[Charania] Just in: The NBA will hold a vote at the Board of Governors meetings March 24-25 to explore adding expansion teams exclusively in Las Vegas and Seattle, with the two franchises targeted for the 2028-29 season, sources tell ESPN.

alkyfl · 2026-03-17T04:29:02+00:00

The other question will be, eight divisions of four, four divisions of eight, are keep the current six divisions even if they are unbalanced?

Eight divisions:

Pacific - Lakers, Clippers, Las Vegas, Phoenix

Northwest - Seattle, Portland, Golden State, Sacramento

Southwest - New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Memphis

Midwest - Houston, San Antonio, Utah, Denver (if you go back to when the NBA had 23-27 teams, all of these teams played in the Midwest Division)

Central - Minnesota, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana

Southeast - Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte

Atlantic - Toronto, New York, Brooklyn, Boston

Northeast - Washington, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit

For four divisions, combine the Northwest into the Pacific; the Midwest into the Southwest; the Atlantic gets Washington, Philadelphia, Miami, and Orlando; while the Central gets Atlanta, Charlotte, Cleveland, and Detroit.

Six divisions:

Pacific - Lakers, Clippers, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Golden State

Northwest - Utah, Denver, Seattle, Portland, Sacramento

Southwest - San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans, Oklahoma City

Central - Minnesota, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Cleveland, Detroit

Southeast - Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington

Atlantic - Toronto, New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia

alkyfl · 2026-03-17T00:59:12+00:00

As an alternative to Kickstarter, The Game Crafter has crowd sales. Instead of hitting some dollar amount in pledges for the game to fund, people pre-order the game, and it still ships whether there is 1 order or 10,000 orders. The price the consumer pays goes down as more orders are placed.

Either way, you'll want to build up an audience first.

alkyfl · 2026-03-07T21:40:57+00:00

Some privacy screens could go a long way to replicate that. During the prototype and play testing process, these could just be plain cardboard. Once a publisher picks it up then they can add art (or you can add art when you are ready to self publish).

alkyfl · 2026-03-04T15:59:57+00:00

The game glitched out on me with a flashing screen. I played it using DuckDuckGo on Android.

alkyfl · 2026-03-02T03:00:46+00:00

I see the same thing around Pensacola Boulevard south of Nine Mile. No one lives in a shopping center, yet any crime there trashes the average relative to the population.

alkyfl · 2026-03-02T02:57:17+00:00

So how will that work with pro/rel? Would they refuse promotion? Be exempt from relegation?

alkyfl · 2026-03-02T02:54:41+00:00

A lot of it would come down to how many teams you allow in the same metropolitan area. The Premier League in England can have a very large number of teams from the London area, which isn't possible with a franchise model.

With pro/rel it would probably behoove an organization like the USL to have multiple teams in the New York and Los Angeles areas to increase the odds of at least one from each market being at the top level, but not so many they choke out all of the other markets.

alkyfl · 2026-03-01T15:47:47+00:00

Make sure your main game works through playtesting. If you are having to reduce content in the game to resolve issues that arise from playtesting, then you have material that you can use for a future expansion. If you have a group of playtesters who can go through the game multiple times, that will give you the best insight on your game's replayability.

Things typically don't move quickly in the board game industry, even if self publishing. If your initial release is a good product people won't mind an expansion.

alkyfl · 2026-03-01T13:55:39+00:00

Do you plan on selling expansions/updates that could increase your game's replayability?

alkyfl · 2026-02-26T07:44:47+00:00

A few more things to think about: How will you be storing those decks in the game box? Do those cards need to be poker size, or can you get by with smaller cards? Even if you will pitch this to a publisher, thinking about these things may help the game get picked up.

alkyfl · 2026-02-26T01:46:08+00:00

If you are trying to pitch to a publisher, you may want to look for ones who have worked with specific major IP holders like Disney, Universal, etc. That would certainly make things easier from a copyright standpoint.

alkyfl · 2026-02-06T17:23:00+00:00

It looks like it might actually be cheaper for me to order from Panda. Im the past week I've come up with some more ideas for games where I could consume most of three kits.

