Thanks for the thoughtful post Andy. The idea of rotating cities makes sense. FWIW in that same "divisional champions" announcement it's described as an "international battle." Yet the fireplace scene makes it clear nations are a thing of the past.

Many good questions still seeking an answer. I love this game! ;-)

Hello to all, I am a great fan of the original movie who decided to join this tribe. Hope you don't mind!

On to the topic at hand. While it would be a good idea to divide the teams based on which corporation owns them, a geographical format would also be appropriate, as I don't think the corps would really want travel costs to get out of hand during the regular season.

I also read on Joshua Barbieri's website about his ideas of how the League would be structured (30 teams, more than 6 corporations). Interesting, but I disagree. My ideas are:

A world-wide 36 team League, with 6 continental/regional divisions: Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, South America, and Oceania/Pacific (which would include Asian cities in places such as (as we know them) Indonesia, Phillipines, Japan, Australia, New Zealand etc. So rather than Tokyo playing in the Asian Division, they'd play in the Pacific Division. Asia is big enough and has enough cities of suitable size that the loss of such cities wouldn't be a problem.

So, what about team ownership? My feeling on this is that there are still only 6 corporations (as opposed to Joshua's idea of 30), but they each sponsor one team in each of the 6 divisions. So, for example, Houston would be the Energy representative in the North American Division, New York would be the Transport team, etc (except I'd see NY more as a Communication city, based on the fact that so many current TV/radio networks are based there). Each team would play twice (home and away) against each team in its own division (10 games) and once against each other League team with home track rotating year to year (30 games) for a grand total of 40 regular season games.

Below the 36-team World Rollerball League, each continent would have a second-tier league, with teams based in "lesser" cities (Indianapolis? LOL), playing on a similar basis.

Playoffs: it struck me as odd that after Houston's quarter-final win over Madrid, Houston's manager Rusty shouted the battle cry "New York in the FINALS!" While it is possible that the Final would be played at a previously determined neutral site, I thought of a different possibility. Let's say that there might be a "stepladder" format, similar to pro bowling, featuring the 6 division winners grouped from worst to best. The first playoff game would involve the #6 team (based on record) visiting the #5 team, the winner playing at #4, and so on up the ladder to the first-place team, who would host the Final.

So the ladder in the movie would look like this:
#1 New York
#2 Tokyo
#3 Houston
#4 Madrid
#5 and #6 unknown

What do you think?

---troy

FWIW

My problem with the League into conferences or divisions via Commodities is that if there were two New York Yankees franchises (own both by the same owner), one in the Bronx and one in Brooklyn, but the Bronx one is a winner and Brooklyn is not, why wouyld anyone want to watch the one that stinks? Energy could "sponsor" a conference (along with the others), but it get sticky if you say Energy has multiple teams competing against one another creating a problem when two Energy teams compete causing a rivalry within the corporation... this leads to "indivdualism"... the antithesis of the film.

My proble with dividing the leage into Continents, is that it evokes georgrphic boundaries not present in the film. the idea is that their are no nations... or old political boundaries... and invoking these boundaries once again leads to indivdualism.

If it wasn't for the film having a play-off strucutre that resembled North Amercian style of competition, I would have said single table, like in Europe (specifically soccer), one home, one away... top of the table is a champion. And as noted, I made a fudge by 'adding" corporations... it was the easiet way to make sense of it all and keeping with the spirit of the film.