Welcome to a new year of the GML, this year will be our first with 32 owners and we’re excited to have all of you in the league. This is a general overview of what to expect in the weeks ahead and what needs to be done so you are ready to start the season on Friday, August 26th.

Our mission statement for the GML is to make this league those most competitive sim league in Madden Land. We use some of the toughest sliders of any league, and as far as I know we are the only 12m quarter league in existence. This is a community driven league, which means decisions are made based on owner majority, not a singular commissioner. I (GratwickBills) handle day to day admin responsibilities, but all decisions/issues between owners and/or punishments are decided by our independent commissioner Ernie Green.

Sportsmanship and a positive community are the pillars of the GML.  Inevitably there will be some blowouts if you stick around long enough blowouts will happen to everyone. Do not quit and do not spam. Use the time remaining in a blowout like you would a scrimmage. Try new plays, give some reps to younger players and just focus on improving your game for the next week. 

This league is about the long term, 10+ played seasons and another 10 sim seasons. If you do not focus on building and maintaining your team for the long run, you will struggle in this league. Bad seasons will happen to most of us, use it as an opportunity to groom players and nail your drafts. 

If you mortgage your future and then have bad seasons, you will have no way to recover and improve, DO NOT DO IT.  Any owner that puts themselves in this position will be in danger of losing their team. 

LEAGUE CHAT
- Complaining
If you have any issue with how another player plays, you must file a formal complaint with the league commissioner Ernie Green. This is done with a direct message to him on groupme with a link to the video and a timecode of an example. If you don’t care enough to do this, it's not important enough to be addressed. Complaining in the chat, especially during a game will result in disciplinary action taken against your team. With 32 owners, if every one of us groans about a bad play against us, the chat will be nothing but endless griping.

- Trade Talk
A separate ‘Trade Block’ chat is to be used for trade talk only. This is too thin out the main chat from all the wheeling and dealing that will be happening.

- Scheduling Games
The process for scheduling games is as follows. The home team is responsible for sending a direct message to the visiting team with 3 windows of availability for the 48-hour advance window. The visiting must pick one of those 3 times. If they cannot make one of those 3 times, then the HOME team has the option of playing the CPU or a straight sim. We strongly encourage the home team to contact the visiting team after you finish your previous game.  Ex: It’s week 3 and in week 4 I’ll be home against the Cardinals. As soon as I finish my week 3 game, I send a message to the Owner of the Cardinals with my availability. Done like this, all games should be pretty much scheduled before we advance to the new week.

Home team invites/hosts road team broadcasts unless otherwise decided by owners on a game to game basis.

FINANCES
This is an owner league so you are responsible for every aspect of your team. If you mortgage your future to try and “win now”, there will be consequences when the ‘future’ catches up to you. If you lose your team due to financial responsibility you are out of the league. So take this into consideration when you making ridiculous bids on free agents and giving huge bonuses to your favorite guys.

If you need help running your finances our veteran owners are more than happy to offer advice. Our returning owners are not here to prey on you, they are here to help coach you up and ensure everyone is eventually on the same playing field.  Parity is our goal.

COMMITTEES
- Gameplay Committee
This committee is responsible for everything that happens on the field. The slider settings, penalties and rules. (including suggesting rules for league vote each off-season) The gameplay committee consists of the Cardinals, Dolphins, Saints.

- Trades/Personnel Committee
This committee is responsible for everything that happens off the field when it comes to roster building. The purpose of this committee is to ensure there is no team stacking nor fly-by-nights that burn a franchise for seasons to come. Any trades involving first round picks or players over 90 overall MUST have approval from the trade committee.
The trade committee consists of the Lions, Eagles, Raiders

NOTE: Any owner is free to join a committee after one full season in the GML

LEAGUE CONTENT
All owners are encouraged to cover their team with as much multi-media as you like. Game recap blogs are an easy place to start, creating highlights and submitting them for plays of the week, (how-to’s will be posted in the forum) talking during your broadcasts, or whatever else you want to do with your team is welcomed.

If you would like to be actively engaged in creating content for the league as a whole please send me a direct message about where you’d like to get involved. Here are just some of the areas we can use owner help: DL Site Curation, Plays of the week curation, Podcast host, Owner Interviewer, Draft Grades, play-by-play guys, whatever else we come up with…

STREAMING GAMES
All games must be streamed to Youtube. The reason for this is because Youtube automatically archives all games and allows each owner to scout previous games if they choose to do so. If you wish to stream to Youtube and Twitch or other platforms you are welcomed to do so, I can point you to some tutorials if you need help setting this up.

- We prefer everyone labels their games as such “Gratwick Bills 2016: Week 1 (@Patriots)”, If you stream other games to your channel we insist you label your GML games.

- Super Bowls will be streamed to the Gratwick Madden League channel with Play-by-Play.

- All owners must provide the league with a link to Your Youtube Channel before August 15. This will be your confirmation that you have read this introduction and confirmed your place in the GML.  Any owners who have not confirmed their spot in the league by August 15, will be put at the bottom of the waiting list and their team will be made available to the first name on the list.

Thank you for joining the GML and we look forward to you being a part of the league for many seasons to come.

Last edited by GratwickBills (1469987319)