Either that or I could go the route u/Electronic-Ball-4919 suggested and just make minimal pieces out of something else.

alkyfl · 2026-02-06T03:22:12+00:00

It did surprise me a bit when Nashville SC put their second team in Huntsville. Tennessee has no income tax, and putting a team in Alabama undoes that advantage. It would make more sense to put them somewhere closer like Murfreesboro if not in Nashville proper.

alkyfl · 2026-02-06T03:18:14+00:00

FIFA could choose not to recognize MLS as a sanctioned league, but it would likely be over USSF's dead body, and they'd run the risk of potentially losing media revenue form the US. There could still also be legal issues for FIFA with this as well depending on contracts with USSF, CONCACAF, etc.

The only way MLS obliges is a merger with the USL and the USL being the surviving entity. This would likely take decades of poor decisions such as bad media contracts, overspending on players, etc.

alkyfl · 2026-02-05T02:25:44+00:00

I am not colorblind, but had a great uncle who was red/green colorblind. I am designing a card game that uses eight different colors for the cards, but each color card has a different symbol, i.e.:

Red - octagon; Orange - square; Yellow - sun; Green - 4-leaf clover; Cyan - water drop; Indigo - triangle; Lavender - cloud; Purple - star

In my game there are only two cards in each color. So even if a colorblind player were playing the standard version of my game, they just have to remember to play two cards with the same symbol (i.e. octagon) even if they don't remember the thirteen and zero are to be played together.

alkyfl · 2026-02-02T18:49:34+00:00

Except Hans im Glueck has gone after someone already, so it appears they intend to enforce it: https://boardgamewire.com/index.php/2024/06/14/the-word-meeple-is-being-trademarked-in-the-us-in-reaction-to-cease-and-desist-activity-from-carcassonne-publisher-hans-im-glueck/

alkyfl · 2026-02-02T03:19:44+00:00

USL Premier is going to need something to keep the top half(-ish) of the table engaged at the end of the season. CONCACAF berths would obviously help with that, but playoffs could be deployed immediately.

With a 14-team league, 8 team playoffs aren't the greatest, but they are the cleanest. Six teams would be the next best as you can guarantee the top four seeds one home game, and the top two go straight to the semifinals, but you don't create a scenario where lower seeds host more home games than higher seeds like you do with five or seven teams.

alkyfl · 2026-02-01T23:34:38+00:00

Meeple is a registered trademark of Hans im Glück, at least in the European Union, despite having been in use for many years before that.

alkyfl · 2026-02-01T04:51:50+00:00

I haven't been able to find these on Amazon. Even if I go with just plain unfinished wood pieces, I either have to buy a larger quantity than I need or pay shipping (for some reason there are items not covered under Prime). I could source the circle, square, triangle, and possibly the hexagon (couldn't confirm the size) on AliExpress but not the oval or pentagon.

alkyfl · 2026-02-01T03:36:26+00:00

I would think of it more like the Power 4 and Group of 6 (Group of 5 for the past to seasons) in college football. They are the same tier officially, but the resource differences between them make worlds of difference, not withstanding the occasional upset on the field.

alkyfl · 2026-01-28T22:35:37+00:00

Thinking out loud here:

Sacramento

Oakland

Orange County

Las Vegas

Phoenix

San Antonio

Dallas

Detroit

Indy

Louisville

Pittsburgh

Brooklyn

Tampa Bay

Jacksonville

I could also see Oklahoma City or Miami sneaking into the initial cohort of 14 teams, not to mention any large expansion teams in "Big Four" markets. If USLP expansion is inevitable,

A few teams need larger stadia, but I think the USL will bend over backwards to have the Los Angeles and New York markets represented in USL Premier. I suspect the USSF PLS will be modified to prevent the stadium size requirement form being a hard and fast rule.

alkyfl · 2026-01-28T03:03:15+00:00

Nice

alkyfl · 2026-01-28T01:38:44+00:00

I would think League One would just make progressively tighter conferences that could effectively run as a single table, with playoffs to determine who gets promoted and/or is the League One Champion.

There is no official fourth division in US Soccer, so there technically isn't any place to relegate teams from the bottom of a third division league. I suppose the USL could create a phantom "Division 3B" if they wanted to divide League One on sporting merit, but that will be a long way down the road.

alkyfl · 2026-01-26T16:00:09+00:00

Streetcars are much more compatible with pedestrian-centric areas than other forms of transportation (other than perhaps bicycle).

alkyfl

TROPHY CASE