(S47) Offseason Task

[homercrates]

Season 44 where are they now and how are they doing?
2. Tell us about your draft class.

Thor Bollrsveifla, pick 28.  Quarterback for the Capetown Crash, his rookie season in s46 lit up the fantasy boards for a little while.  He was feast or famine as a running QB and finished the fantasy rankings as #1 points QB.  Thor has a future as a dominant QB for Capetown.Thor is also the highest TPE earner for s44. Thor was a recreate.

Thomas Passarelli, pick 1.  Passarelli is now a GM for the team that drafted him number one in the class.  His wide receiver is making waves as a speed receiver.  For a 1st pick overall he has paid back NOLA for their investment 10 fold.  Passarelli is the 2nd top TPE earner of the class. Tmoney is a new create.

Jordan Bamford, pick 11.  Bamford went to AZ and had a great rookie season and has also worked his way much like Passarelli to the 2nd WR slot.  Bamford has since been integral to his team in winning an Ultimus. Bamford also has been GMing for the Portland Pythons and is helping shape the league from the most important role for development.  Bamford also is the 3rd top TPE earner in the class.  Bamford is a new create, and easily my favorite person.

Lenard McRobinson pick 24 4 before Thor.  McRobinson is also a scrambler build like Thor.  In fact McRobinson was the first scrambler of S44.  It was after McRobinson went off in a crazy DSFL game where he threw the ball for about 400 and ran for 300 yards that inspired Thor to change archetypes.  McRobinson doesn’t escape that notice from me as the first of the class to go that route.  McRobinson is flourishing and inspiring archetypes and is the 4th highest earner of s44 class.  Shadyshoelace is a recreate.

Carter Goad pick 12.  Carter Goad moved from OL to DL particularly DT.  Goad in s45 I think was the recipient of a glitch that had him get 7 sacks in a row.  It was a phenomenal moment watching the sim.  Promoting users to call him Carter Goat.  Goad is the 5th highest TPE earner of s44 and a new create.

Trent Thigpen pick 4.  Thigpen was originally a DT and has since filled in a more vital role for Austin by switching to CB.  Austin jumped 2 spots with YKW in order to grab Thigpen and he has been a vital piece to Austin and their recent Ultimus run.  Thigpen is a new create and is
6th in TPE earned.

Joe Steel, pick 15.  Joe Steel was a marvelous pick for NOLA as the first pick of the 2nd round.  Steel has been an integral part of NOLA and a fantastic PR person for the team when following his conversations in discord.  Joe Steel is 8th highest TPE earner and a new create of s44.

Zenzeroni Xystarch II pick 23.  Zenzeroni Xysatch II is my absolute favorite from this class.  I immediately set aside time to read when this user writes a media piece.  I was shocked but also thrilled when BER took another kicker ahead of this one.  9th in TPE earning and a bank to back it up this user was a steel at pick 23.
Cajeel Redfox pick 20.  Austin’s next pick a cornerback little did we know Thigpen would change into the same position which is making the AUS secondary a dangerous set coming up with 2 of the top 10 TPE earners of s44 in their secondary.  This is going to shape the AUS secondary for seasons to come.  Redfox is a top 10 TPE earner of season 44 and a new create.

[613 words]

[ForSucksFake]

Task 16: (311 words)

Anakin had a somewhat disappointing rookie season. He carried a really bad ypc average, sub 4.0. The rest of the offense performed well, securing a playoff spot to keep the streak of success going. Heading into S46 with core pieces of the offense being hit with further regression loses, the team switched up their identity to become a more rounded attack. Skywalker was a major contributor to the Hawks as they clinched the number one seed well before the end of the season.  Skywalker became the team’s primary running back with the departure of BMP to Arizona in the off-season. Anakin would rush for over 1200 yards and 12 touchdowns, with over 1600 all-purpose yards and 14 touchdowns combined. Anakin kicked off S46 with a breakout two touchdown performance against Colorado. He continued his great season with 118 rushing yards in week 2 against Berlin. In a high-scoring loss to Orange County, Skywalker put up 145 rushing yards and a touchdown while getting a receiving touchdown on two catches. Against Chicago, Skywalker once again eclipsed 100 yards with a rushing score, while tacking on an additional 85 receiving yards and a touchdown reception. In a domination of the Honolulu Hahalua, Skywalker had two rushing touchdowns. After a dip in production mid-season, Skywalker had a 7-game streak with at least one rushing touchdown. Baltimore looked poised to win another Ultimus before their window was expected to close.

