To promote or not to promote? A question which spins in the minds of most Hattrick managers. On the dictionary, promotion may seem a beautiful word, meaning that you have advanced in life. But is it actually an advancement? What if you promoted – gained the 10% supporter growth, but lose nearly all the matches, drop 10 supporters every round, and then get demoted, losing your 10% again. Worst still, what if you fail to get demoted, get stuck for one more season in the division, and watch day after day as your beloved team deteriorates?
A phemomenon ever-present in small to medium sized leagues is that how the quality level of the teams drop from a higher division to a lower. For larger and older leagues, the transition from division to division had more or less been smoothen. As for the leagues types mentioned earlier we could see a team which barely survive in a certain division, when entering a lower division, could dominated it. Likewise, a team who is totally unable to survive in the division, when demoted, could survive well and easily bag a top four finish. So is it correct to say if a team finds itself not a contender for the title, demotion is the answer? I would think so. When you play in a division losing half your matches, other than losing the supporters and supporters income, you actually also lose a chance to maximise your arena income and not to mention the chance to go further in the national cup. And then there’s the prize money you get when you finish the season on podium.
So, compare this to what the word ‘promotion’ and ‘demotion’ actually means, is there a problem with the Hattrick system? Does promotion just stand as a sort of honour rather than a road to progress of your club? Look at the difference between the German Bundesliga and their second division, or take a look at the number of clubs going bankrupt after dropping out of the EPL. But then again, that is just a small percentage in the large football world. The lesser divisions in Germany and England and the rest of the world also suffer a little from the above-mentioned syndrome. However, the system usually doesn’t act as mean to you as the Hattrick system when you find it hard to survive in a higher division. Then, there are also some bad examples like the Malaysian league system where a division two club could easily play better than a division one club.
Good article!
My personal experience: I struggled for quite a while in Dutch VI division until I suddenly found that I had a shot at the title, which I took, That meant promoting to V. Although I didn’t do badly (lasted 3 seasons), my club stopped developing. In the third season I switched to defender training and lost a lot of matches. Every week supporters ran away, and on top of that I lost 10% after demoting. To make matters worse, Hattrick changed the ticket sales system, so I am now left with fewer fans than before I promoted, and a stadium that is never sold out any more. What kind of a game is Hattrick when winning isn’t the best thing you can do?