Multisite or Separate Installs

I am new to WordPress and I am hoping to get some advice.

I intend to create several sports related blogs. Each blog will be about a specific sports team. Each blog will be run by a lead blogger who will manage the blog. Each blog will have multiple contributors, who we are calling featured writers, who will post to the blog. Registered users will also have the ability to post to the blog. Users will not be able to create blogs on their own. All blogs will be set-up by me and then the blog will be turned over to the lead blogger for him or her to manage it.

At first, we will likely have 10 blogs or less. However, in order to be successful, we will need to have several hundred blogs.

I have read about WordPress Multisite and that seems to be what I am looking for. I am also planning to have a bbpress forum and from what I understanding, users would only need to log in once and they would then be signed in to all the blogs as well as the forum. However, on the other hand, I have read that WordPress Multisite is confusing, complicated and that most plugins will not work with Multisite.

My question to all of you is should I go the Multisite route or would I be better to have each blog as a separate install and perhaps use something like the ManageWP plugin to help manage all the blogs? Is it realistic to have several hundred separate installs of WordPress or is Multisite really the best option.

I have been wrestling with this important decision for several weeks and have come to the conclusion that I simply do not have enough knowledge about these two options in order to make an informed decision.