Baltimore was once again the number one seed in their conference heading into the postseason. Their dream season ended in overtime in a loss to the Yellowknife Wraiths in the conference championship game.  This heartbreaking loss would spell the end of the Preston Beatz era when he was traded to Colorado for Wolfie McDummy Jr. while also acquiring National Treasure in the same deal. Additional trades would seemingly delay the closing of Baltimore’s championship window.

29: 166

When I first joined the league, the Philadelphia Liberty had in my opinion, the best branding in the league. I liked the bell being the most important part of the logo and the use of gold with the red, white, and blue. Their “ring the bell” rally cry was so good too. Unfortunately for the Liberty, that branding never saw true success and so they were rebranded as the Cape Town Crash in an effort to reset, refresh, and reinvent themselves as a successful team. That effort has paid off as the Crash won an Ultimus.

With the Liberty gone, I’d have to say the San Jose Sabercats now have the best branding in the ISFL. The alliterated team and city name combo sounds great to say. I also love their color scheme, using forest green and a muted pewter-like gold. There have been many teams across the leagues history to have utilized gold in their logos, but PHI and SJS have done it the best.

19: 159

Baltimore has had one of the better ISFL stadiums for years, but a new stadium may be needed soon. Baltimore gets very cold in the winter, making the field hard and potentially hazardous. An underground heating system that keeps the field from freezing up would be beneficial to not only the Hawks but visiting teams as well. You can't put an east coast team in a dome because snow games are always instant classics. Another big upgrade would be a new jumbotron. You'd be surprised how often players and even the coaches will look up at it. Fans in the upper parts of the stadium would also be able to see the action more clearly. Both home and visiting locker rooms would benefit from upgrades to the lockers themselves, their seats, as well as the showers. You can't have the warm water running out during a cold game. I would also suggest installing heating systems under the shower floors.

[37thchamber]

So, as some of you will have noted from my forum signature, I created the league wiki. I won't go into the reasons for that right now, but it was a project I really believed in at the time and felt added a lot of potential value to the league. Some of you will also be aware that I have long championed the idea of a central database for the ISFL. Originally, I envisioned such a database as a way to centralise stat tracking, while also making a lot of administrative tasks -- like activity checks, updates, regression and PT/OT passes* -- a lot easier to manage and keep track of; and, if done correctly, I could tie it into the wiki. We kind of have that in wolfiebot now, but not really -- again, not gonna go into the details, but it doesn't solve the problem... yet. Finally, some of you will be aware that the league is undertaking a project in the not-too-distant future to implement a portal system (similar to the one used in the SHL), which would in fact enable some of those things.

I say all of this to set the groundwork for what will probably shock some of you: the wiki creation and update tasks should be abolished.

As the creator of the wiki, it really bothers me that it's been so divisive. It was never intended to be a "compulsory" thing (in the sense that you would feel obligated to do it to gain the attached TPE), but rather an optional thing you could do to enrich the collaborative world all our players (and other characters) inhabit. It was also a good place to store stats and records that might otherwise never be stored (this was long before wolfiebot, remember), but it was never supposed to be a chore.

As the league grew, and more and more pages were created for players -- and never updated -- the problem became clearer: there are not enough people willing and able to update the wiki to keep it a useful resource. Adding an update task every season helped a little, in the sense that it now meant that player pages were less likely to be created during a player's first DSFL season and left abandoned... but it didn't address the aforementioned problem.

Even if we had enough people willing and able to update the wiki and create all the pages required to make it a useful, immersive resource... we'd still have the issue of oversight. Who patrols it to make sure it's accurate and not being vandalised? Who's keeping spambots at bay? And so on.

So my recommendation is that the TPE-related tasks are abolished. Instead, set up a proper wiki editor job, with a well-structured pay scale. Allow freelancing still, as my original vision did (wiki articles are paid out at media scale + 20%) but have an actually dedicated group of users, assigned specific tasks to complete every season. This is how the wiki was originally run, under myself, and later Dermot -- the original bounty sheet is still linked on the main page, iirc. But when the scale and scope of the wiki grew, this approach was lost because "wiki staff" (as loosely defined as that has been throughout the lifetime of the wiki) were needed to grade new pages and updates instead. Their focus was taken away from the work of actually maintaining the wiki, and instead finding the most efficient way to churn through dozens, maybe hundreds, of updates.

