According to LRB6 its 24 teams.

A house rule we use for dwarfs since a while we are quite cofident with:
Everytime a Trollslayer tackles another playercard with higher STR (independet of the result), the dwarf player gets 2 fans.

There are no "opposing" teams in a tournament. Everybody can beat down everybody. All teams are "in the same game". There is only one ball. Anybody with a Pass icon can grab the ball as usual or move it from any enemy to the middle.

Re: the rules of the boardgame, the real dealbreaker for me in the existing rules is the Guard skill. It totally messes up the positional dynamic of the game, and a game where there is a tonne of Guard is way less interesting than one played with starting teams.

With more and more games, Sprint showed up to be even better than expected earlier. Calculations about that can be made (imho Sprint is the most useful icon, worth something between 1.7 and 2).
Besides the teams having a lot of sprint are the stronger ones. The Teams that lack Sprint are the weaker ones.
Facing these facts, I thought about how to change the rule mechanic of Sprint to make it a bit less useful, especially for the teams that are already considered as high tier.

An idea I had about that, being tested now for like 3 games, was the following: When you use sprint, you must FIRST discard and THEN draw a new one.

This change looked rather senseful in our test games. Sprint is still very useful, but now requires a bad hand card before, to be of real use. Often you will decide not to use the Sprint at all, as there is the risk of getting a Lineman after discarding a Thrower or something like that.

What is your opinion about this? It affects and weakens teams with a lot of sprint more than those who have few sprint. Making Woodelfes and Skaven too weak? We don't think so. I still won one of the games with Woodelfs, but i skipped like about 1/4 of the sprint icons.

You are right, there cant be "too much sprint", it is always of use. 
Bbut you also cant disclaim, that the first sprint in your deck is more useful than for example the 20th. A sprint trainer is of more use for a team without sprint like orks, than for example for woodelfs.
And as well, even if sprint is useful on the last card in your hand, it is still even more useful on your first card played. The sooner you get better cards on your hand, the better.
So, in order to evaluate the value of sprint for a specific team, it is a necessary requirement to count the quantity of sprints and look at the playercards that have this sprint.

Hi,
even if the teams are quite balanced, and luck is a larger factor than the team youre playing, there are some small tendencies. Dwarfs, Orcs and Vampires are known to be weaker than the other teams and Undead are a bit stronger. After a lot of matches, those differences came up in our gaming group.
 
What is your opinion about that, and how do you think one could balance the teams?
 
We had some discussions about this topic, and several different options came up. We tried some of them, and it felt better this way. But i still want to discuss with other people about that.
 
 
Dwarfs
We considered to give them one of two possible buffs. (maybe even both?).
The first is giving the Trollslayer an ability to create fans when he attacks (not necessary successful) a stronger enemy (STR4 or more).
The other option enables the Blocker to let himself fall down as reaction to an enemy pass action being announced, and negating all enemy passing actions this turn.
 
 
Vampires
Each created Blood-Token increases fans by one.
 
 
Orcs
A lot of different suggestions here, not really happy with any of them.
- Sprint for Thrower or for Blitzer
- +1 starpower for Linemen
- Second tackle for Troll or for Black'O'Blockers
 
 
Undead
- Remove one Tackle from Mummy
and/or
- Decrease starpower of Guhls by 1

The last really difficult question is how to rate the benefit of Sprint.
What happens? You get a random player (with random value) from your deck, and you discard the least useful player in your hand. Therefore it is worth something like :
 
Average card value - lowest card value
60/12-1.5=3.5
Therefore, Sprint is something about 3.5 points, which sound really a lot firstofall.
 
BUT: several points to consider, that modify this number:
 
 
- You need to use sprint to get the value. Sometimes you would rather use another card, and the sprintig playercard is not the optimal soluthion in that moment. The later you use your sprint, the less useful it gets.
 
- You might not have a bad card to drop. Having 2 times a Blitzer in hand, drawing the third and being forced to discard one of them, results in no benefit at all.
 
- Not to forget the total amount of sprint in your deck. Too much Sprint (as with Woodelf or Skaven), causes a lot more situations, where you dont have a lineman to discard, and you need to discard a wigher rated one like a thrower or catcher.
 
- Imho you underestimate the value of Linemen. This is no problem as long as all teams share the same amount of linemen. But if you discard a lineman and get another card via sprint, in dont think the benefit is as much as you supposed it to be. A guarding lineman often saves you from losing the ball, or getting a 3-1 Blitzer downed by a Troll. In this cases its benefit is more. 
And, if linemen would be considered as more useful compared to the others, Sprint is automatically worth less.
 
- Having too much guard (or no need of it at all like dwarf) in the deck decreases the benefit of Guard. This increases again the benefit of Sprint.
 
- And finally Starplayers. The higher you average card value in your deck gets, the better Sprint gets.
 
 
 
 
All these points must be considered together, if you really want to get good values for Sprint (and guard btw).
In fact i think 1.5 like your suggestion, or even 1.4, is a good number. 
It's really hard to price Sprint correctly.
 
 
Edit: 30.09.2014
Meanwhile I think Sprint is worth something between 1.7 and 2. It is the best of the 4 icons, even better than Pass.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4719
 
It just got announced and I already can't wait for it... I'm a huge fan of Nurgle!
And it'll be in a six month...