Fan Interest broken - please fix in '22

[Kilborn]

Team has 4 nationally extremely popular players, 7 locally extremely popular. Team leads its division by 7+ games, has the best Starting Pitching in the American League and hits the 3rd-most HRs. Season is entering the last 6 weeks, and team is in position to have a first-round bye.

And fan interest drops. SMH. That aspect of OOTP is broken.

***

If there's any aspect of OOTP that I don't like, it's the "fan interest" aspect and the immense effect it can have on a team's finances due to drops or elevations in season tickets and single-game ticket purchases.

The scenario above is happening right now with my team in a long-running online league (since 2014). But it is far from the only issue.

Others include:
- Team 1 trades some excellent prospects for an "extremely popular" player, who instead of matching his usual .300/35 HR performance, turns in 2 seasons of .220/10HR before taking his player option and leaving the team. The prospects traded away win rookie of the year and make the all-star team. In real life, the fans would probably carry the suitcase for that player to leave. In OOTP, when he signs with another team, fan interest drops by 6-8 points, or more.

- Lazy player refuses to negotiate with the team as free agency approaches, but he's popular, and when he signs with another team, Team 1 loses fan interest. IRL it probably wouldn't affect a lot since he made clear he wasn't going to sign.

-Team 1 is in a playoff race and trades for a player on an expiring contract to help with the playoff race. He's popular, and fan interest spikes "amazing"ly. Team makes the playoffs and has a decent playoff run. But after the playoffs, that player's contract expires and he leaves the team. Fan interest "crashes" despite the clear understanding that the player was a "rental".

-Team 1 has a long-time player they want to sign long-term and make a team player for life. But to stay, the player wants a contract twice the value of other players with his age and performance... no "hometown discount" from him! If the team doesn't sign him due to his outrageous demands, and he goes elsewhere, fan interest "crashes".

There is some amount of leeway with these things, but this aspect of the OOTP engine needs work. Rentals shouldn't destroy the popularity of the rest of the team. A popular player who comes in and is below average after a great player is traded away (Harold Baines for Sammy Sosa, anyone?) shouldn't cause the fan base to lose interest when he leaves, as half the fandom would be glad to see him leave. A player's refusal to stay or essential refusal (via exorbitant contract demands) would be available to the public IRL and the fan base wouldn't crash when they leave.

Here's hoping this aspect gets fixed sometime in the NEAR future.

[kidd_05_u2]

Every example you posted suggests to me that fan interest is working well, lol.

You expect fan interest to spike permanently every time you sign a rental?

You think fan interest shouldn't decline when a superstar leaves your team, only because he asked for more money than you wanted to give him?

If fan interest interest worked the way you seem to want to, every team would reach maximum fan interest at some point.

[JerseyPirate]

Some of your examples are beyond frustrating like the high asking price for a 35+ year old former 5 star guy who is now 3 1/2 who you know will be 2 stars within 2 years but he wants a 5 year deal. I've had 5+ hall of fame players who played 12+ years on my team but couldn't retire playing for 1 team because of their contract demands. I had to let them go.

On another note, in my current franchise, I just had my owner sell the team and I'm in year 2 with the new owner. His demands for this season are stupid and illogical.

1. I need to cut payroll from around $490 mil to $450 mil
2. Add an all-star
3. Re-sign my multiple MVP winning DH who's asking price is $140 mil/year

Seriously????

[Bobbyraz49]

Originally Posted by JerseyPirate

Some of your examples are beyond frustrating like the high asking price for a 35+ year old former 5 star guy who is now 3 1/2 who you know will be 2 stars within 2 years but he wants a 5 year deal. I've had 5+ hall of fame players who played 12+ years on my team but couldn't retire playing for 1 team because of their contract demands. I had to let them go.

On another note, in my current franchise, I just had my owner sell the team and I'm in year 2 with the new owner. His demands for this season are stupid and illogical.

1. I need to cut payroll from around $490 mil to $450 mil
2. Add an all-star
3. Re-sign my multiple MVP winning DH who's asking price is $140 mil/year

Seriously????

