Battle of the States

[Battle of the States]

American Football Battle of the States

Only twice a year, there will be something special, something you will help organise (please do it!). There will be a buzz in the air, even more so than during the all-stars game, the World Cup and almost matching the Super Bowl. A straight-forward, synchronised, co-ordinated battle of state versus state games, played all over the country, all on the same day, involving stars from the NFL and from other leagues, will draw the attention of record numbers of viewers.

With this new format, people all across the US will want to tune in to see how well their state’s star team is doing in what will be a huge music and fancy lights, sponsors and v.i.p. stars spectacle of a sporting event. Everybody will want to see whether or not their state wins today, who the hero of the day was, and what the story behind the result was.

The players will love revisiting the state they call home (where they came from) and receiving the full worship of all the people of there, in stark contrast to the usual day-to-day franchises with shopping trolleys of players lining up for them and their same-old opponents week after week (where the top players are forced to represent whoever happens to own the rights to have them play for them). In this new competition, spectators know that they are cheering on the guys who come from the same state as where they come from.

This will add a huge boost to the calendar, and it will attract more attention to the sport, more interesting formations and combinations, more excitement, suspense, fame, rivalry, upsets and variety than has existed before.

Specially designed two-colour outfits and helmets are to be worn by each team, with soft versions available for fans to buy and wear to the games too, so that they can show how proud of their state they are. Players should represent the state where they grew up as a child. They can choose to represent any state that they have lived in for a minimum of 10 years (or lived in longer than in any other, or had parents living in the state for a minimum of ten years each). Players are encouraged to play for their original home state, just the way they would never represent another country. Each team will have a maximum of two players who have not fulfilled the above or who have switched states for better pay or for a better role in the team.

A growing number of teams will, most likely, take part in this Battle of the States Day competition every year: the 50 US states will have a state team of their own each + DC are all eligible to have a state team of their own + California is split into two: the 7 Southernmost counties (including LA county) team will be known as SoCal and the rest of California team will be known as Bays & Valleysfornia (or similar)

The opponents allocation system:

1^st vs. 2^nd; 3^rd vs. 4^th ; 5^th vs. 6^th

7^th vs. whichever is nearest (shortest traveling time) among the next three in the rankings (8th to 10th) ;

8^th (or 9^th, whoever is the highest ranked not yet allocated team) vs. whichever is nearest (shortest traveling time) among the next four in the rankings ;

whoever is the highest ranked not yet allocated team vs. whichever is nearest (shortest traveling time) among the next five in the rankings ;

whoever is the highest ranked not yet allocated team after the above vs. whichever is nearest (shortest traveling time) among the next five in the rankings ;

whoever is the highest ranked still not yet allocated team vs. whichever is nearest (shortest traveling time) among the next five in the rankings ; …. … …

The last six as yet unallocated teams are allocated opponents according to the minimum travelling distance (for example East vs East, Central vs Central; West vs West) among these six.

Ranking points:

All the ranking points from the recent rounds of play count toward each team’s score (which determines its ranking in the big standings rankings among the US states, which in turn determines who their next opponent is going to be). The games played before these (in recent years) also count toward the ranking points, using a depreciation pattern 100% 100% 90% 70% 50% 30% 20% 10% 5% 2% (with the longer ago results given a smaller weighting so that they have less influence on the rankings than the more recent results do).

The rung 1 match (pitting the top 2 highest ranked teams against each other) is worth 40 and 39 opponent difficulty points to the teams (for having harder opponents than any other, according to the rankings). The rung 2 match awards 38 and 37 points to each team for opponent difficulty; the rung 3 and 4 matches award 36, 35, 34 points, and so on down the table.

In addition to this, there are points as follows for the winning/losing margin:

If a game ends as a tie with no winner : 140 ranking points are won by each team;

If there is a winner margin of 1 or 2 points: 200 points go to the winner and 100 ranking points to the loser;

For a winning margin of 3 to 5: 220 to W and 80 to L ;

For a winning margin of 6 to 8: 240 to W and 60 to L ;

For a winning margin of 9 - 12: 260 to W and 40 to L ;

For a winning margin of 13-16: 276 to W and 24 to L ;

For a winning margin of 17-20: 288 to W and 12 to L ;

For a winning margin of 21 or more: 300 to W and 0 to L

(or a different /similar allocation grid could be agreed on).

These winning margin and opponents difficulty points together determine the points that determine how all the states are ranked (and hence who each state’s next opponent will be).

All games are to be hosted by whichever of the two has the bigger/better venue stadium for the game to be played in, by whoever is likely to fill up a bigger stadium if hosting the game.

In the first (ever) round of play all opponents are allocated on the basis of giving each team the nearest (by travelling time) opponent within their bracket and there are 4 brackets: the 10 biggest by population (bracket A); the 11^th to 20^th by population (; 21-30 © and 31 to 52 (D). The outcomes are ranked in order of the population size of each team’s opponent, giving out 40, 38, 36, 34, … …. … points to the teams who have had the biggest population winning/losing opponent, similarly to all later rounds (only using state population just this once instead of the rankings so far to determine the opponent difficulty bonuses).

[An alternative suggestion, Proposal B, suggests that instead of using population, we use the weighted sum of the top 5 most recent year’s best paid (playing salary for the year) players from each state, weighted 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5 (so the 5^th highest counts the most), summed to form one total for each state, that can then be ranked against the other states. This way, a small state with a top line-up is guaranteed a good chance at the top spot. The other main difference is that under Proposal B (or call it C), divisions count more than the above ranking points in determining each team’s ranking nation-wise (so the top 12 are always the 12 teams in the top division, the next 4 are in the 2^nd division, the next 20 teams after this in the 3rd and all others in the 4th division); after each round of play one team goes up to and from each of the 10 divisions (promotion/relegation based on the above ranking points system); all teams play opponents within their division; and the top 5 divisions consist of 4 teams each, then the rest of the divisions are 6, 8 or 10 teams each – This way, one or two losses against tough top opponents cannot condemn a team to the very bottom of the ranking places heap (plunging down no more than one level at a time), teams who have won two or three low-level games in a row do not end up in the top 5 so quickly, the 5 players salary ranking thing is made use of for a longer time (bringing about more evenly matched encounters and more credible US state teams rankings), and we do not get a situation where the loser of one big game plunges to the bottom half of the nation’s rankings (below all the lower level winners) when it is actually one of the best states, where it then gets another one of the best game-losing states as its next opponent. Instead the rankings are sensible at all times, and each one-division-up promotion is celebrated as a landmark and newsworthy achievement].

These ideas do have a LOT of potential. They could make the world … a better place. It’s a worthy dream, a vision of a special day for the sport twice a year (where players from the NFL, the colleges and from other leagues play side by side for the day). It would attract the attention of lots of people who have currently do not follow American Football because they are not part of one of the NFL teams’ hoardes or flocks. But it can only come true with your help.

K. M. kaitm2001@yahoo.ie

[DMD]

Wow.

[keggerz]

Wow.

 

And here I thought I was a "longwinded" writer

[WashingtonD]

Is this spam or for real?

[DMD]

It has to be spam but someone took the time to think that all out and write it down. But I am not sure what it is spam for. Just wow.

[Big John]

Google found a couple other sites this was posted on: http://www.realsportslounge.com/showthread.php?t=13703

[WashingtonD]

I feel like Taz should email the person for details and also invite them to his twitter league

[satelliteoflovegm]

Too soon.