>>47888362To really simplify it:
A professional league split into 3 levels: 16 Gym Prospects, 8 Gyms, and the Elite 4. The League earns money from television deals, merchandise, and spectator ticket sales (like a real-world sporting league). The professional competitors in the League earn a slice of this pie based on their finishing position at the end of the season.
At the start of each season, all the stats are reset and all the professional trainers enter a competition battling each other at scheduled official matches, with their promotion and relegation in the League being fluid based on how often they win or lose.
At the end of the season, the four professional trainers who finished in the Elite 4 enter a playoff competition where their win-loss stats are wiped and they instead enter an Instant Knockout competition format to decide the champion.
The Gyms additionally are required to offer badges to regular hobbyist/amateur trainers (called Free Agents) who are not a part of the League (such as the player character) that, if they collect all 8, can challenge the E4 and compete for the title of champion without having to be a professional member of the League. A Free Agent becoming champion is mostly symbolic, because they receive no money from the League if they do it. Unlike the end-of-season knockout playoffs the E4 have to go through, the Free Agent instead can become champion at any point during the season after an E4 have been established; but they have to run the gauntlet of the E4 in a single run without losing once or being allowed to heal. Failing to win bars that Free Agent from trying again until next season.