Hi. What year are you in ? That $140 million seems soooo high. He would be 1/3 of your budget ?
TY

[RchW]

Originally Posted by JerseyPirate

Some of your examples are beyond frustrating like the high asking price for a 35+ year old former 5 star guy who is now 3 1/2 who you know will be 2 stars within 2 years but he wants a 5 year deal. I've had 5+ hall of fame players who played 12+ years on my team but couldn't retire playing for 1 team because of their contract demands. I had to let them go.

On another note, in my current franchise, I just had my owner sell the team and I'm in year 2 with the new owner. His demands for this season are stupid and illogical.

1. I need to cut payroll from around $490 mil to $450 mil
2. Add an all-star
3. Re-sign my multiple MVP winning DH who's asking price is $140 mil/year

Seriously????

What sort of financial model are you running?

[JerseyPirate]

Originally Posted by Bobbyraz49

Hi. What year are you in ? That $140 million seems soooo high. He would be 1/3 of your budget ?
TY

I started in 2020 and am now in 2056. I auto-play all games because I prefer the GM/team management side of the game. Now I'm stuck with an owner who is signing existing players to long term deals without my knowledge and forcing me to spend money when he wants me to cut money.

I set my financials in 2020 with yearly inflation to 2-3% so 37 seasons in the best players now make around $100 mil. My budget is $860 mil but he wants payroll cut to $450 mil. It makes no sense. I'm ready to quit and start over because he's controlling all scouting and development budgets as well and not maximizing them despite the fact he made over $200 mil in profit last season.

I did end up signing that DH for 3 years and $360 mil at the end of spring training because no one else offered what he wanted. He originally wanted 8 years at $180 mil/year so I got a "deal". But now my payroll is over $500 mil so my owner is unhappy that I followed his orders and signed his player he demanded and it caused me to go over his budget. It's really annoying. He's even threatening to fire me in my mid-season update because of it.

PS: I've won 9 straight world series...

[Rain King]

I do not think that "broken" is the correct term for the state of this feature, but certainly think it could be tweaked/improved.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Rain King

I do not think that "broken" is the correct term for the state of this feature, but certainly think it could be tweaked/improved.

That's fair.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Rain King

I do not think that "broken" is the correct term for the state of this feature, but certainly think it could be tweaked/improved.

That description works for me. (And is true of many things in the game, as in life.)

Generally speaking when I see the word broken somewhere in the title of a new thread I know some pretty serious hyperbole awaits. And that almost as certainly the argument of why something is broken won't be terribly convincing.

[Bobfather]

Originally Posted by Kilborn

Team has 4 nationally extremely popular players, 7 locally extremely popular. Team leads its division by 7+ games, has the best Starting Pitching in the American League and hits the 3rd-most HRs. Season is entering the last 6 weeks, and team is in position to have a first-round bye.

And fan interest drops. SMH. That aspect of OOTP is broken.

***

If there's any aspect of OOTP that I don't like, it's the "fan interest" aspect and the immense effect it can have on a team's finances due to drops or elevations in season tickets and single-game ticket purchases.

The scenario above is happening right now with my team in a long-running online league (since 2014). But it is far from the only issue.

Others include:
- Team 1 trades some excellent prospects for an "extremely popular" player, who instead of matching his usual .300/35 HR performance, turns in 2 seasons of .220/10HR before taking his player option and leaving the team. The prospects traded away win rookie of the year and make the all-star team. In real life, the fans would probably carry the suitcase for that player to leave. In OOTP, when he signs with another team, fan interest drops by 6-8 points, or more.

- Lazy player refuses to negotiate with the team as free agency approaches, but he's popular, and when he signs with another team, Team 1 loses fan interest. IRL it probably wouldn't affect a lot since he made clear he wasn't going to sign.

-Team 1 is in a playoff race and trades for a player on an expiring contract to help with the playoff race. He's popular, and fan interest spikes "amazing"ly. Team makes the playoffs and has a decent playoff run. But after the playoffs, that player's contract expires and he leaves the team. Fan interest "crashes" despite the clear understanding that the player was a "rental".

