VPL: Growing & Changing With The Times

My brother, close friends and myself played Madden (just like everyone else) for recreation and in the summer of 1998, the Virtual Playaz League was born with the release of Madden NFL 99. We were a bunch of grown, professional men that wanted to feature a little more competition to enlighten and prove who was the best video football player among us. It started off with my brother Gfada, his best friend Sam, a close family friend Ifeanyi, his buddy Eric, my cousin Playa One, and yours truly, Execution. Sam was the VPL’s first commissioner and he made the schedule. Since there were only six of us, players chose their favorite team to play with. This way, there were no excuses. In addition, he introduced a format where we had to face each other eight times during the season, for a total of 40 games played. The top four players made the postseason, with a best of 5 in the first round and a best of 7 final series. The following season, I became the commissioner and we added my best friend Dot Com and Skywalker, Sam’s brother.

Looking back at it now, I am like … WOW!

Fast forward to the future, I have now been the commissioner of the VPL for the last 4 seasons. We had basically run the league with 8 or 9 players (during the Madden 2002 season campaign) until this season when we had 20 players in the fold. It helped that I was the reigning champion of the famed Mid-Atlantic House Of Ballers (HOB) and was able to attract some nationally renowned ballers like Mad Guru, E*, ThaWidowMaker (DC EA Sports Champ) and D-Train (Chicago EA Sports Champ) just to name a few, to join the league and try out our format. Typically, I would have 2 divisions (or conferences), however, this season, I decided to try something new to spice things up. All 20 players (or GM’s as I like to refer to them) were in one big division. We kept the current theme whereby the home team would host what is called a series (2 games in one setting), for instance if the schedule shows Execution at Mad Guru, this means that I would go to Guru’s house for a 2-game set. His team would play host to my team in both games. Players have the option of using the grudge match feature to complete the series.

I could have had more than 20 players, but I am more interested in committed ballers. I prefer to have quality over quantity. In addition, this way, players would have a fighting chance, using more quality teams than being stuck with the Texans, the Bengals, or any traditional lower-tiered teams. I am more interested in my GM’s having a great time during the season. We only run one season, so we try to make it count.

The schedule was set over 14 consecutive weeks, with GM’s facing 14 out of 19 possible opponents in a 2-game set, for a total of 28 games. The top 12 players would make the playoffs, giving everyone a fair chance to make the postseason. The top four GM’s get a first round bye. The VPL Gladiator Bowl, as we call it, is our single game elimination, playoff tournament in a college basketball, March madness, in a set bracket system. This means that during the wild card round, if the #12 seed should get past the #5 seed, next they would meet the #4 seed instead of playing the #1 seed, as the traditional lowest seed remaining. Keeping that in mind, I included a bonus rewarding the number one seed in the playoffs, just in case he should have a slip up.

The GM’s and myself found this extremely exciting. I figured that the multiple games would produce the appropriate seeds accordingly. Historically in the VPL, there are rarely any upsets as the top seeds normally advance to the final. The excitement is just like March madness, everyone wondered if the Gladiator Bowl would feature the top 2 seeds, or would one or even both of them be eliminated, which happened to be the case this season when #4 seed Ruckus defeated #6 seed DaPlayMaker (who upset E* and D-Train along the way) in this seasons championship game.

Before we could get to the championship game, this was a very demanding season, as it should be expected, moving up from 9 to 20, very competitive players. It is tough enough trying to schedule time, and getting to your opponents house for one game. Remember, in the VPL, you have to play your opponent twice, in one setting! So, naturally, the number one issue is getting the GM’s to play their games during the scheduled week. If a player should fall behind by 3 weeks, for instance, they would be 6 games behind. This would make it incredibly difficult to make up over the season. It is tough to keep things moving at full steam. Therefore, the main things that I highly recommend ballers to have are cell phones and email addresses. I have all the GM’s numbers programmed on my cell, and as soon as someone calls to tell me that they could not get a hold of their opponent, I try to hook them up on a 3 way connection.

We had one major in-house issue to deal with over the season. I had to make a tough decision to cut one of our ballers when he became ill. At the time, he was already 6 games behind schedule, and then informed me that he needed, at least, another additional 2 to 3 weeks before deciding if he could resume his playing activities. Unfortunately, I did an NFL type, pink slip style, by sending an email replacing the GM for another one. Though as fate would have it, the replacement player only lasted 4 weeks, forcing me to forfeit his remaining games anyway. Besides that, I am proud to say that I believe that the season was quite a success! It could not have been possible without dedicated, committed, humble and professional ballers. We now have a waiting list for the next season.

Finally, all of the GM’s have given me a resounding vote of confidence and their stamp of approval to be the commissioner for the Madden 2004 season. Some of them have also added their own adjectives to define the moniker, Ex (as in Excitement, Example, Excellent). I am blessed and looking forward to having the opportunity to do it all over again … well, hopefully, next season I will win!