In which case you could use one of the following sites:

scrim.me seems like it fits the specifications the best. It doesn't have automatic server setup, but no TF2 league outside of ESEA does and such a feature is a lot of work for relatively little reward.

Any thoughts on the process of running the scrim on client?

I'm also not sure about how strict ESEA is with allowing ringers and PUGscrims. It seems like you can do so given that a few prerequisites are set up, but that's probably something best left for testing.

ESEA has a scrim mod built into client, where you can specify what division you want to scrim and have everything automatically verified by the server and all. Of course, there are the caveats like premium required, ESEA servers and client enforced, only being able to search for scrims at the present and not at a future time, requirements of needing an ESEA team (league/scrim), and of course the fact that nobody really knows whether it works well due to it not being used by any TF2 players recently. It might be worth testing.

There are plenty of examples and history of leagues being difficult to create and run. Anyone remember eSource, or TF2Games, or IGL? Hell, even UGC has been having problems recently, and it's been around since the beginning.

Stability seems to be quite an undervalued trait right now, especially with all of the uncertainty swirling around competitive TF2 in general. We've already come off a year where we've explored other options in NA and only now are we starting to recover from the divisions it caused within the community. ESEA may not be perfect, but it's the best option we have right now, and I don't see an even remotely comparable option popping up without a few years of investment and development.

To add to this, the command has to be created manually as a custom command with the output "$(steam customurl)".

One thing that's not clear is how they're going to handle 3rd/4th place (given that single elimination brackets on their own can't declare a 3rd and 4th place). Are they going to have a consolation final the same day as the grand final, or award both semi-final losers a tie for 3rd place, or remove those prizes altogether?

Also, there's no way for them to easily pick a top 12 anymore for promotion... will it become top 8 or top 16?

Just to clear some misconceptions on tiebreakers: head-to-head never counts in the process, and rounds against also never count in the process. In addition, any rounds won in overtime do not count toward that tiebreaker.

So in this case:

the teams with higher non-overtime RF would go to playoffs. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Source: http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=content&d=league_rules_TF2#STP

I believe the issue has been fixed, but the fix is being held off from release since I'm currently testing some possible new changes for a major release. If you'd like a copy with the fix, you can add me on Steam and I'll get one to you.

From a little investigation this appears to be a list of players, with associated Steam IDs and teams/divisions played, in Season 13 and 14.

Why such a list was posted 6 months after the conclusion of those seasons is beyond me, but there you go.

ExtraSensory Perception, basically adding info like health and class beside a player.

http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=forums&d=topic&id=633043&find_comment_number=5#n5

It looks like you're out of luck.

Given that IM is smaller than CS:GO Premier, which only got 4 teams in playoffs despite similar public outcry, I would assume that there's no way to avoid that this season.

I calculated it the same way. The only difference in my calculation was aligning with ESEA, which does not count RA for tiebreaking purposes, only RF (and only rounds taken in regulation, not even overtime).

If we're looking at just this week, the magic number currently stands at 13 wins or 12 wins and 57 RF. The number will probably drop this week if/when certain teams take losses.

Strictly mathematical elimination this week is 9 losses or 8 losses and <16 RF. This number will similarly rise if/when certain teams take wins.

ESEA Divisions has been updated to include team profiles. Clicking on a team will bring up an overview in which you can view details about the games they have played and about the players on their roster.

Let me know if there are any issues with this new feature. In particular, there may be bugs because of how this new feature had to be implemented, but hopefully they are all fixed now.