[He grumbles a little, not really feeling like the question actually got answered. Also, he's realized he's fidgeting, so he takes a little stress ball out of somewhere to toss from hand to hand instead.]

So the good teams are valuable to the bad teams, and the bad teams are fodder unless they secretly turn out to be good at it?

[Let's change tacks.]

If you think your team is bad, couldn't you find another one?