TWL - step it up

Just my honest opinion about the current state of the TWL league. I’m not trying to be a whiny complainer, its just that I would really hate to see this league slowly die after gaining plenty of momentum. TWL was the first league we got into, and it has been a lot of fun for the past 2 seasons. But recently it feels like there are things that could be improved with the league, which should be changed IMO if they want to maintain themselves as a viable option to CEVO and ESEA but for lower-end teams.

Are we going to have to wait another month or more like last season for the admins to stop ‘being busy’ and ‘wait for the div1 teams’ before we can start? It would be nice to have a little more communication from the admin folks. I mean you guys have been doing a great job, I still remember TrainRiderJ himself joining our first ever TWL qualifier match in Season 4 to resolve some issues. The discussion threads about map choices and unlock bans are great too, but it’s been over a month since those were started. There was also talk about integrating TF2lobby for stat-tracking, but that discussion went nowhere as well. Just thinking that maybe its time to bring in some people to make the scheduling and communication a little faster and smoother.

It’s obvious you guys can’t compete with ESEA in terms of drawing in the top teams with prizes, but what you guys CAN do (and did do for a while back then) is making it a much more enjoyable process for all the teams by making sure everyone has fun, solid competition, and that everyone’s opinions (not just a certain few ‘admin friends’) are taken into consideration when deciding on league issues. As of now, no high-level team (and by this, I mean mid+) will consider joining TWL on top of the 2 matches a week for ESEA and possibly another one for CEVO because there is no incentive at all, despite all the complaints about ESEA scheduling, the client, and CEVO map rotation. Even among the lower-end teams I sense frustration with not having a clear answer on qualifier scheduling and team placements, with multiple threads and posts in the forums.

So what do I suggest doing? 1) Get new admins, or get more admins. You guys are too busy and don’t seem to care as much anymore, it’s the sad truth. Get people who are actually passionate about running a league, people who are involved with teams, who have played in the league before. 2) Putting out a schedule (even if it’s a rough estimate) on when the season will start. 3) Get all qualifier matches scheduled, NOW. 4) Place all teams from last season into their proper divisions, start preseason matches for these teams. 5) Get rid of Division 1. You aren’t going to attract any high level teams, and most mid teams are already in div2. Keep them there or call it div1 and change the division numbering for 3 and 4 as well.

and lastly what I think is the most important: 6) ADVERTISE. Talk to commFT people, post on GotFrag, tf2f, other community forums and websites. There is an explosion of low/mid teams right now, as well as low teams just starting out, and you could easily fill 5 divisions of them if you wanted to. Get people to cover the leagues, post the coverage on the forums or on other community sites – not everyone in the community only cares about ESEA-I, just like how people care about college and high school football too. The thing is, you have get the word out, and to give these low/mid teams a reason to stick around and stay interested.