Teams have no money

[Phl3m3y]

I’m in the year 2029. Free agency just started and a lot of teams have negative total money. But even the teams that have cash to spend, it says they have little to no cash available (most I’ve seen is 1 mill available but most teams have like 200k cash) i have custom financials i set but i guess i messed up. Anyone have any tips for how to fix this or custom financials they play with?

[millhousebc]

Thought I read somewhere, you can add money to each team, and/or increase the TV contracts.

[Phl3m3y]

Originally Posted by millhousebc

Thought I read somewhere, you can add money to each team, and/or increase the TV contracts.

My national media baseline is 60 mill with them being based on market size (I want the big markets to have the advantage and act like big market teams) local media is 38 mill. Revenue sharing is set to 25, soft cap % is 170 with tax above soft cap at 30%. Cash maximum I have set to 100 mill

[Bobfather]

Have you been updating the financials every season? Because salaries will always go up, revenue has to go up as well.

[Phl3m3y]

Originally Posted by Bobfather

Have you been updating the financials every season? Because salaries will always go up, revenue has to go up as well.

i have not. i have inflation set to 0%. what should i be doing to increase/updating the financials?

[locuspc]

Originally Posted by Bobfather

Have you been updating the financials every season? Because salaries will always go up, revenue has to go up as well.

That's inaccurate. You can play without inflation and it works just fine. Salaries do not always go up, that's false information.

If nobody has any money, it may be because they've offered large contracts to free agents already. You can go into commissioner mode and check their pending offers. Once some of the big-name free agents sign, the teams that don't land them might have more money available.

One thing that might help is increasing the cap on held cash, or turning it off altogether. Letting teams build up a war chest helps smooth out their spending and make sure that some teams will be able to spend at any given time. I don't know if you changed the cash maximum when you did your custom financials, but the game's default is weirdly low. I typically play with it at 100 million dollars and I think it makes the AI decision-making more realistic (and lets teams like the Yankees and Dodgers really be the powerhouses they are IRL).

[Bobfather]

[QUOTE=locuspc;5263420]. Salaries do not always go up, that's false information.

If nobody has any money, it may be because they've offered large contracts to free agents already.

Sounds like teams are running out of money because free agent salaries are going up?

[locuspc]

Originally Posted by Bobfather

Sounds like teams are running out of money because free agent salaries are going up?

It doesn't sound like that at all. There's a difference between "large" and "larger".

[Phl3m3y]

Originally Posted by locuspc

It doesn't sound like that at all. There's a difference between "large" and "larger".

I have found a way to make it work. My main issue was I was playing as the royals and I have -30 mill in total money, so I figured to trade Cole ragans, when I went to shop him around every team that wanted him wanted me to match salaries or retain 100% of his contract. When I went into it I noticed every team was in the negative for total money or in the green but had no budget space for salaries. After some research and testing I’ve found what looks like a solution to me. At the start of every year I go into the average salary total in the financial settings. Whatever the average salary is I times it by 10% and make that the cash max for the season. Then once the season ends (immediately after the World Series ends) and get to the day labeled “offseason begins” teams update there budget for the season. I then add 10 mill cash to them, I don’t adjust the budget I just give them all an extra 10 mill. This has worked great for me, I simmed 7 season in and every team had a healthy budget, or if they were in the red they were like 4 mill in the red and after a season or two were healthy again (pirates were in the red but for two years, and in those two years they were a win now team trying to win a World Series and taking on big contracts, after two seasons they got that money off the books and were healthy once again) the big teams had the biggest budgets and almost always got the super stars in the offseason (with the occasional star going to a team you wouldn’t expect but nothing crazy like the rays, reds, or teams who don’t spend a lot). It also created a healthy trade market, teams that couldn’t lock up a star or good player would trade them a year or two before they’d hit free agency and bad teams were willing to absorb bad contracts while rebuilding and taking on those contracts while also gaining prospects for taking on the contract. As far as finances themselves I left them alone except for national media contracts being set to market size. And inflation at 0%. But the results have been really fun, Mets signing big names and pitchers, Yankees and dodgers signing big names. Examples I saw were Guys like James wood traded in 2030 before hitting free agency to a contender in July then going to free agency and getting a big contract. Jac Caglianone got traded to the dodgers a year before hitting free agency in 2031, spent the whole season on the dodgers, they won the WS then went to free agency and signed with the Red Sox.

[Pelican]

Good on you for finding a workable solution. I have done something similar, at least manually increasing cash on hand, particularly for the "poor" or cheap teams, in an effort to approach parity. Of course, more money means more spending and higher salaries. Simply nudging up the average salary each year would be simpler.

My experience, as least in contemporary sims, is that salaries slide steadily upwards, basically due to the limited supply of quality players and the constant demands and deep pockets of MLB teams. I have not seen salaries decrease or hold steady, year-to-year. I would think you would need something external - like owner-friendly changes to arbitration or luxury tax - to restrain that growth. Or a global depression.

