Task 13: 567 words
The e-word, Expansion, is thrown around pretty much every season. People love expansion. While it is painful going through the expansion drafts and it makes the sims longer, it is a pretty fun process all around! You get media proposing locations for expansion bids, rumors flying around about who is applying with who and which bids are favored by various members of Ho or the community. You get mock protection lists, more interesting mock drafts, and sometimes a contest promising to make a user-submitted graphic the logo of a brand new team! There really is a lot to like. People who are in favor of expansion usually point to the fact that many positions have a backlog of talent that forces players into the DSFL for extended amounts of time or the fact that expanding might allow for a more interesting league structure, maybe by giving us divisions within the conference. Of all those, divisions are the bit I would personally be most excited about. I think the league’s schedule could really benefit from having divisions within the conference. It allows teams to compete primarily with a small group of rivals, leading to more intense games within the division. It also reduces the number of games you need to play against teams from the opposing conference. While those games are certainly fun, I think having more games within the division and conference produce more meaningful games since the last thing you want to do is give games to your division rival. It would also make the conference playoff games that much more important, potentially allowing us to actually get a pair of play-in games before a conference championship instead of just giving the #1 seed an auto-bid to the conference championship game. But I think something we need to be more considerate of when flinging the e-word about is the impact it will have in sustainability and the DSFL. When last I ran the numbers, expansion would virtually guarantee DSFL contraction within a season or two. Teams would simply not hae the required number of active players to put together a roster without relying heavily on bots. My numbers at the time suggested teams would have only 8-10 user players on their roster. With the recruitment numbers we have pulled in over the last few drives, contraction is not just something that might happen. It would virtually be guaranteed. Some people are pretty okay with that, suggesting that the DSFL doesn’t really mean anything and is just a stepping stone to the big leagues. While that may be true for them, it is not true for everyone. I would have gone IA at the beginning of my career had it not been for an active DSFL environment. Those teams have their own cultures and communities at this point and tearing it down too soon would be a terrible blow to the DSFL as a whole. Additionally, consider how thin the last few drafts have been at the ISFL level. Adding 2 or 4 more teams means we would likely be having drafts in which inactive players were being taken in the second round. I believe that should be avoided at all costs. While expansion is always fun for the users of the league, I believe we should be focusing primarily on sustainability before rushing into something that could seriously impact the quality of teams around the league.
Task 17: 284 words
The Yeti GMs placed a pin on google maps some time ago in Denver that represents the land that the new Wolfie Farms Stadium will be built on. It is a good plot of land, occupying space near the state capitol, some amazing attractions like the art museum, a large park, the zoo, and the botanical gardens. The new stadium should feature a life-size statue of the Yeti outside the main gate that fans coming from all around the world can stop to take pictures at while they make their way into the stadium. I hope that the seating will be designed in a way that allows the fans to see the sun set over the beautiful Rocky Mountains that are visible from Denver. Perhaps the stands themselves could be arrayed into a triangle, resembling the famous mountains in the design of the stadium. Obviously the seats should be red, the primary color of the team. But I am hopeful that there will be significant yellow highlights to appease the faction of the fanbase that clamors for YELLOW YETI. I would love to sit in a yellow section. The venders should feature a variety of Colorado beers and ciders, which are plentiful around the state. My personal favorite, Stem, will hopefully endorse the team as an official sponsor and allow us to enjoy their delicious products while watching the Yeti obliterate whoever they are playing that week. And there should always be some good food, but most importantly there should be the delicious biscuits and gravy from the Denver Biscuit Company, who make an incredible fried-chicken sandwich on a biscuit that is smothered in bacon and gravy. I would kill for one of those…
Task 28: 223 words
Obviously the Colorado Yeti have the best branding in the league. But being the best does not mean you can slack off and just accept things as they are. That leads to mediocrity and your team no longer having the best branding. The Yeti should definitely refresh their imaging to ensure they stay on top for the foreseeable future, especially if expansion happens sometime in the near future and we get new teams. The most obvious step the Yeti should take to refresh their logo is by changing the primary color from Red, which is objectively lame, to YELLOW, which is inherently cool. Yellow is also a primary color. It is frequently used to indicate caution, signaling that opposing teams should have caution going up against the Yeti, who are objectively better than they are. Penguins have yellow to attract a mate and the Yeti organization employs several penguins on the field. Although perhaps the most convincing argument for why the Yeti should switch to YELLOW as their primary color of choice is to keep that oversized chicken off the team. Honestly, we should have rebranded to a yellow team the second he made that “announcement.” The team should leave the rest of the logo alone, I think. Just make some minor changes to the color scheme and call it good enough…for now.
