Originally posted by WiSeIVIaN
Hey hazy. I am one of those fellas that -1'd in the voting. Here's why. I'll try not to be too "tl;dr" but it'll be worth the read. Fwiw I agree that something needs to be changed at the National Pro levels, but the suggestion in the OP is absolutely not the way to do it.
The Problem: the whole point of this thread/suggestion in the OP is that natty pro leagues are not competitive and as such something should be done. However, in order to solve a problem, you need to looks at the causes of it, and not just try to tack on a solution without some critical thinking.
The Causes. Why do Pro leagues lack parity? It is a combination of a few things. Too many National Pro leagues/teams is a big part. The fact that hugely under-leveled teams are promoted to natty pro and have zero chance to compete is another big one.
Too many National Pro teams
There simply are too many Pro leagues to have them all be competitive. To illustrate this point I am going to look at the 16 National League conference champs from last season (WL promotees) and see how many games were either lost, or won by 60 points or less in conference (ignoring week 1). This will give a pretty lax estimation of the number of teams that are competitive in natty pro.
Competitive games
APL: African Predators 11/15
Canton Immortals 1/15
CPL: QCBC 6/15
Dallas Longhorns 11/15
EEPL: Black Hand GoW 10/15
Sofia Spiders 7/15
OPL: Devonport Devils 11/15
EEA 8/15
SAPL: Mayan Prophecy 10/15
Death Valley 8/15
SEAPL: New York Empire 9/15
Garudas 7/15
USAPL: Chicago Hedgehogs 6/15
ATKM 11/15
WEPL: Ice and Fire 12/15
Black Sea Squall 10/15
Demoting WL teams 16/16.
So if we add all the "competitive teams, we are left with.... 154 teams. Divide that by 32 teams in a league and we are left with 4.8 competitive national pro leagues. Since 60 points was damn relaxed as far as blowouts, I would contend that rounding down to 4 is better than having that ugly 5.
Making 2 "elite pro' and 6 "shitty pro" is a horrible way to solve this problem, and league reduction is a MUCH better way.
Underleveled teams promoted to Natty Pro who have no choice but to be uncompetitie
Lisbon Crusaders: http://goallineblitz.com/game/team.pl?team_id=5940
This team went 8-8 in Regional Pro Elite #3 last season, and lost in the first round of the playoffs 97-21. They were then promoted to EEPL this season. Their roster is mostly made up of d319 players that have boosted to L59/60. Up against teams of L72 players they have zero choice except to lose in blowout games. A lot of Regional Pro promotes are similarly underleveled teams who are forced to get blown out for a season or two.
d359 (which will be players at L64/65 to start the season) needs to be the absolute lowest level players that are promoting to play against L72's. Since the highest capped league currently is d279, teams then spend they d319 season in Regional Pro, and then promote to National Pro with a roster mainly made up of d359 players.
Adding another level actually compliments the reduction to 4 natty Pro leagues, because those other 4 leagues of teams will get thrown back to regional Pro. So instead of having 19 regional pro leagues, we add another capped level which'll keep regional pro at a similar number of teams.
And to anyone complaining about adding an extra level to the promotion system, please realize that your first season in National Pro you are gonna get absolutely reamed and have zero chance at a WL promotion. As such, this extra level would give you another competitive/fun season and take away an awful one.
This extra cap level would be d261-d320
Why I don't like the suggestion in the OP
Because all catch's OP is doing is making 2 more leagues competitive and leaving the other 6 to their current plight. It also does not attack any of the issues, but rather just looks like putting a band-aid on top of a gunshot wound.
Furthermore, the 50% team turnover in the WL is the result of it getting tacked on to the old pyramid structure, so its a bit naive to act like the 50% turnover as done with great purpose or thought.
If for some crazy reason we go to hemisphere leagues, those leagues absolutely should not have more team turnover (75% = retarded), and I'd contend that this is probably the chance to downsize the WL promotion/demotion so that it makes more sense, rather than creating another level with a retarded amount of promotion/demotion.
======My suggestion, which is supported by the causes of the current Natty Pro situation======
1. Reduce to 4 Natty Pro Leagues. Give them regional names that make sense. Keep each current Pro league name as a conference name. For instance, North America will have USA and Canada conferences. Europe is east and west. The last 2 leagues will be weird, but I'm sure someone besides DD can come up with a good name for those 
.
After s21, in each Pro league, promote/demote from WL like we have in the past. Then make up each new conference out of first the WL demotes to that league, and then of ALL playoff teams in both conferences of that league. So the new USAPro conference (in North America League) will be made up of 0-x WL demoting teams, and then up to the 14 (16 minus 2 in WL) Pro league playoff teams from last season. Fill in any open spots (if any) with some Regional Elite promotes.
With the non-playoff teams you need to demote them back to Regional Pro. A 1-time reshuffle based on both age, effective level, and past records makes sense. It might get a little messy, but will be great in the long-run.
2. For future seasons, you can either keep the current 16 WL promote/demote, or reduce it to 8 promote/demote (its the difference between each new Natty Pro conference champ promoting, and both the conf champ/runner up promoting. I'd contend that reducing it to 8 would be good for both WL and PL competition, but if you want to keep it at 16, that absolutely works with this idea.
Then at National Pro...
Step 1: Promote the 2 or 4 teams per league. (note you can keep the USA/EE/ect as WL team tags, except that correspond to conference instead of league)
Step 2: Demote any WL teams back to their original conference
Step 3: Demote bottom 4 teams from each Pro Conference. This will give 8x4 = 32 National Pro spots open for demotes (since WL promotes and demotes balance across all leagues)
Step 4: Promote the top 32 Regional Pro Elite teams (which will be better teams since they'll be higher leveled and packed with some former Pro demotes as well.
3. Make a new d261-d320 cap. This will allow (a) Higher leveled players for competition in uncapped regional pro, and (b) L64-65 minimum for the new National Pro. These are ages that players/teams can be competitive at.
And Bam, you actually have a solution that...
1. Solves your problems.
2. Makes sense.
3. Preserves the current regionalism of current natty pro leagues.
4. Gives you options for WL promotion (depending if you wanna keep 16 or make it 8 teams)
5. Makes Regional Pro more competitive as well.
+1 to wise is appreciate if you like this, since quoting and +1 would get a little long since I wrote a book. Also comments/critcizm on this is welcome. 
(p.s. Can we please get DD to let us rename the league structure? If you put it up for vote, I guarantee 95% of users would rather not have the current confusing minor league name structure )heck yeah dude, you should have catch22's job, he is a dumbass, and you just owned that idiot
