Good stuff guys!

Really looking forward to see how things develop parity wise. While I don't quite share your enthusiastic assessment of the current situation, we've undoubtedly done a lot to adress this issue in recent seasons so I agree that now is not the time for even more changes, but to wait and see how some of the measures we took play out first.

I have a little thing to add regarding the season streamlining, I think the most important aspect to keep an eye on here is the season-to-offseason ratio, which might be even more important than the total season length. So basically how long is the regular season in relation to the playoffs and the off-season. Or in other words: How much of their time on this site do people on different teams have games going on for their team/player that they can watch, and how much of it do they spend sittling idly by just waiting for the new season to start.

This number has fluctuated a bit in recent years due to different season and off-season lengths and playoff systems, but I just think its important to remind yourself of it from time to time. While the community aspect of this site is huge, the games are still the core of it and whenever we get to a point where a significant portion of the league sits around with nothing to watch for 50% of their time here, this becomes an issue.

Just to make a quick calculation as an example (not necessarily taking real numbers):
6 week regular season
3 week playoffs
3 week off-season

Teams that miss the playoffs: 12 total weeks, 6 weeks playing time, 6 weeks downtime = 50% downtime (for 4 teams)
First round exits: 12 total weeks, 7 weeks playing time, 5 weeks downtime = 41% downtime (for 8 teams)
Everyone else: 12 total weeks, 8-9 weeks playing time, 3-4 weeks downtime = 25-33% downtime (8 teams)

So first off we would have to deem what amount of downtime we find acceptable and what is too much. I would probably say that about 1/3 of the season as downtime is fine, but everything 40%+ is too much. So in this example, 12 of our 20 teams would be sitting there with over 40% downtime and four of them, the non-playoff teams, are even spending half their time here doing nothing. i think this would be a situation where we would want to look into tweaking the numbers.

Now these numbers change depending depending on how we tweak the various season stages and of course its a delicate balance. Making the regular season shorter increases downtime for everyone, making it longer reduces downtime but also leads to higher simmer burnout and makes individual sims have less meaning. Shortening the playoffs would reduce downtime for almost everyone, but would also cut into what can be seen as the most important part of the season. Shortening the off-season would reduce downtime for everyone but is often not realistic and can also contribute to burnout for the people in positions of responsibility.

I just think this is something to keep an eye on while talking about streamlining the season, just so that we don't end up taking things away on the wrong end.