Promotion, Relegation & Tournament Rules

Version 1.1 — March 2026

Season Format

• 2 seasons per year, 16 weeks each
• Season 1: Mid-January through early May (Week 1 starts ~January 12)
• Season 2: Late July through mid-November (Week 1 starts ~July 27)
• Offseason 1 (Summer): ~12 weeks (May through July)
• Offseason 2 (Winter/Holidays): ~8 weeks (November through January)
• Offseason qualifying tournaments run during the first 2–3 weeks of each offseason
• Promotion and relegation is processed after every season, beginning after Season 1

Promotion Rules

Standard Promotion

• The champion (1st place) of every league promotes to the parent league at the depth above
• This is automatic — no qualifying needed
• Exception: leagues that feed into a parent league with more than 4 child leagues require their champions to compete in an offseason qualifying tournament (see Qualifying Tournaments)

Additional Promotion (Even-Number Balancing)

• If the parent league ends up with an odd number of teams after standard promotion/relegation, the best second-place finisher from among the child leagues also promotes
• "Best second-place" is determined by season record, then point differential as tiebreaker
• In the case of qualifying tournaments, "best second-place" is the highest-finishing eliminated team
• This team is in the yellow zone (Potential Promotion) during the season

Nassau and Suffolk Exception

• Nassau League and Suffolk League each have only 1 child county league but relegate 2 teams (the minimum)
• Therefore, the top 2 teams from Nassau County League and Suffolk County League always promote
• Both 1st and 2nd place in these county leagues are in the green zone (Guaranteed Promotion)

Promotion Zone Display

Promotion Tickets (Depth 5 — State League)

• Until Regional B (Depth 4) activates, the State League champion earns a Promotion Ticket instead of actually promoting
• The ticket grants: 2 seasons of demotion protection + guaranteed promotion when Regional B launches
• Multiple ticket holders can accumulate across seasons (one new ticket per season)
• When Regional B launches, all accumulated ticket holders promote simultaneously

Demotion Protection

• All league champions are granted a single-season demotion protection ticket upon promotion to their new league
• All league runner-up (2nd place) teams are granted a single-season demotion protection ticket for their current league
• A team with demotion protection cannot be placed in the relegation zone. If their season record would otherwise place them there, the next-lowest-ranked team without protection is relegated instead.
• Demotion protection lasts for 1 season only and does not stack
• State League Promotion Ticket holders receive 2 seasons of demotion protection

Relegation Rules

Standard Relegation

• Minimum: 2 teams relegated per league per season
• Maximum: 4 teams relegated per league per season
• The relegated teams are the bottom-finishing teams in the league standings
• Teams with demotion protection cannot be relegated (the next eligible team takes their place)

Relegation by League Type

Depth 5 — State League (4 child leagues):

• Relegates 4 teams (1 per State Regional league)
• Each relegated team returns to whichever State Regional league they geographically belong to

Depth 6 — State Regional (3–4 child leagues):

• Relegates to match child count: 3 or 4 teams
• Capital & North: relegates 3
• Central & Western, NYC Metro, Downstate: relegate 4 each
• Each relegated team returns to the Division league they geographically belong to

Depth 7 — Division (0–11 child leagues):

• If 0 child leagues (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx & SI): NO relegation — bottom of the pyramid
• If 1 child league (Nassau, Suffolk): relegates 2 (minimum), both go to the single child county league
• If 2–4 child leagues: relegates to match child count
• If 5+ child leagues: relegates 4 (maximum cap)
• Each relegated team returns to the County league they geographically belong to

Depth 8 — County:

• If 0 child leagues (most counties): NO relegation — bottom of the pyramid
• If 1–4 child leagues: relegates to match child count
• Suffolk County: relegates 4 (has 4 Local leagues)
• Nassau County: relegates 3 (has 3 Local leagues)
• Orange, Dutchess, Westchester, Jefferson, Oneida: relegate 2 each

Depth 9 — Local:

• NO relegation — absolute bottom of the pyramid

Geographic Return Rule

Relegated teams always return to the specific child league that matches their geographic origin (county, borough, etc.). A team from Saratoga County playing in the State League gets relegated back through Capital & North → Capital District → Saratoga County, not to a random league.

