creative financing

[yajeflow]

our league has no revenue sharing, salary caps or inflation. we have a 50% split of gate receipts. our budgets are typically in the $2-3 million range. we have a maximum cash reserve balance limit at $20,000,000. no team currently has more than $1.5m in the bank.

i came up with a concept for a team with no money to follow. over budget? who cares? no cash? who cares. trade young players and recently drafted players for veterans with huge contracts. if they are in the final year, then this team might also get a free agent compensation pick as well. $500,000 over budget...$2,000,000 in the red...$40,000,000 in the red - it doesn't matter. there will always be teams out of it that want to get young players for their old and expensive guys.

one team in our league picked this up and ran with it. and they are successful. it appears as though this could go on indefinitely. it makes sense, as there are no 'real' financial implications to deal with. this is a perpetual winning machine. new draft picks show up every year. new high-priced guys show up every year.

so the question is...what do i do, as a czar, about this?

1. place an artificial limit on going in the red? maybe a maximum of -$20,000,000. i hate to hamstring a team from running their team as they see fit in any way.
2. make teams operate within their budget? that would constitute keeping a close eye on payrolls around the trading deadline. naw - bad idea, for sure.
3. nothing? hey - what's to keep other teams from attempting to do this, too? even if so, is this what is best for the league - half the teams with no financial control and half the teams selling out? maybe it will be fun having a 'yankee' team to confront each season.

i'm looking for a good Final Solution on this. i am a strong advocate of being allowed to run the team as you see fit, even if it is straight into the ground. but if handcuffs need to be in place, then so be it. league integrity comes above all else.

[fhomess]

I think that every financial league ought to put some restrictions on roster moves for teams that are in the red. You really should not be allowed to maintain debt over several years. At some point, you have to actually pay your players! OOTP prevents you from making such trades in solo leagues, but online league commishes have the ability to override this.

However, I do believe it's not as simple as rejecting the notion of adding salary in a trade outright. It's a legitimate approach to add salary and then trade it later. In one league I'm in, we merely require that you enter the offseason with a positive cash balance, or penalties ensue. Penalties for a first offense are fairly minimal, but they escalate quickly with repeated consecutive offenses. The second consecutive offense is fairly strict, and the third is even stricter while also requirnig the GM to have their status in the league reviewed. This keeps teams honest but allows them to overspend in the quest for a title. Teams also respond to the strict penalties, we have yet to have a team reach a 3rd consecutive offense.

In accordance with this, we also limit the amount of money you can recieve via trade during the year. This stops teams from simply selling their way out of poor financial situations, but does allow smaller deficits to be covered fairly easily. We're using modern financials, and limit each team to a net of $3 million in trade coming from each other team in the league. So you can get a fair amount of money, but that requires involving numerous other teams. A trade-off that we feel is good for the league.