By removing that latter burden -- because let's be honest, most people will not create a player page or update their player page if they're not getting TPE for it -- we can return the wiki to its original purpose: an immersive resource.

If people want to create and update pages, they still can. They'll just be paid in league cash instead. If they don't want to (or can't) then they don't lose out on anything. If a notable player has no page, one of the wiki staff -- assuming the job is created and well-defined -- can create that player's page, or it can be put out as a bounty for someone else to write (I had team histories done this way at one point; in some cases users literally sent me the text and I reformatted it for the wiki, so no wiki knowledge is required).

I could go on about this, but I think I've made my point. The wiki in its current form is a divisive element, and by returning it to a voluntary aspect of the league, we would a) remove the intensification of the divide because users would no longer feel an obligation to participate in something they don't like, b) reduce the update burden on those willing and able, and c) pave the way for better integration with an upcoming portal and centralised database, which itself would remove the need for a lot of updates in the first place.



* side note: I am literally doing this task because the current PT/OT pass system makes it easy to miss out. Not that I have an agenda or anything.

[Marty the Monster]

16. Describe your player and/or team’s journey through this latest season. What were the highlights? What were the lower points? What might you have done differently? What are your expectations for next season?
Season 46 will long be remembered by Marty Crane. It was not only the first season of his pro career and the first year he was really able to man the free safety position, but it will also be remembered as his first pro bowl and all pro awards. Marty had an undeniably rough start to his career. Early on in Dallas it was clear he was a top earner on the team, but couldn’t seem to get traction. As a running back he shared a room with two other maxed out players making it nearly impossible to get enough carries to do any damage. After one was called up and he was the clear top back, he lost over 50% of the carries to a rookie back who a sub 60TPE. Frustrating doesn’t even begin to describe Crane’s situation on the birddogs as a back. When he made the switch to safety, he predominantly handled strong safety duties in Dallas. The good news is that he was finally able to be on the field consistently and did aid the team. The bad news is that he was once again in a role where he wouldn’t receive any accolades. He helped the team against the run, but the sexy stats seemed to avoid him. When Marty was called up to Chicago, it would be fair to say critics expectations were not high. He hadn’t even made a pro bowl in the DSFL. Hell, he hadn’t even led the team in any major category during his stint on the birddogs. It’s for this reason, that this past season was extraordinary. Much like Rudy, Kurt Warner, or Rocky Balboa, Crane finally reaped the reward of his years long efforts. Marty posted a ridiculous stat line for the first time in his career finishing the season second in interceptions with 7 (1 behind the leader) while also posting 57 tackles, 2 forced fumbles, 3 fumble recoveries, 2 sacks, 12 passes defended, and a defensive touchdown. The numbers were impressive enough to land Crane multiple awards. He was named first team all pro and defensive rookie of the year. While these accolades weren’t able to help propel Chicago into the playoffs, they may have helped light a fire under Marty and his peers. Hard work does pay off…sometimes it just a few years. (389)

13. Choose a team or player to write about that isn’t your own. What did they do well in the last season? Have they shown any drastic improvements from previous years? What could they do better?
When looking at Dewey Greenbeans, it’s fair to say he’s a game changer. Every year he’s been in the league, he’s made big plays when it matters and been recognized for his superior play. It’s hard to imagine a player improving upon his third pro bowl season, especially considering he was an All Pro, but that’s exactly what Dewey Greenbeans did this year. The sim gods surely shine upon Dewey as he seems to be head and shoulders above the competition every year. This past season Dewey posted a ridiculous statline. He had 78 tackles (career high), six fumbles caused (career high), three fumbles recovered (career high), SEVEN interceptions (for the second consecutive year), and a whopping twenty nine passes defensed. Dewey was an absolute machine. Those numbers were good enough to help Greenbeans not only lock in another All Pro nod, but also led him to landing his first defensive player of the year award. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Dewey also was credited with the DSFL individual defensive performance of the year. The personal accolades were a surprise to no one as Greenbeans is always leading the league in a category of two and receiving recognition for stellar play on an annual basis. What was a surprise was that Dewey was able to hold the trophy this year as his Dallas Birddogs pulled a massive upset in the playoffs (that they limped into) by smashing the powerhouse Tijuana in the semis before rolling over London in the finals. Greenbeans of course was a huge piece of this team’s success and to see both a defensive player of the year award AND an Ultimini in the same year being received is truly awesome. Next year Dewey will be headed up to the majors as Chicago has penciled him in at Safety for the Butchers. It will be a hell of a lot harder for him to keep up his superb level of play at the next level. I for one look forward to watching Dewey step up to the challenge. (342)

[UptownCord]

15. If I could fill out a roster with any players in the ISFL, I would of course form the Season 41 Draft Class Superstars. Season 41 is hitting their pre-regression peak this season, so when else would be a better time? For this exercise, we will be focusing on the offense and rocking with the classic shotgun personnel.

