market size

[David Ball]

Teams' market size doesn't seem to correspond to the actual size of their cities. Is that the case or am I missing something? I am thinking about resetting market sizes to correspond better to reality, but I'm sure the financial system is a matter of complicated interactions that might be upset if you make a seemingly simple and unproblematic adjustment.

If I input my own values, will I cause problems? And if I do that, will the new values remain until I reset them again, or will the program make changes as it goes, on a random basis or using some logic of its own?

Also, there's a field labeled "fan interest adjustment," and I haven't been able to find anything about it in the manual. Can anyone explain what it means?

So many things to learn with this game...

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by David Ball

Teams' market size doesn't seem to correspond to the actual size of their cities. Is that the case or am I missing something? I am thinking about resetting market sizes to correspond better to reality, but I'm sure the financial system is a matter of complicated interactions that might be upset if you make a seemingly simple and unproblematic adjustment.

If I input my own values, will I cause problems? And if I do that, will the new values remain until I reset them again, or will the program make changes as it goes, on a random basis or using some logic of its own?

Also, there's a field labeled "fan interest adjustment," and I haven't been able to find anything about it in the manual. Can anyone explain what it means?

So many things to learn with this game...

In the OOTP financial system, cities are just names. There are some reasons why it has to be that way, but that means going into some explanation of the financial model.

It is possible to change things to make it a bit more like real life. Here are some guidelines for you:

1. Market size is the only thing you need to change. It's OK to fiddle with fan interest if you want, if you think some team is getting short-changed or the opposite, but market size is the easiest to fix.

2. Don't make big changes at any one time. Do it gradually over the course of 2-3 seasons. The AI can do strange, undesirable things otherwise.

3. Don't try to represent the true real life disparities that exist. I've found that it's best to keep the spread in market size (say, between NY and KC) to not more than 3-1 (not 10-1, as could happen otherwise).

4. Any values to enter won't reset.

Fan interest adjustment is like a trend indicator. If it's negative, it means the fans are growing restless. Positive means the fans like what they are seeing and want more of it. It's really just a factor used in the game engine, and I wouldn't fiddle with it (or else, if I did, it would be to set them all to zero).

Hope that helps.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by David Ball

Teams' market size doesn't seem to correspond to the actual size of their cities. Is that the case or am I missing something?

Market size in OOTP is not related to the economic capacity of that city/town to support a professional baseball club. That's just not the way the game's financial system is set up.

[Kelric]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Market size in OOTP is not related to the economic capacity of that city/town to support a professional baseball club. That's just not the way the game's financial system is set up.

Which makes sense. Boston is a relatively small city but the Red Sox market is almost all of New England.

[SteveP]

Still, the OP is a reasonable question. I make that sort of adjustment to an historical league myself. The fact is that it is possible to get some really strange market sizes at the start of a league. I remember one in which Oakland was a larger market than NY. And adjusting things in moderation leads to results that feel more realistic.

I just didn't want to get into an explanation about why things can start out this way in a league (getting lazy, I guess )

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Kelric

Which makes sense. Boston is a relatively small city...

Uh, the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metropolitan statistical area was the 10th largest in the United States in 2008, with an estimated population of 4,544,705. The smallest metropolitan statisical area with a major league team in 2008 was Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, which had an estimated population of only 1,550,451. It ranked 39th in the U.S.

If you go by Nielsen local television market size, then in 2008 Boston was the 7th largest market in the United States. Milwaukee was again the smallest with a major league team, it ranked 34th.

[Kelric]

Yeah, but neither Cambridge nor Quincy are actually part of Boston. If you add in the greater metro area, sure. I was speaking specifically of, you know, Boston. Not the surrounding area. That helps make it a giant market, but Boston itself isn't that large.

[Charlie Hough]

There is an Excel spreadsheet tool that you can download and use to determine historical market sizes for your saved game. Just use the apporpriate tab in the Excel file and calculate the figures. You will need to manually edit the market sizes in your game and possibly adjust them in the future.

GMEXcel - A market mod for OOTP X (Formerly MarketCalc) - Front Office Football Central

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Kelric

Yeah, but neither Cambridge nor Quincy are actually part of Boston. If you add in the greater metro area, sure. I was speaking specifically of, you know, Boston.

That's true of most cities, as defined by their incorporated boundaries. But markets are not composed of the city proper, but include the surrounding areas.

[Kelric]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

That's true of most cities, as defined by their incorporated boundaries. But markets are not composed of the city proper, but include the surrounding areas.

Right. Which is why I said the Sox's market was pretty much all of New England.