I Hate Brands

[Hybrid1486 577]

For the record, this will likely be the only time I ever directly benefit from the existence of brands aside from my initial submission when they were first being created, before I knew what they would become.

 

If you’re a newer VHL player, you’d be forgiven for not knowing who I am. I’m not in the Discord anymore and I barely post on the site aside from a weekly VHL.com and the occasional fantasy section post. I say this because I know my voice doesn’t carry much weight around here, and I’m not staging any sort of protest, but I’d rather not benefit from a system that I feel needs to die a quick and painful death.

 

Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit, so I guess I’ll start with the positives. The people running the brands seem to largely be newer players and giving them a window into running a team is something that will help the league in the long run. It’s also good to see VHLM players forced into paying slots, something that will especially help the first-gens.

 

Honestly, my real problem with brands isn’t so much with the system itself, but with the VHL’s need to constantly have games or tournaments or new teams going on all the time. The VHL? Obviously. VHLM? Sure, it fills a need. World Cup? Meh, but if international play is your thing it fills a niche.

 

World Juniors? Is that really necessary? The World Cup is forced as it is…plying that crap with players as soon as they get into the league really feels like a waste of time. But even that doesn’t compare to the brands. We made up companies and we’re forcing some weird loyalty system into it? I know sponsorships are real, but there aren’t tournaments based entirely around them in the real world, so it’s not filling that niche.

 

Really…why does this league need so many leagues? Is it really that terrible to have a week or two where there aren’t games being simmed daily? Is that such a damn travesty that we have to force some stupid tournament into the middle of the offseason every goddamn year?

 

The brand system really looks like a second VHL on its face. Eight teams, mostly three-year contracts…it may only be a tournament, but the teams are going to look like VHL teams. They’ll probably look a bit better, since they’ll be balanced and nobody’s going to be tanking anything. It’d be nice if the VHL could look like that, but the system in place has been around more or less since the beginning and it’s not going to change.

 

So, yeah. I’m sorry to the brand managers who have asked me or have considered asking me to sign with them, but I’m not interested, and I hope your job goes away as soon as possible. Like I said, I know the brands aren’t going anywhere and I’m sure somebody’s going to give some half-assed defense about the brands because they’re “cool” or some other vague crap, and to that I say, “fine.” I really don’t want to crap all over things people enjoy. I just wanted to get that off my chest and earn an extra six TPE while doing it.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

Preach @Hybrid1486

[Beaviss 4,956]

Agreed.....

[Hybrid1486 577]

Glad to see I'm not alone

[Victor 10,829]

They're cool.

 

There are also six teams so more world cup depth level than actual VHL.

 

I also don't really care but if we're going to bring them in I don't know what else we'd use them for.

[Devise 4,475]

Well I certainly wasn't expecting the end result of this post to be "I Hate Brands because the full balanced teams they bring across both leagues is a balance I wish was in the main league, and not in so many of these side leagues that we run too many of." Not that I entirely disagree with you, however I do think the added wrinkle that this tournament only happens every second off-season will positively influence the decisions GM's make in the season in which there isn't a tournament. I think it does add a little bit of a wrinkle/layer.

 

I do think you make some solid points though. Ultimately I think for us it's important to focus on things that get members excited, provided they aren't ruining the balance of the league. You said it yourself really where a big reason the stable part of the league doesn't see much change is due to the establishment of it. 

 

 

[Advantage 2,891]

Yep, it was a stupid idea. 

[Will 4,660]

Not a huge on it either