Budget question

[therealrebel14]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Given those extension demands, I assume you're still playing on the 16.2 (?) patch? Updating to the newer patch will help those demands get more reasonable, and we've fixed a few issues in finances too to help smooth things out, including one I know in the case where we were incorrectly double counting things if play with all revenue available. I would definitely suggest updating to the new patch before budgets roll over to next year.

Thanks Matt, but when I go File-->Help-->Check for Game Updates, it takes me to a webpage that says "Your version of OOTP16 is up-to-date!"

Is it possible that the commish of the league is running an outdated version causing the upload to be outdated with the issues that the dev team fixed?

[NoOne]

that's exactly why i suggested the baselines (previous post/reply).

this is the first year of the league? something seems to be less in the revenue streams, and the budgets are not in line with revenue. something seems to have been adjusted.

in the one example you gave, that team is spending 5-10mill above normal on staff expenses. also, in this example, it seems the merchandise revenue is about 10mill low (it looks like detroit's budget - my team of choice). this particular team's net loss is more due to poor financial management (not saying it's your fault, if given bad budget prediction to start). it will correct itself over the first few years. you might see more FA than normal for bit.

don't put much stock into the projected budgets - you probably have a better idea of it's direction based on age/perfomance of your team. that team's budget is too high for it's current revenue and it will adjust downward the next year. if you only have ~200mill revenue, and you spend 30-35mill on staff, scouting, and player development, then you can't spend more than 160million on players. this team must dump salaries, if they don't increase revenue by making playoffs or improving gate sales - i.e. if perfomance is ramping upward as opposed to an aging team.

the contract demand from current players can sometimes be above market or below market. those examples might be cheaper if you let them hit FA and then bid on them - especially since it seems none of the teams can afford the contracts, lol. they might never get what they are demanding, and sometimes they do get overpaid. but, what you mention doesn't seem odd comapred to my sims with out-of-the box financial settings relative to income/player salaries baselines.

[jaysdailydose]

The point I was making with the baselines is that there is no way to do it evenly across the board. I get that they aren't trying to have even markets, but in a scenario where they know about how much everyone is short, the best fix is the national contract.

That's not to say it couldn't be useful or even prudent once they have their system under control, I am strictly trying to fix the problem so there is enough money to not alter competitive balance while other changes are worked.

If possible, could you ask your LM to post your Financials settings page for the league? I have done a ton of custom financial systems, and if I couldn't figure it out, surely others could. Thanks, original poster!

[NoOne]

jay i get what you are saying, i am/was not arguing. i suggested it exactly for that reason. the league is not a level playing field financially, unless your goal is to make it a bit more equal. arbitrarily adding 20mill to all budgets will further exascerbate inflated contracts. if only the top half of teams get a significant bump, it doesn't increase the demand as much as all 30teams.

for the rebel:
anyway, i'd double check your baseline revenue numbers. this image is a new standard game, mlb only.

if you are detroit (otherwise ignore) and your merchandise numbers were normal ($29,000,000 previous year), you'd be financially viable. unless you had such a terrible record and public relations that merchandise sales could drop ~$15million in one year. based on gate revenue and player salaries, that doesn't look to be the case.

i've never had a league so poorly budgeted the first year. something has to be different in finance options - maybe it was accidental and without knowledge.

[jaysdailydose]

Oh no, I didn't think you were arguing. Lol

That's the thing, the league SHOULDN'T be a level playing field. But if we are seeing the same amount lost on budget for nearly all teams, it makes sense to get all of those teams a permanent cash infusion every season covering that amount.

Then after that you can see if you can do work on the locals and merch. This way, they can proceed with free agency and what not while they figure out a better system for the next season.

[NoOne]

i edited what you replied to a bit. i tend to do that, if you notice a recent posting time, LOL.

that's why i think it's a settings issue. it's uniform across the league. the new thing i added above was that it's really weird for a first year league to be so poorly budgeted with default financial settings.

you can do a quick fix or the revenue fix, but he's still going to have lingering aftereffects for years. i'd suggest testing a throwaway new game to see if it has the same problems, if not, start over since it's only 1 year of play so far. save the headache, and every human player is a bit more prepared to make the best decisions in year one - better competition is fun

[OakDragon]

I find it weird that the teams the most in the red are the ones with the biggest budgets (biggest markets, I guess?)

