Tier 2: Short Form Tasks (Each must be 400+ words)
Choose up to TWO for 5 TPE each.
8) Write about a potential new recruitment strategy for the league. How can we attract more new players, and what can we do to retain them better?
Recruitment is a tricky subject, a very fine line because you want to recruit in a way that is appealing to people without being overdone, but you also do not want to mislead them about what we are about. That being said, we're on the internet, we're connected through many different platforms, and I think the only way that makes sense for us is to extend our branches into many social media platforms and really bring the focus of the league to be front and center. For instance Instagram, a huge platform where small posts blow up for the biggest of things. We could implement a team to post sim results on there, trades, we could have team Instagram accounts, and so on. This would make it more interactive to a broader audience and since Instagram is already so huge, it makes me think that recruiting would almost become natural. Alternatively, using other social media platforms like Facebook, and Twitter could serve the same purpose. We're already on Twitter with our fake profiles for our players, so why not implement a way to recruit on there? Ads, etc go a long way, people love that stuff... Finally, TWITCH! We use Youtube to stream, so that is also an option, but maybe asking one of the streamers for like Madden or something football to put an ad in their Twitch or Youtube could be massive, it would gain huge traction and exposure, and maybe we could do like a bit of a fundraiser if we need to pay said content creator for the advertisement. At the end of the day, social media is your biggest networking to reach people, places like Reddit are one thing, but to me full of toxic people and just not super enjoyable anymore, but social media is the king of marketing and expanding just about anything. We need to bring this to light and show people what we're all about! Alternatively, if ALL of this somehow fails, maybe do some email campaigns, find some people who are in other leagues or just maybe make an email composition of trying to bring old members back and just simply send out a recruitment email. It would be amazing to see a bunch of returnees, but it could also get the word out to those that have never been here before, almost creating like a shockwave of events unfolding one after the other. We need to maximize our resources, maximize the people, it could even create more league jobs to have these new crews deployed, endless possibilities at helping us recruit, retain and so on. Make this feel real, while still being a sim league, people will eat it up.
(450 Words)
========================
10) 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?
Starting from a player perspective, this season was absolutely amazing and really fun. When I decided to leave the league for personal reasons, I will be honest, I was not sure how I would be received when and if I chose to come back. After some people told me to give the league another shot, I figured what the heck, why not, and decided to bite the bullet and just go for it. This experience absolutely matched my last, and both were insanely good for different reasons. Minnesota really took me in, and showed me the ropes once again. They made the experience easy, and made me feel at ease nearly immediately after signing me. One thing I loved about being on Minnesota is the transparency, they were just so easy to talk to, the whole team seemed to be on the same page, every win felt like we won the championship, and every loss made us even more passionate about wanting to win. No matter if my guy was succeeding on the field or just simply existing, the experience never felt bad, I always had support from my team, the GM's and everyone involved, like I said, every game was just pure excitement. I ended off 1 tackle shy of 100, my goal was surpassed already as I knew I was at a TPE disadvantage so my hopes and dreams were not set high. I also ended up with 7 TFL, 2 sacks, and a bunch of other amazing stats that really impressed me again for the sole reason of being so far behind my other draftees in TPE. From a team perspective if I'm honest, the end of the season was the most heartbreaking thing in the world, and not just for me, but for the whole team. I really felt we had been competitive all season and this team as a whole deserved to be rewarded for their efforts with a playoff birth. While we thought we had it, the sim engine had other plans for us and the final game collapse sealed our fate. Even in our defeating loss, the team held their heads up with pride, we were all proud to be a Duck, we were all happy to be where we were, and the team knew there was only more to come in the future. Overall, I would not change a single thing that happened this season, other than obviously making it to the playoffs which is a no-brainers. But the way I was able to spend it with the group I was able to spend it with, the feeling was simply unmatched. Thank you for the amazing experience, it will truly never be forgotten <3
(452 words)
Choose up to TWO for 5 TPE each.
8) Write about a potential new recruitment strategy for the league. How can we attract more new players, and what can we do to retain them better?
Recruitment is a tricky subject, a very fine line because you want to recruit in a way that is appealing to people without being overdone, but you also do not want to mislead them about what we are about. That being said, we're on the internet, we're connected through many different platforms, and I think the only way that makes sense for us is to extend our branches into many social media platforms and really bring the focus of the league to be front and center. For instance Instagram, a huge platform where small posts blow up for the biggest of things. We could implement a team to post sim results on there, trades, we could have team Instagram accounts, and so on. This would make it more interactive to a broader audience and since Instagram is already so huge, it makes me think that recruiting would almost become natural. Alternatively, using other social media platforms like Facebook, and Twitter could serve the same purpose. We're already on Twitter with our fake profiles for our players, so why not implement a way to recruit on there? Ads, etc go a long way, people love that stuff... Finally, TWITCH! We use Youtube to stream, so that is also an option, but maybe asking one of the streamers for like Madden or something football to put an ad in their Twitch or Youtube could be massive, it would gain huge traction and exposure, and maybe we could do like a bit of a fundraiser if we need to pay said content creator for the advertisement. At the end of the day, social media is your biggest networking to reach people, places like Reddit are one thing, but to me full of toxic people and just not super enjoyable anymore, but social media is the king of marketing and expanding just about anything. We need to bring this to light and show people what we're all about! Alternatively, if ALL of this somehow fails, maybe do some email campaigns, find some people who are in other leagues or just maybe make an email composition of trying to bring old members back and just simply send out a recruitment email. It would be amazing to see a bunch of returnees, but it could also get the word out to those that have never been here before, almost creating like a shockwave of events unfolding one after the other. We need to maximize our resources, maximize the people, it could even create more league jobs to have these new crews deployed, endless possibilities at helping us recruit, retain and so on. Make this feel real, while still being a sim league, people will eat it up.
(450 Words)
========================
10) 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?
Starting from a player perspective, this season was absolutely amazing and really fun. When I decided to leave the league for personal reasons, I will be honest, I was not sure how I would be received when and if I chose to come back. After some people told me to give the league another shot, I figured what the heck, why not, and decided to bite the bullet and just go for it. This experience absolutely matched my last, and both were insanely good for different reasons. Minnesota really took me in, and showed me the ropes once again. They made the experience easy, and made me feel at ease nearly immediately after signing me. One thing I loved about being on Minnesota is the transparency, they were just so easy to talk to, the whole team seemed to be on the same page, every win felt like we won the championship, and every loss made us even more passionate about wanting to win. No matter if my guy was succeeding on the field or just simply existing, the experience never felt bad, I always had support from my team, the GM's and everyone involved, like I said, every game was just pure excitement. I ended off 1 tackle shy of 100, my goal was surpassed already as I knew I was at a TPE disadvantage so my hopes and dreams were not set high. I also ended up with 7 TFL, 2 sacks, and a bunch of other amazing stats that really impressed me again for the sole reason of being so far behind my other draftees in TPE. From a team perspective if I'm honest, the end of the season was the most heartbreaking thing in the world, and not just for me, but for the whole team. I really felt we had been competitive all season and this team as a whole deserved to be rewarded for their efforts with a playoff birth. While we thought we had it, the sim engine had other plans for us and the final game collapse sealed our fate. Even in our defeating loss, the team held their heads up with pride, we were all proud to be a Duck, we were all happy to be where we were, and the team knew there was only more to come in the future. Overall, I would not change a single thing that happened this season, other than obviously making it to the playoffs which is a no-brainers. But the way I was able to spend it with the group I was able to spend it with, the feeling was simply unmatched. Thank you for the amazing experience, it will truly never be forgotten <3
(452 words)