Wow, where to begin...
The reason I thought of a league in the first place -- aside from thinking on the nature of empires -- was that I already happen to administer a league for another game. I started a league for online play of a collectible card game called
Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, which is an intense and complex multiplayer strategy game, and not nearly as cheesy as it sounds (nor is it as cheesy or poorly designed as most CCGs, but I digress). Anyway, a lot of us play mostly online now, using a server "JOL" that one of the players designed. The first few years I started running large tournaments, and then eventually started a league in which to keep track of scores, assign games, etc. We're currently at about 75 players or so, I think. Anyway, for anyone who might be interested, info about the game can be found
here, the server can be found
here, and info about my league can be found
here. The last might be most useful for this idea, though things like sportsmanship are mostly irrelevant when we won't be playing face-to-face.
I tell you all this for several reasons: first of all, I do have some idea of how to run a league, second, I think I'm too busy to run another one. I therefore respectfully decline your nomination/appointment of myself as commissioner, though I appreciate that you have all been very gracious in treating this as my idea when, really, I don't claim ownership of it at all. If you like the idea, hey, take it, it's yours!

That said, while I don't want to run this baby, I can point out a few areas where it might be, hmm, streamlined. I think what some of you have proposed has gotten a little too complex, frankly, which may not be a bad thing from a player's perspective, but it can get downright horrid from an administrative point of view.
The metaverse as it currently exists is not far off, really, from a league; it just needs to be adapted a little to fit the league's needs. Empires for teams, characters for team-members, a scoring system, validation of game scores... these things are already tailor fit to our needs. Let's not complicate things by adding additional scoring methods or unverifiable components. Now, I say that as someone who will not be responsible for administering any of it, so take that as you will -- if the commissioner(s) think they can handle it, by all means do so. But, needless to say, I think they will be thankful later on for keeping it as simple as possible now. On that, I speak with a certain familiarity, heh. Also, the more complicated it is, the less people will sign up, as they won't want to read through an enormous thread like this one in order to figure out what the league is about; I'm not terribly surprised we haven't had too many people sign up yet -- a second thread will probably be required to get names.
I originally proposed having twelve teams, but I think we can make do with less, for now. Not being a sports fan, I don't know how the NHL or NBA does it, but there must be some fair way of making new teams out of old ones. Perhaps, when a certain number of players are reached, each existing team "donates" a player to the new team being formed. As long as the number of players on each team are kept level, I think we'll manage.
I suggest that characters and empires be designated with a few special characters to distinguish them from non-league. For example, I could call my league character LG-Ghostwes and our team would be LG-Torian Tornados. That way, it will stand out in the rankings both here and the Alt-Meta. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing stopping people from simply changing the name of one of their characters, so they could easily "retire" a character and replace it with a better one. But since it's all the same player, that shouldn't matter too much, I guess.
If Neilo is willing to do the commissioner job by himself, it might actually be better that way. Although I run my own league with as much democracy as possible, with an eye for reaching consensus on all issues, I also find that I often have to rule by decree when push comes to shove. Most of the league players know that I try to be fair about things, and if not, I take them out back and have them shot for their insubordination. Ahem. Joking aside, it really is a case where too many cooks spoil the democracy, so to speak. Having only one commissioner, but having him/her selected by the players, would work best, I think.
Similarly, each team should probably have a "captain". Since emperors are already the ones who can invite players, it should probably be them. This is more of a bureacratic matter than it is establishing a hierarchy -- if a team wants to run by committee, that's fine, but they will still need someone to actually invite people, organize meetings online, etc. This also necessarily means that existing emperors such as myself are exempt from being captains, as one can only be emperor of one empire at a time (Napoleon learned that the hard way). Besides, I'd like to keep the Gerontocracy going, league aside. Once we randomly determine who is on each team, the initial members can decide among them who is best suited for the role.
I've probably forgotten a few things as I am completely knackered right now -- recovering from my vacation, and now having to deal with the pile up that accumulated while I was on vacation, ack. Speaking of which, I better sign off now.
