It should start right away, and if it's closed it shouldn't be a blank screen anyway.
One thing to make sure is that you are acting as a team and have general manager mode enabled (not just manager). Also check in the game settings > players & teams, to see if it's disabled.
If that doesn't help, could you post to the bug reports forum (
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...lay.php?f=4057) and upload your .lg file as described by Markus here
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=352812
and that way we can figure out exactly what the issue is.