You're competing with those two larger leagues regardless of your default days. Very few (if any?) teams play all 7 days of the week. Moving TFCL to compete with UGC default days, at least, gives teams a choice between two free leagues, one of which has a prizepool. As it is, teams aren't just choosing to give up playing ESEA or UGC when they sign up for TFCL, they're also choosing to give up their Friday and Saturday evenings.

The problem is size, age, and reputation. If Wednesday was the default match day for TFCL, people wouldn't bother. They'd stick with UGC because it's familiar. The promise of a prize pool isn't enough for your average team to switch over, especially considering as how the vast majority of teams are of a low level, where playing for a badge is more valuable than playing for actual money. And right now, UGC badges are simply more prestige, and well known.

Dethroning UGC is going to take some time, and the best way to do that is by offering default times that are different from those of UGC, at least to start. The weekend, in this case, makes it so TFCL is in neutral ground. That isn't to say that we're not trying to slowly get into a weekday schedule, with our 6v6 stuff taking place on both Friday and Saturday. The goal is to have Wednesday and Friday defaults within the next four or so seasons. But as of right now, we're just not in the position to aggressively push that.

Honestly, one of the best ways to ensure that TFCL can overtake UGC as the go-to free league, is to actively refer teams and players to compete in TFCL instead of UGC. Until then, it'll be a steady and slow climb with a focus on weekend matches.

smACK BANG in the middle of exams (assuming the schedule is the same as NA, i can't see the eu one anywhere)

i know it's only 2 ultiduo games a week but it'll still hurt your signups a bit

I think you're vastly underestimating how much a prizepool would motivate players to move, especially if you actually get enough players to split that prize across multiple divisions. The move to CEVO from ESEA (a company which had just installed malware on all of its customers' machines) failed in large part because ESEA was still offering a larger prizepool, not because of any good reputation or medals.

Again, you are competing with the other leagues regardless of your default days. People cannot play every single day, so even when your match days are different, people have to choose between you. As it is, you're simply giving UGC one more advantage over your league by asking your players to give up the two days of the week they're least likely to give. I don't think you realize how unfair it is to ask people to play league games on those days. It makes it very difficult to ask players to try your league, even newbies. New players will choose the league with a reasonable schedule every single time. If I'm talking to a new player, and tell him about two free leagues, but that only one of them has a prizepool, he'll pick the prizepool even if he doesn't think he'll get a chance to take any home this season. But the 2nd question is inevitably "when do they play?"

If you're biding time while actually working on improvements to the league (a better website, or automated scheduling or something) then that could be worth waiting for. But if you're waiting for some threshold of players, or some reputation boost, it's just not going to happen.

All fair points. You're likely right regarding me underestimating the importance of a prize pool. I'll test a Wednesday schedule next season just to see how it fares. As said, we'll likely go with a Wednesday and Friday schedule in the future, assuming we stick with two games per week. I feel like the two per week thing is a great way to ease people into something like ESEA, so teams can get used to that setup. Though if that doesn't prove popular, I'll likely just turn it back into one per week, with the default being Wednesday at 9:30 eastern. I am rather interested to see how that fares, and if people are actually willing to switch over from UGC for the promise of a prize pool. I personally have my doubts, but it's worth trying all the same. Plus if it doesn't work out, I can just change it back to the weekend schedule. So no real harm done.

Anyway, thanks a ton for the feedback. Haven't been getting a ton of that lately, so it's greatly appreciated.

the ultiduo is in eu 2