i think we are getting caught up with to many ideas, make it simple
LE's original post with my addition i think is pretty much spot (biased i know

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The Set UpGold League - 32 Teams
Silver League - 4 Leagues of 32 teams
Copper Leagues - 16 Leagues of 32 Teams
Gold League 1 League of 32 teams - (MUST MAKE SURE NO CPU)
16 teams form Silver will get promoted to Gold League
Whoa!!! 16 teams, all NON playoff teams drop to the 4 Silver Leagues
Silver Leagues4 Leagues of 32 teams
All Conference Championship teams and Championship participants advance to Gold League.
4 teams with the worst records in each of the 4 leagues DROP to Copper!
16 teams demote to Copper
16 teams from Copper promote here to Silver
Copper Leagues16 leagues of 32 teams
16 teams with the best records get promoted to silver (human owned comes first)
16 Teams advance to Silver
16 teams from Silver demote to Copper
the one gold league and the four silver leagues are made to have as many human teams as there are available, and then if there is still human teams left then put them into copper league one so they are still playing other human owned teams aswell. Then come next season all the human owned teams in the copper leagues get replaced by any CPU's there are in the silver leagues and also the worst 4 records from each silver league.