24 people play in six leagues is a piece of cake.

Posted by Midge on 4/17/2023 8:00:00 PM (view original):
What does BOWIS stand for?

It is only a little bit more money and a little more time than Savage and people love Savage.

In the baseball championship they have 96 people play six different theme leagues, then the top 24 play six more. When compared to that, having 24 people play in six leagues is a piece of cake.

Best of whatifsports.

Scattergories, Banned, 52M, Savage (even though it frustrates the hell out of me!), Decade Draft, and anything that utilizes players that normally don't get much run in other leagues.

I'm down for giving BOWIS a shot.

Savage, ODL, Decade Draft, 52M, LMAD