QB - The S41 QB class only consists of OCO's own Lloyd Bannings and the new Hawk former Yeeti Wolfie McDummy Jr. Both have produced tons of counting stats (both good and bad), but the decision comes down to protecting the ball. Otter fans might be surprised to hear it, but Bannings actually throws less picks and takes less sacks per season, which is probably why he scores more TDs despite putting up slightly less yardage.

RB - Surprisingly for a class this loaded, S41 only has one running back of note, the workhorse of NOLA's backfield Kyle Crane. Even if there was competition, it would be hard to surpass Crane, who has averaged 1652 scrimmage yards and 11.8 TDs per season.

WR - This is a four wide receiver race but unfortunately there are only three slots in the formation. The contenders are Arizona's Benji Aguilera, New York's Sean Robinson, and the former duo of Berlin's Emile Charles and the new Wraith Nick Williams. For the sake of fairness, we will only be looking at the past two seasons, where each receiver has at least comparable opportunities. Unfortunately, Nick Williams is left as the odd man out, likely due to playing behind Charles. Let's see if he can prove himself as a worthy WR1 in Yellowknife this season!

TE - It is slim pickings for Tight End in this draft class, with only one remaining after some swapped and the rest went inactive. However, Kenny Szymborski is no slouch. While not a preeminent scoring threat, Kenny gets first downs without dropping the ball and is a monster in the blocking game. Through five seasons, the big man has 191 pancakes and only 13 sacks allowed.

OL - First up is Austin's pancake beast Great Kahli, who has 525 pancakes in 6 seasons while allowing 24 sacks. Next up is Arizona's Beeg Beeg Yoshi Jr. with 295 pancakes in 4 seasons while only giving up a single sack! Third is Baltimore's Joshua Mabry with 281 pancakes and 8 sacks allowed in 4 seasons. Next is Saveour Piethons with 183 pancakes and nine sacks allowed in three seasons. Rounding out the list is Modest Mussorgsky with 172 pancakes on 9 sacks allowed in 4 seasons. (427 Words)

25.

 

36. SHL Affiliate PT
https://simulationhockey.com/showthread....pid3487857

[DL14]

When looking at the teams we have in the ISFL and DSFL, is there any team you believe is in need of a major rebrand or update to their current branding? Why or why not? (Written Task) (83 words)
Many teams’ brandings are now quite old. Most old heads would still adamantly stand by the brandings, no matter if they’re objectively good (although it’s subjective, so meh). A few teams do stand out to me though. First of all, everyone’s darling… CTC. Let’s be honest, the Liberty weren’t that great in terms of branding. *But*, that doesn’t mean everyone loves the rebrand into the Crash. Maybe the Liberty should make a comeback, but that is not up to me to decide. Then, there’s the Baltimore Hawks. A “historic” team in the ISFL and one whose branding has stuck for many seasons. However, even as a member of the team, I always found their branding kind of… bland. It could at the very least do with a makeover to give it some life. And finally, the Seawolves. Another team that has been around for a while, I’d say their biggest issue is probably their logo, which probably needs a makeover. You can only stick with a black bat for so long, lol
Imagine your current position was not available to be picked when you created your player. What other position would you have picked, and why? (282 words)
I’d just have gone with my 2nd option for this player, which was a CB. I’d always imagined that after my first player was a wide receiver, it would only be a natural continuation to be on the exact opposite side of the ball. Now instead of searching for catches, I’d be stopping other players from getting them and getting a few of my own. It was certainly a very interesting proposition to me, as CB was also one of my top choices when I’d originally made my first player. I also threw up the ideas of playing QB, LB or Oline, as those were positions either in demand or that could potentially bring the most satisfaction to me due to the stat volume. I’d also contemplated the thought of a return specialist WR just to shake it up. However, I thought that since I had unfinished business as a WR, I’d just try to run it back one final time before retiring for good
if your player wasn't a professional in the ISFL/DSFL, what would they be doing instead? (Written Task or Graphic Task) (449 words)
If my player hadn’t been a professional in the ISFL, they would have finished their education instead and gone on to have a normal professional career. Ultimately, it is almost impossible to be certain what career path he would have gone on to take, as he wasn’t entirely certain about staying on his career path nor was he entirely happy with his current status quo or remaining on an educational path. When the time came to make the decision between a professional career in the ISFL / DSFL, or staying in university to get a degree in International Relations (Or any other career had he chosen to switch), it wasn’t a straightforward decision. But had he not chosen to play for the Norfolk Seawolves, and stayed on his original career path, he would probably be working today as a diplomat for the Peruvian Foreign Service, probably working on advancing his career to further goals and maybe a political office
What are your thoughts on the sim engine? What sort of improvements would you make to the sim engine if given the opportunity? (Written Task) (610 words)
Ah, the sim engine. The age old sim engine. Draft Day Sports Pro Football 2021, made by our friends the developers over at Wolverine Studios. It should be no surprise that I, like the majority of the users in the ISFL, am not exactly pleased with the sim engine in any way. Whether it’s the accusations of predetermined results, obviously bullshit plays that lead to incredibly improbable outcomes (so called “simming”, even if it’s overused and mostly an excuse to justify victim complexes or shortcomings), horrible game management (bad clock management, nonsensical spikes, punts, fields goals, targeting in passing formations, etc.) broken positions or stats that mean there’s very little variety in what a “build” can be without being actively detrimental to a player’s performance (looking at you, speed and also 60/71 endurance), etc. Frankly, there is very little I would change about the sim engine itself… because by this point, it is quite obvious to anyone that has ever played around with it or even just seen an ISFL / DSFL game that it probably should be rebuilt from the ground up.