-Team 1 has a long-time player they want to sign long-term and make a team player for life. But to stay, the player wants a contract twice the value of other players with his age and performance... no "hometown discount" from him! If the team doesn't sign him due to his outrageous demands, and he goes elsewhere, fan interest "crashes".

There is some amount of leeway with these things, but this aspect of the OOTP engine needs work. Rentals shouldn't destroy the popularity of the rest of the team. A popular player who comes in and is below average after a great player is traded away (Harold Baines for Sammy Sosa, anyone?) shouldn't cause the fan base to lose interest when he leaves, as half the fandom would be glad to see him leave. A player's refusal to stay or essential refusal (via exorbitant contract demands) would be available to the public IRL and the fan base wouldn't crash when they leave.

Here's hoping this aspect gets fixed sometime in the NEAR future.

O completely agree. Also, team 1 trades Popular player interest goes down but receives popular player (same trade) and interest goes up 2 separate messages. The problem is nothing is put in context with AI.

[Kilborn]

Originally Posted by kidd_05_u2

Every example you posted suggests to me that fan interest is working well, lol.

You expect fan interest to spike permanently every time you sign a rental?

You think fan interest shouldn't decline when a superstar leaves your team, only because he asked for more money than you wanted to give him?

If fan interest interest worked the way you seem to want to, every team would reach maximum fan interest at some point.

Tweaked would be the better phrase than "broken". As a long-time fan of one of the few teams that has never won a World Series, I can assure you fans of my team view a star leaving in two ways. 1) if the team is well below average payroll, they see the team as a cheapskate and the fans lose interest; 2) if the team has a high payroll and can't re-sign him, and it's because that player demands way above his market value, the fan interest doesn't hardly drop at all. In our league, we are required to make money or we can't function as a team and have to sell off our players just to break even. Owners aren't involved, so there's no outside cash flow other than profit-sharing.

Likewise, when a star player on the last year of their contract is added for a playoff run, fans KNOW the plan is not to re-sign that player. We've witnessed in our league an increase in fan interest of 2-3 with the addition of a superstar at the deadline, and then a drop of 8 points when he leaves in the offseason. That doesn't legitimately happen. Losing the 2-3 points I can see, but nothing more.

[dward1]

it's a hastily thought out feature that never gets re-examined, which is what happens with almost all features nowadays. it doesn't work that well, it doesn't work horrifically or breaks the game, but it doesn't add immersion because you can tell it's just like 5 or 6 checkboxes and not a true system.

but it's been like this for years and no time is spent year to year on features like these, owners, attendance, financials, etc that all sort of work together

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Kilborn

Team has 4 nationally extremely popular players, 7 locally extremely popular. Team leads its division by 7+ games, has the best Starting Pitching in the American League and hits the 3rd-most HRs. Season is entering the last 6 weeks, and team is in position to have a first-round bye.

And fan interest drops. SMH. That aspect of OOTP is broken.

In 1997 the Braves moved into Turner Field, won their division, and drew 3.4 million fans. Eight years and eight division titles later, the Braves drew 2.5 million fans. The Braves kept winning games and they kept losing fans. Evidently, fan interest in the real world is broken too.

I think there's a tendency on these boards for some to assume that winning teams should just keep getting more and more popular and drawing more and more fans. But that's not true in real life, so why should it be the case in OOTP?

Tying fan interest to things like signing popular players may seem unrealistic, but there's some evidence to suggest that there's at least a correlation there. The Phillies, for instance, finished 2018 with a record of 80-82 and drew 2.1 million fans. After signing Bryce Harper, the Phils finished 2019 with an almost identical record (81-81) but improved attendance by over 500,000.

More importantly, from a game perspective, signing or retaining a popular player is something that the gamer can control. Many of the other things that a franchise might do to increase fan attendance - such as advertising, improvements to the ballpark, outreach to the community - aren't part of the game. Maybe OOTP should include those sorts of things, but I think most gamers prefer OOTP being a baseball management simulation rather than a marketing-accounting simulation. Oh well, to each his own.

