Fred,
For the second time this week I am going to disagree with part of your post. You said
quote
"... not everyone gets to own 8 teams for the price of 3 ... so not all owners might be OK with "waiting til next year" for team A if beaten out by unmanaged team as they don't have teams B to H to occupy them.
I actually think the founders situation creates long term problems when owners with plenty of teams can "play for next year" with a few of them, because they have other teams that are winning."

I do not think the free teams available to the founders are the problem. In fact I believe without the founders managing extra teams PB would collapse or at the very least be forced to contract the number of leagues. I think the biggest problem facing PB is the large number of unmanaged teams. The commish is trying to make the unmanaged teams more competative, reasoning that would make them more attractive to potential owners. I do not think that will help. As a founder I have had three teams for several years. I added a fourth this past offseason. During the season I spotted two additional teams I would not mind managing. I asked the commish if I could own them. He declined at first, indicating that he would prefer they go to a new owner or a current PB owner with fewer teams. I watched these two unmanaged teams for several months and no one claimed them. I asked Mike a second time and he said OK. Both teams were first place teams when I took over. Having good players such as Bonds, A Rod, Big Unit, etc did not draw any interest from others. If founders had to pay for teams in excess of three I would drop three of my six teams. I imagine others would do the same. I believe Tim Shine owns a team in EVERY traditional league. What would that cost? My concern is that without founders being allowed free teams there would be twice as many unmanaged teams as there currently are.

In general I agree that managed teams should be given preference when it comes to making the playoffs when tied with an unmanaged team. My objection in the specific case you cited last week was that the managed team was a defacto unmanged team.

We paid extra that first season to become founders so I believe there should continue to be some benefit. I would be in favor of non-founders being allowed free extra teams if that cut down the number of unmanaged teams. My first preference would be for all the leagues be fully managed without having any one person own more that three or four teams. That way we would all pay closer attention to the teams we do have and I agree it would probably make for better competition. I would gladly give up a few teams to make that happen. Until that becomes a real possibility (I don't see that day being anytime soon)I truely believe founders owning multiple teams is key to keeping many leagues afloat. What do you think of allowing veteran PB managers who are not founders the same privlidge?