Seems like there must be a connection there of some kind.

[therealrebel14]

So I think I figured out the answer.

To start the year, ticket prices were turned off due to the ability in past versions of OOTP to game the system. Obviously this season, the OOTP dev team closed the loophole with the introduction of season tickets and prices only being set in the offseason. This rendered the league rule of no ticket prices being changed obsolete. We were able to email the commish our new ticket prices and he changed them for us.

However, the change was not retroactive - so I sold 21,492 season tickets at $25.00 and almost 90 games of single game tickets at $25.00 instead of my new ticket price of $32.50. The season ticket revenue alone is more than $15M add in the other 90 games, probably another $10M and playoff revenue and this team would turn a profit in the $10-20M range. (Look at the projected losses for big market teams- almost all in the top 10)

Now I have no idea what is going to be done, but this could potentially alter the future of this league pretty significantly. Will keep updated.

[jaysdailydose]

In that case I would just tell your commissioner to add a one-time payment of a set amount to cover the differences to each franchise in ticket sales and just proceed.

[therealrebel14]

Originally Posted by jaysdailydose

In that case I would just tell your commissioner to add a one-time payment of a set amount to cover the differences to each franchise in ticket sales and just proceed.

That was my suggestion. However, he is dead set on the "projected budget" being broken and that all will even out.

His idea is to set the 2016 projected budget to equal the 2015 projected budget, but there is no way that the teams will hit those benchmarks after missing out on all of that revenue from season tickets.

Didn't they fix "projected budget" for owner controls budget - OFF (all revenue available) a few years ago?

[therealrebel14]

Originally Posted by NoOne

jay i get what you are saying, i am/was not arguing. i suggested it exactly for that reason. the league is not a level playing field financially, unless your goal is to make it a bit more equal. arbitrarily adding 20mill to all budgets will further exascerbate inflated contracts. if only the top half of teams get a significant bump, it doesn't increase the demand as much as all 30teams.

for the rebel:
anyway, i'd double check your baseline revenue numbers. this image is a new standard game, mlb only.

if you are detroit (otherwise ignore) and your merchandise numbers were normal ($29,000,000 previous year), you'd be financially viable. unless you had such a terrible record and public relations that merchandise sales could drop ~$15million in one year. based on gate revenue and player salaries, that doesn't look to be the case.

i've never had a league so poorly budgeted the first year. something has to be different in finance options - maybe it was accidental and without knowledge.

I am Detroit in this league, standing at something like 71-44 with 100 fan interest and full fan loyalty. I brought in a couple players like Cliff Lee who are well-known or better national figures which is why I am so shocked that I am on pace for $15M in merchandising revenue.

I agree that this team is financially stable if the season ticket prices were the correct number, and the merchandising was a correct number- coupled with playoff revenue.

I'll pass this on to the commish, unfortunately I don't have access to this page. It's just been frustrating for me... Like here you go play this game, but I'm not going to tell you the rules.

[ThePretender]

Media contracts are usually the reason why. I've found them very frustrating in leagues over the year - every other revenue source goes up when you win. I had one team which averaged 100 wins over 6 years actually lose media revenue.

In my main league we had an issue like this and we changed the media revenue to a specific amount, and then based on how your team did (win WS, get to X round in playoffs, 500+, below 500, bottom 3 team, worst team in the league) your media would go up or down.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by therealrebel14

I am Detroit in this league, standing at something like 71-44 with 100 fan interest and full fan loyalty. I brought in a couple players like Cliff Lee who are well-known or better national figures which is why I am so shocked that I am on pace for $15M in merchandising revenue.

I agree that this team is financially stable if the season ticket prices were the correct number, and the merchandising was a correct number- coupled with playoff revenue.

