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Coincidentally, I arrived at this by pursuing a homegrown team

I have been at this a long time (40 seasons now) and never made it past D3. There have been some close calls and heartbreaking losses. Unfortunate injuries and bad decisions. But I was in a brutal D3 where I couldn't compete and the fan support was so low that I couldn't afford better players. I blew it up after losing a Cup game because that was my only hope of raising fan support.

I had drafted a couple of guys who were useful and the next season drafted a Superstar with a really high starting TSP. I had been reading about home grown teams and thought, why not? I started dumping cash into scouting in hopes of landing a cornerstone player.

I focused on 19 year olds since I had seen a video about how they had changed the draft to make them more useful. It would also line up with the Superstar I was already training. A couple of 19 YO and the 2 20 YO I could train as backups.

I spent over 400K on scouting. I identified a couple of guys who looked good. I was really high on one because his box score was phenomenal. I was really hoping for an ATG player. Instead, I got a HOF and MVP. I ended up selling them for a little over 200k in the end.

I sold them because I found a couple of guys on the TL whose skills lined up better with the players I was already training. It became obvious to me that I was better off dumping the guys I had spent so much money drafting. One of the guys I bought is on Slovenia's U21 team. The other 2 are borderline U21 players, but probably won't make it because the US produces so many players.

Part of the problem is the way training works. It takes 4-5 seasons to train a player. If you are trying to build a team with homegrown players, you really have to hit on the draft. But if you draft a great guard one season and a great center the next, what do you do? Because you may not draft another great player for 5 or 6 seasons.

But the real limiting factor is the fan support. I went 19-3 with my Utopia team, but couldn't raise my bleacher prices beyond 5 until the very end of the season. And you can be going along great and lose a game to your rival by 2 points and 5000 people stay away. And I have no idea how a homegrown team satisfies the fans that want the GM to do something to make the team better.

It's just the whole package. You can't really train players in a competitive league. And you have to time your promotion right because if you do it too early, the fans will punish you. And once you have trained guards, you'll probably have to play them at forward so you can train secondaries for your big men. None of it makes sense.

But trying to do all that and depend on the draft? Ugh

The crazy thing is I have drafted an ATG and 2 HOF guards in drafts that I really didn't scout.

My strategy now is to buy 2 drafting points a week. In a couple of seasons when the current training class is fully trained, I might have enough to try again.

I appreciate the offer, but I have one goal now and it's to get to D2 in the US. Not even sure it's possible in Utopia

I am 65 years old and would like to do this before I die. Not sure this would be the best path to do it

Maybe in a couple of seasons, I'll give it a shot. But I suspect it takes some forethought and more than a little luck

Coincidentally, I arrived at this by pursuing a homegrown team
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Once again your excellent reply requires a good, thorough reply, but as HGL (Home-Grown League) preseason preparations are in progress, that needs to wait a bit longer (as they take lots of time).

Speaking of which, HGL is what GM-MrJ was referring to as "HG-only competition" in his previous post.
In the case you (or anyone else) would be interested for becoming HG team partly due to the aspect of 'being able to play in a free league reserved strictly for HG teams', direct links to such league can be found from here:
- HGL Season 6 main thread, here: (332267.1) and
- HGL Scores-thread, here: (332268.1)

Anyway, I'll get back to you bit later with a proper reply - thanks for your thorough message that once again had many good points in it that I agree and recognize from my experience!

My simple to-the-point 2 ¢:

If you’re drafting for the joy of a HG team, then it’s totally worth it, enjoy the fun.

If you’re drafting for a good training prospect (up to a MVP), it’s way easier and probably cheaper to find one in the flood of rookies on the TL in the first week or so.

If you’re drafting for a great / NT prospect, you’ll need to hit in the draft or have a boat load of cash for the TL. Good luck.

If you’re drafting to make money on the TL, don’t. It’s like playing the lottery: You may get lucky, but probably not.

Draft entry is only number twenty it might change