[Seymour]

21. Written Option: If your player had a show starring them, what would the plot be? Graphic Option: Create the cover art for your player’s show.

22. Make a scouting report for any of the ISFL or DSFL draftees. Show their stats, abilities, TPE, or highlights. (Written or Graphic Task)

25. Create a billboard, magazine cover, unique trading card, or video game cover depicting a one of the league's stars. (Graphic Task)

31. Make up an award for your player (or even someone else) to win for something not on the football field.

[Ephenssta]

3. Things really do go from rock bottom to the top, then back to rock bottom all in the span of a couple short seasons sometimes. A few short seasons ago, the Yeti made the playoffs as the 3 seed. It was the first time in a long while we had managed that particular feat and we were ecstatic, as you might expect! The next season, we expected to build on our recent success and maybe even compete for better seeding. We felt like we had momentum on our side and the locker room was buzzing…but then we missed the playoffs entirely. It stung a bit, but felt again like we had some momentum behind us and maybe were even more motivated as a unit after the sting of missing the playoffs. The season after that, we were the 1 seed in the NSFC and looking at a bye week to  open the playoffs. We ended up losing in the conference championship game, but again felt like we were on the right track and that things were looking up for us, a franchise that has really struggled to be competitive recently. Unfortunately, that never really happened for us. After being the top seed, we completely fell apart the following season. Now, we are looking at tanking and rebuilding. We are not the first team to have a firesale, but we are the most recent! Baltimore and CTC both improved their rosters at the expense of the Yeti, who leave looking much lighter at QB, WR, LB, and RB. It was a massive slate of moves that entirely kills any chance we might have had of being competitive this season. But, looking at the numbers, we felt like it was better for us to start selling pieces now rather than trying to drag things out with another season of rolling the dice. The hope is that the first round picks will allow us to reload and look to a hopefully bright future. With that in mind, I fully expect the Yeti to be terrible on the field for the upcoming couple seasons. With the massive trade and generally lower activity that has come both from the trade and a couple users no longer being actively engaged with the league, we are really in quite a rut. Rebuilds these days are maybe a bit tougher and slower than they might have been 10 or 20 seasons ago. Unless we flip the picks we made for more players, which would seem rather counter-intuitive, I think you can expect Colorado to be dead last in the division for at least this and next season. After that, it gets harder to predict as it depends on how well we hit on our draft picks in the next couple seasons and any moves we might make now that we have some significant freedom in our cap situation. My hope is that the retool works for us and we find ourselves looking at competitive success again in the not-too-distant future. There is always hope and excitement at the beginning of a rebuild, since while the immediate future is rough, you can at least rally behind the idea of having more picks, and hopefully more picks near the top of the rounds, that offers a lot of really exciting possibility. The more immediate impact, though, is sad as a few people I really enjoyed having around move on to new teams and rosters. I hope they find success there that they wouldn’t have had with us. I’m especially saddened by the loss of Woelkers’ presence in our war room. He’s a legendary user and I really liked having his perspective around in our war room as we discussed and planned. Thinking a bit more optimistically, I look forward to putting some more energy into scouting and preparing for the future as we look to just enjoy the roller coaster ride that is tanking. Hopefully we find ourselves back in the playoffs sooner than later.

