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Non-founder weighs in

Posted By Fred Cline

Just a few thoughts from a non-founder.

I've had teams since at least 1999, and was not here when the founder offer was made, which means many seasons have past - my feeling is the time has expired on that particular offer, and the financial benefit from it has been milked.

There must be a number of owners here who pay more to own 4 teams as founders do to possibly own 10, and I have to say it has bugged me quite a bit that if I was to add a third team I'd be paying as much as many due for unlimited teams.

But more importantly, its human nature that given the chance to run 10 teams that the ones doing well will get the attention, the ones not will not. If you only have a few teams, I have to believe there is more urgancy to rebuild that team in the basement when its one of only a couple you have to play with - you can't as easily do the "wait til next year" routine year after year in hopes it become respectible.

It impacts draft strategy in new leagues - people with 10 teams can draft for a few years down the road as they can let the team mature while their other teams are in contention. New owners however will draft to win now. In the RealTime league I joined from inception, a few teams drafted totally for prospects and were willing to let the team stink for a year or two - its possible someone would pay $240 over two years to possibly win in Year 3 if its their only team, but I doubt it - its more likely I try that with team #10 and see how it goes, as what does it cost me? In my opinion, both leagues I'm in had founder owners who had the luxury of drafting for the future only and could accept losing 120 games the first year or two - and now have teams that are very strong which hurts balance some - its a strategy, but one that is allowed by the multiple team system.

This isn't meant as a slam on the founders as many are active players in the leagues I'm in - but its clear to me from watching how they draft and trade that its two different mindsets and levels of personal investment in any one team if you have a half-dozen or you have one.

Finally, some of the views on PB's performance/customer service/advancement might also change for founders when you see that 3 teams for $30 a month isn't the same bargain as 10 teams for $30 a month - that the relative bang for the buck is quite different, that when one team has players that all underpeform you can't move on to team two where they are all overperforming and be happy about it.

Just my long thoughts - I think this is long overdue.

Fred Cline