It's also true, as you found, that you can fiddle with the revenue side, such as by increasing TV revenue nationally ("rising tide floats all boats") or locally (favoring the big markets). The game seems to put great emphasis on the average ticket price. You can only increase before the regular season. Too much of an increase can cause attendance to dip. But a modest increase can produce added revenue for players.

[Bobfather]

There is also one last-ditch thing you can try. Under league functions, assign fictional financials to teams, and/or fictional contracts to players.

[Phl3m3y]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Good on you for finding a workable solution. I have done something similar, at least manually increasing cash on hand, particularly for the "poor" or cheap teams, in an effort to approach parity. Of course, more money means more spending and higher salaries. Simply nudging up the average salary each year would be simpler.

My experience, as least in contemporary sims, is that salaries slide steadily upwards, basically due to the limited supply of quality players and the constant demands and deep pockets of MLB teams. I have not seen salaries decrease or hold steady, year-to-year. I would think you would need something external - like owner-friendly changes to arbitration or luxury tax - to restrain that growth. Or a global depression.

It's also true, as you found, that you can fiddle with the revenue side, such as by increasing TV revenue nationally ("rising tide floats all boats") or locally (favoring the big markets). The game seems to put great emphasis on the average ticket price. You can only increase before the regular season. Too much of an increase can cause attendance to dip. But a modest increase can produce added revenue for players.

Something funny did happen around 2031/2032. The average payroll did start going down. A small amount but for about 2-3 seasons the average payroll went down. I didn’t sim much further after that but it seemed like imo maybe it was hitting an even ground for salaries and settling. I think maybe as bigger real life salaries like ohtani, soto etc came off the books the games avg payroll came down with it and balanced out payroll. Even the dodgers budget in like 2032 went down like 15 or 20 mill one year, then 5-10 mill the next. Went from having the largest budget out of all the MLB to about 2nd or 3rd. Don’t know why it went down like I said but the Mets, dodger, Yankees and Phillies were still the biggest budgets in the game along with teams like the braves, Red Sox right behind them

[Phl3m3y]

Originally Posted by Bobfather

There is also one last-ditch thing you can try. Under league functions, assign fictional financials to teams, and/or fictional contracts to players.

What would this do? Increase how much money they can spend? Or increase a teams payroll space? Or something else?

[Bobfather]

Make a backup and experiment. Fictional contracts are based on ratings. Forgot what happens to financials, but they. My nickel's worth of bad advice: make a backup and experiment with all of the suggestions. Financials can be tricky.

[snepp]

I think max contract length plays a significant role in this. By default when teams have loads of money up front they throw around big, long contracts like candy at a parade. Then the inevitable budget crunch comes, finances get tight, and too many monster contracts are floating around. Eventually that initial wave of "way too big, way too long" starts to thin out a bit.

I have always, in every league I create, cut max contract length at the start down to 6-7 years, at least for the first few seasons while things are settling, then slowly allow longer lengths over time. I rarely allow 10 or more though, too easy to be exploited by me, and awful for the AI to manage long-term.

[kriscolic]

The financial system in this game is, to put it bluntly, abysmal, and has been in every version I've played (going back to 20). The only way to make it work is to put in tremendous effort to update many, many numbers manually.

It's one of many examples of features that have seemingly been given up on by the developers over time.

I love the game, but 95% of the time I'm playing it I'm thinking, "This is so close to being great..."

C'est la vie.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by kriscolic

The financial system in this game is, to put it bluntly, abysmal, and has been in every version I've played (going back to 20). The only way to make it work is to put in tremendous effort to update many, many numbers manually.

It's one of many examples of features that have seemingly been given up on by the developers over time.

I love the game, but 95% of the time I'm playing it I'm thinking, "This is so close to being great..."

C'est la vie.

There are a ton of variables. I never start a new game but I've wondered how much things get thrown off if, as users wanted, real player contracts are put in the game? I don't play that way so maybe those that do could give their thoughts?

All I can say is my league finances seem to hold from season to season. I don't have to go in and edit anything, the league just moves along. I don't have lots of teams running out of money. Even those in the red will come back in a season or two to get into the black. Here are screens of my financial settings and each team's money with everyone at about the 107 games played mark. This is pretty much the norm in my league no matter what time of year it is. For clarity I play out ever inning of every game for my team, so only get in two to three seasons per version. But it is a very old game that I started in OOTP-4 (2002) and have imported into every version since. Take if for what it's worth.

[Pelican]

My view is that financials - at least starting new sims in recent versions - can require a fair bit of tinkering to achieve the desired result. As in the rest of the game, I have over time developed by preferences and "hacks" or rule changes to promote parity and keep teams active in player contracts (extensions and free agents). As Commissioner I can create a system that MLB would never touch.

I would not want to be the part of the development team at OOTP devoted to financial rules, in the aftermath of whatever happens between the owners and the players this year. The one certainty is that there will be new rules to implement for the game, if it is to be realistic and faithful to reality.

I appreciate the fact that by design the game is flexible enough to allow for experimentation on financial settings, such as trying to implement a salary cap and/or a spending or salary "floor". Or redistributing TV revenue. What I have learned is the "doctrine of unintended consequences".