The e-word, Expansion, is thrown around pretty much every season. People love expansion. While it is painful going through the expansion drafts and it makes the sims longer, it is a pretty fun process all around! You get media proposing locations for expansion bids, rumors flying around about who is applying with who and which bids are favored by various members of Ho or the community. You get mock protection lists, more interesting mock drafts, and sometimes a contest promising to make a user-submitted graphic the logo of a brand new team! There really is a lot to like. People who are in favor of expansion usually point to the fact that many positions have a backlog of talent that forces players into the DSFL for extended amounts of time or the fact that expanding might allow for a more interesting league structure, maybe by giving us divisions within the conference. Of all those, divisions are the bit I would personally be most excited about. I think the league’s schedule could really benefit from having divisions within the conference. It allows teams to compete primarily with a small group of rivals, leading to more intense games within the division. It also reduces the number of games you need to play against teams from the opposing conference. While those games are certainly fun, I think having more games within the division and conference produce more meaningful games since the last thing you want to do is give games to your division rival. It would also make the conference playoff games that much more important, potentially allowing us to actually get a pair of play-in games before a conference championship instead of just giving the #1 seed an auto-bid to the conference championship game. But I think something we need to be more considerate of when flinging the e-word about is the impact it will have in sustainability and the DSFL. When last I ran the numbers, expansion would virtually guarantee DSFL contraction within a season or two. Teams would simply not hae the required number of active players to put together a roster without relying heavily on bots. My numbers at the time suggested teams would have only 8-10 user players on their roster. With the recruitment numbers we have pulled in over the last few drives, contraction is not just something that might happen. It would virtually be guaranteed. Some people are pretty okay with that, suggesting that the DSFL doesn’t really mean anything and is just a stepping stone to the big leagues. While that may be true for them, it is not true for everyone. I would have gone IA at the beginning of my career had it not been for an active DSFL environment. Those teams have their own cultures and communities at this point and tearing it down too soon would be a terrible blow to the DSFL as a whole. Additionally, consider how thin the last few drafts have been at the ISFL level. Adding 2 or 4 more teams means we would likely be having drafts in which inactive players were being taken in the second round. I believe that should be avoided at all costs. While expansion is always fun for the users of the league, I believe we should be focusing primarily on sustainability before rushing into something that could seriously impact the quality of teams around the league.
Task 17: 284 words
The Yeti GMs placed a pin on google maps some time ago in Denver that represents the land that the new Wolfie Farms Stadium will be built on. It is a good plot of land, occupying space near the state capitol, some amazing attractions like the art museum, a large park, the zoo, and the botanical gardens. The new stadium should feature a life-size statue of the Yeti outside the main gate that fans coming from all around the world can stop to take pictures at while they make their way into the stadium. I hope that the seating will be designed in a way that allows the fans to see the sun set over the beautiful Rocky Mountains that are visible from Denver. Perhaps the stands themselves could be arrayed into a triangle, resembling the famous mountains in the design of the stadium. Obviously the seats should be red, the primary color of the team. But I am hopeful that there will be significant yellow highlights to appease the faction of the fanbase that clamors for YELLOW YETI. I would love to sit in a yellow section. The venders should feature a variety of Colorado beers and ciders, which are plentiful around the state. My personal favorite, Stem, will hopefully endorse the team as an official sponsor and allow us to enjoy their delicious products while watching the Yeti obliterate whoever they are playing that week. And there should always be some good food, but most importantly there should be the delicious biscuits and gravy from the Denver Biscuit Company, who make an incredible fried-chicken sandwich on a biscuit that is smothered in bacon and gravy. I would kill for one of those…
Task 28: 223 words
Obviously the Colorado Yeti have the best branding in the league. But being the best does not mean you can slack off and just accept things as they are. That leads to mediocrity and your team no longer having the best branding. The Yeti should definitely refresh their imaging to ensure they stay on top for the foreseeable future, especially if expansion happens sometime in the near future and we get new teams. The most obvious step the Yeti should take to refresh their logo is by changing the primary color from Red, which is objectively lame, to YELLOW, which is inherently cool. Yellow is also a primary color. It is frequently used to indicate caution, signaling that opposing teams should have caution going up against the Yeti, who are objectively better than they are. Penguins have yellow to attract a mate and the Yeti organization employs several penguins on the field. Although perhaps the most convincing argument for why the Yeti should switch to YELLOW as their primary color of choice is to keep that oversized chicken off the team. Honestly, we should have rebranded to a yellow team the second he made that “announcement.” The team should leave the rest of the logo alone, I think. Just make some minor changes to the color scheme and call it good enough…for now.