I'll pass this on to the commish, unfortunately I don't have access to this page. It's just been frustrating for me... Like here you go play this game, but I'm not going to tell you the rules.

lol. the numbers are incontrevertable. the budget problem was his(commish's) baby.

everything makes sense now with the new info (ticket prices etc)... Except the merchandise income.

maybe he imported the baseline from '15? anyway, sounds like things will fix themselves in your league now, regardless of a few million less in merchandising. cool beans.

separate note, in regard to what thepretender wrote: the local media contracts have a contract length. don't they go up? (i'm genuinely not sure) it's not something that is supposed to change on a year-to-year basis. just like the national contract, the first few years are closer to a boom, and the last few years you are a little light - accounting for inflation. on top of that, luck will affect local contract more due to timing of good/bad seasons and when contract is signed (i would think).

[jaysdailydose]

Originally Posted by therealrebel14

That was my suggestion. However, he is dead set on the "projected budget" being broken and that all will even out.

His idea is to set the 2016 projected budget to equal the 2015 projected budget, but there is no way that the teams will hit those benchmarks after missing out on all of that revenue from season tickets.

Didn't they fix "projected budget" for owner controls budget - OFF (all revenue available) a few years ago?

I'm sorry that he is set in his ways. The good news is you should be fine after this season.

[Matt Arnold]

Without owners controlling budget, your "budget" for next year is simply your projected revenue for next year. And as far as I'm aware, those numbers should be accurate.

[ThePretender]

[QUOTE=NoOne;3873424separate note, in regard to what thepretender wrote: the local media contracts have a contract length. don't they go up? (i'm genuinely not sure) it's not something that is supposed to change on a year-to-year basis. just like the national contract, the first few years are closer to a boom, and the last few years you are a little light - accounting for inflation. on top of that, luck will affect local contract more due to timing of good/bad seasons and when contract is signed (i would think).[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I understand how it works. My point was that during a 6 year period my team averaged 100 wins, came in first every year but 1 (not the year the media changed), and won at least 94 games in each season. And the media revenue still went down. I know my market sucks but you'd think that averaging 94 wins and coming in first place pretty much every year would result in an increase, and not a decrease.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by ThePretender

Yeah, I understand how it works. My point was that during a 6 year period my team averaged 100 wins, came in first every year but 1 (not the year the media changed), and won at least 94 games in each season. And the media revenue still went down. I know my market sucks but you'd think that averaging 94 wins and coming in first place pretty much every year would result in an increase, and not a decrease.

oh! i see. unfortunately, detroit is a shrinking market in real life, so maybe the cities evolve over time, too.

i've added a few million to the detroit population before, lol. you get nice big local contracts after that. i'm fairly certain it's a combination of the market size setting found in team home->team settings and actual population of the hometown. i got larger contracts by cheating and increasing that setting value, but i got a humongous increase when i also changed population. ***this may be inconsistent observations between ootp 15 and ootp 16*** the second year was projected to be 235million in media contracts (200 local then?) LOL. all i did was add a '6' in front of det's 800,000-some population

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Without owners controlling budget, your "budget" for next year is simply your projected revenue for next year. And as far as I'm aware, those numbers should be accurate.

the problem definitely had nothing to do with how the game was made - merely human error. no worries.

the commish just altered some revenue streams and couldn't wrap his head around why the first year budgets resulted in a net loss for 28 teams - or whatever.

plus, the commish is setting the budgets, i think (the projected 2016 didn't change in the image provided). which is fine if you overhaul the entire financial system relative to any adjustments made.

[ThePretender]

Originally Posted by NoOne

oh! i see. unfortunately, detroit is a shrinking market in real life, so maybe the cities evolve over time, too.

i've added a few million to the detroit population before, lol. you get nice big local contracts after that. i'm fairly certain it's a combination of the market size setting found in team home->team settings and actual population of the hometown. i got larger contracts by cheating and increasing that setting value, but i got a humongous increase when i also changed population. ***this may be inconsistent observations between ootp 15 and ootp 16*** the second year was projected to be 235million in media contracts (200 local then?) LOL. all i did was add a '6' in front of det's 800,000-some population

I'm in an online league so my commish probably wouldn't want that haha. My market size did grow a tiny bit but until my contract is up there's not much I can do. I've got the 3rd worst media revenue in the league, but luckily thanks to all my other revenue my budget is pretty strong.