(S25) - PT 1 - Opening Statements

[Ephenssta]

There are many things about this league that I enjoy. I have stuck around for nearly a full year since creating my first player and am currently involved in the DSFL Head Office and have my recreate playing for Kansas City this season. The DSFL does not get enough attention in the league. I understand that for most players it is merely a blip on their radar as they look towards their longer-term ISFL teams and potential future greatness. Because players spend the vast majority of their time at the ISFL level, the DSFL understandably gets less attention and sometimes even faces some negative attention that I think is underserved. The DSFL receiving less attention is not inherently a bad thing, but I believe that sometimes it can have some negative effects on the players who are new to the league. The evidence that people sometimes generally dislike the DSFL is readily available. Pings for DSFL games in the league's general server tend to have negative reactions, such as clowns, nauseated faces, the poop emoji, and similar reactions. A recent rule proposal sought to allow for players to have the option to bypass the DSFL and go straight to the ISFL after creation. Weekly predictions only feature the ISFL teams. For players who have been around for a while, this is fine since most of them probably know more about the league, but for players who have never gone to an ISFL team this can feel frustrating as you have no opportunity to get TPE by making predictions about your own league. I know this would add some work to the PT team and may require some creating tweaking of how TPE is distributed, but I would love to see season predictions and weekly predictions for DSFL teams. Perhaps players must opt in to one or the other and must maintain that choice throughout the season. I'm not sure it's a perfect answer, but I think it may be a first step. And if you're one of the people negatively reacting to the DSFL stream announcements, please think for a few moments about how it may look to our valuable new users to be seeing that kind of negative attention on their games. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.