In truth, there isn't some magical formula for increasing or maintaining fan interest in real life. The 1997-2005 Braves is a good example. Why did the Braves keep winning while Braves fans increasingly stayed away from the ballpark? I've had people explain that Braves fans "only support the team in the post-season." That may be true, but then that just reinforces the notion that fan interest is an inexplicable riddle. Why does one team draw fans even when it loses, while another loses fans while it continues to win? Maybe the ballpark is in a bad neighborhood. Maybe there's not enough parking. Maybe the peanuts are too salty. Who knows?

All of those things could be modeled in the game, but then people would come on these forums complaining that "I spend all my time calibrating the optimal saltiness of my ballpark peanuts when all I want to do is manage a baseball team." There have to be some trade-offs between realism and playability in any game. Maybe OOTP hasn't found the right balance here, but I haven't seen anyone propose a model that does it any better.

[BillyBall]

One of my young relievers asked my club (Cleveland) to financially support homeless in the city. As GM I agreed and passed the request on to the Team Owner who donated $1M annually to the cause.

Fan interest spiked and the player's local popularity did also.

[Ace1234NY]

Originally Posted by BillyBall

One of my young relievers asked my club (Cleveland) to financially support homeless in the city. As GM I agreed and passed the request on to the Team Owner who donated $1M annually to the cause.

Fan interest spiked and the player's local popularity did also.

But if you check, your market size went down. Which way outweighs the other stuff. Its a terrible event imo. I just deleted it out of the storylines file.

[Kilborn]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

In 1997 the Braves moved into Turner Field, won their division, and drew 3.4 million fans. Eight years and eight division titles later, the Braves drew 2.5 million fans. The Braves kept winning games and they kept losing fans. Evidently, fan interest in the real world is broken too.

I would estimate that Braves fans got "spoiled" so to speak with so much success. Yes in the rest of your post, good points, it could be tough to do this excellently. It's just frustrating.

Example from right now. Cleveland has our league's two top active HR hitters (Yaz and Adrian Beltre), both with a chance to break the all-time HR number if they stay healthy in their 30s. We have a veteran SP, 5-time Cy Young winner, plus Mike Mussina with 21 wins and 3 starts to go and a 2nd-year scouting discovery who at 24 has a sub-3 ERA and 16 wins. We have the top SP and RP collection in the league and last year's Reliever of the Year closing games. We have young guns Albert Pujols, Larry Doby and Danny Tartabull. We have 8 Extremely Popular (locally) players. We are on pace for Cleveland to top 100 wins for the first time in recent history, and the team has won 12 of our last 14 games. It's 2042, and the team hasn't won the world series since 1948. You'd think the fans would be excited.

Yet fan interest has dropped from 100 to 93 in the course of this season.

[UltimateAverageGuy]

Originally Posted by JerseyPirate

I started in 2020 and am now in 2056. I auto-play all games because I prefer the GM/team management side of the game. Now I'm stuck with an owner who is signing existing players to long term deals without my knowledge and forcing me to spend money when he wants me to cut money.

I set my financials in 2020 with yearly inflation to 2-3% so 37 seasons in the best players now make around $100 mil. My budget is $860 mil but he wants payroll cut to $450 mil. It makes no sense. I'm ready to quit and start over because he's controlling all scouting and development budgets as well and not maximizing them despite the fact he made over $200 mil in profit last season.

I did end up signing that DH for 3 years and $360 mil at the end of spring training because no one else offered what he wanted. He originally wanted 8 years at $180 mil/year so I got a "deal". But now my payroll is over $500 mil so my owner is unhappy that I followed his orders and signed his player he demanded and it caused me to go over his budget. It's really annoying. He's even threatening to fire me in my mid-season update because of it.

PS: I've won 9 straight world series...

You're almost 40 years into a league where you increased payrolls 2-3% and are surprised by these high contracts?

[JerseyPirate]

Originally Posted by UltimateAverageGuy

You're almost 40 years into a league where you increased payrolls 2-3% and are surprised by these high contracts?

Never said I was surprised about the salaries, it's the owner signing a guy to a $100+mil/year contract and then telling me to cut payroll by $150 mil.