[2021] Why is bot difficulty tied to an internet connection?

If you boot the game in offline mode & start an exhibition game against bots, the bots are locked to rookie difficulty regardless of whatever you set it to. This makes playing RL on the Switch while traveling on a flight pretty boring. This goes for playing offline on PC as well. I know they’re not difficult on All-Star, but it’s super boring on rookie. Sometimes I can’t connect to the internet while traveling, but would like to get some practice in even if it’s against bots. But not on rookie.