Relegation Zone Display

Relegation Cap & Qualifying Tournaments

When a Division league (Depth 7) has more child county leagues than the relegation cap of 4, the child league champions cannot all automatically promote. They must compete in an offseason qualifying tournament.

Leagues Requiring Qualifying Tournaments

Division League	Child Counties	Promotion Spots	Champions in Qualifier
North Country	11	4	11
Rochester	9	4	9
Southern Tier	9	4	9
Mohawk Valley	6	4	6
Buffalo	5	4	5

Qualifying Tournament Formats

Single elimination with byes for top-seeded teams. Completed in 2–3 weeks during the offseason. Seeds are determined by regular season record of the county league champion.

Seeding Rules

Playoff Seeding

• Single elimination bracket: highest seed plays lowest seed of qualifying teams
• Seeds are determined by:
  1. Best overall regular season record (wins, then win percentage)
  2. Head-to-head matchup results from regular season
  3. Greater margin of victory across all combined regular season matches
• Margin of victory is calculated as a percentage to normalize across different competition types (community votes, running times, step counts, etc.)
• A qualifying playoff team that did not win their group can still be seeded higher than another qualifying team that did win their group, based on the above criteria

Qualifying Tournament Seeding

• Seeds based on regular season record of the county league champion
• Head-to-head tiebreaker applies if cross-league play occurred during the regular season
• Margin of victory percentage as final tiebreaker

Even-Number Balancing Algorithm

After all standard promotions and relegations are processed for a season transition, run this check top-down (Depth 5 first, then 6, then 7, then 8):

1. Calculate the league's new team count after all movement
2. If the count is ODD: promote one additional team from below
   • The best second-place finisher from among the child leagues (by season record)
   • If child leagues had qualifying tournaments, the highest-finishing eliminated team from the tournament gets promoted instead
3. If that causes a child league to become odd: the child league applies the same rule recursively with its own child leagues
4. Continue until all leagues have even team counts

Cross-League Bye Matchups

For leagues at the bottom of their pyramid with odd numbers of teams. This applies to:

• All Depth 8 and Depth 9 leagues (county and local)
• Depth 7 borough leagues with no child leagues (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx & SI)
• Any league that is the bottom of its pyramid branch

Leagues that are not at the bottom of their pyramid will always have even numbers per the even-number balancing algorithm.

Bye Matchup Rules

• Pair with a geographically adjacent odd-numbered league from the same depth
• Same parent league preferred for pairing; same regional parent as fallback
• Each week, the team on bye plays against the bye team from the partner league
• This match counts toward regular season standings
• Pairings are set pre-season based on geographic proximity
• If no suitable partner exists: bye team competes in the weekly challenge solo, scored against league median
• Bye weeks are distributed evenly: no team should have 2 bye weeks until every other team has had 1, and so on

Season 1 Special Rules

• Season 1 begins July 27, 2026
• Promotion and relegation are processed after Season 1 based on Season 1 results
• Qualifying tournaments run during the first offseason
• The State League champion earns the first Promotion Ticket
• Leagues with fewer teams than their full capacity will use the matchup structure for their actual team count (e.g., if only 8 of 20 State League spots are filled, use the 8-team matchup format)

Gold Zone — Promotion Ticket Display

Future: Interstate Competition

When multiple states are active:

• Large states (NY, CA, TX, FL, PA, IL) earn guaranteed promotion bids to Regional B
• Small states compete in interstate qualifying tournaments during the offseason
• Tournament format: single elimination with byes, same structure as county qualifiers
• Regional groupings determine which small states compete against each other
• Bid allocation proportional to state's active team count and competitive depth