665 words

[Crazytomato]

25. Create a billboard, magazine cover, unique trading card, or video game cover depicting a one of the league's stars. (Graphic Task)




SHL Affilate +2.5 TPE




10. Through a random lottery drawing, you have been named the league's new commissioner for a day. Congrats! What improvements would you make to the league if you had the power to do whatever you wanted?

If I was given Commish of the ISFL for 1 day i would do quite a few things some of which are small and others bigger things. first ill go over the minor things id change. the first thing id change is no more buying PT passes i feel like a job should not be taking up that much time that you can't to 1 PT per week its not even that much it takes me like 5 minutes to do i and can't type that fast. The second thing I'd do is buff DE's. DE's suck in the sim they are smaller then a DT and get less stats the way id fix this is by making the DE's bigger and maybe giving them better starting TPE. Another thing id do is Change TEs into a WR archetype as i feel TEs arnt used enough to be its own position kinda like a FB for RB. one of the bigger changes id make would be changing the way money works. i haven't seen anyone really talk about this but i think there should be something like a tax on how much money you can earn on certain things for an example if you make 20m a season on graphics if you go over that 20m you'd only make half the amount so if a normal graphic makes 2 million if you went over the limit you'd only make 1m i think this is fair because this limits people from making an insane amount of money id even limit it on jobs so you can only earn a certain amount off of jobs. That's all i have for changes id make i don't think they'd all work out very but i do think it could help the league out and they are interesting ideas.

[Starboy]

Task 9

The history of the league is made with plenty of decisions that could have made something entirely different than the ISFL that we know today. Some of the decisions that were made by league users in the past were not always the most accepted or always the best decisions that could have been made. However, the league needed to have those choices made in order to grow or adapt to make it to S47 where we are. One decision that made the league grow in an unexpected way happened mere seasons ago during a low activity era of early 2023. During S40, the DSFL ended up in a situation where many of the active users were currently being called up to the ISFL which left the developmental side without enough players that needed to develop. Players were moving through the DSFL faster than managers could plan for where the league could not balance out the lower level play amongst the eight teams. In January 2023, an announcement was made that the DSFL would be contracting for the first time in twenty seasons and letting go of the Bondi Beach Buccaneers and the Portland Pythons.

Even with the hard evidence, there were no fans of this decision from the bottom or the top levels of the league that had not paid attention to the DSFL in years. Thankfully, players instantly knew what they needed to do and jumped to Discord and the forums to bring activity up to near record levels and saved the DSFL. Despite this, the decision to contract the teams in the first place showed a different issue than what the decided “solution” was. Cutting opportunities for players to get active is never going to help users increase their activity. Instead, the active decisions to create engaging rewards has helped. Without taking a look at how bad activity had gotten in S40 the league would not have had a better chance at increasing activity to where it has hit in S47.

Task 14

With the league engagement slowly beginning to rise, the league has decided to expand and add on another set of teams to bring out a new series of competition to the league. Everyone starts to get into the arguments about where teams should be but there are only two areas that the league should consider expanding to with the focus on making the league even more international than it currently is. The ISFL currently only has a focus in predominantly American or European based areas with South Africa and Australia being the exception. Most in the league all have an interest in other areas but do not have the brands to place in the more unique places. As someone with a lot of time spent in the league and with too much time, I have thought of plenty of new ideas that can help future teams during this expansion time.

The first idea would be set in the heart of one of the most popular countries in the entire world. Our fourth international team would be set in Japan, with a historical location and a historical brand. Set in Kyoto, the new team to join the ASFC would be the Shoguns! The Kyoto Shoguns would be perfect in the league with plenty of fans of the country and enough samurai action to keep the brand alive as well as fresh. It is a unique name as well to keep anyone from worrying about a team sharing a name with a real brand. Along with the Shoguns would be a team set in a real unique location, but something that would still fit in with the football world. This team already has been featured in a Prospect Bowl but could be a full time team in the future. The Buenos Aires Sol which blends the national brand with a sports brand. Both of these teams would give us true international representation as well as brands that fans can get behind without a forced alliteration that might bring about awkwardness.