FAQ: Team Revenue and Cash Levels

[Clay Dreslough]

Q: It looks like team revenue drops in BB2K6 and BMO when all the teams in the league have a lot of cash. Is this intentional?

A: We programmed it that way. There's not really an easy way to keep cash levels from spiraling up or down, depending on what teams spend. So we adjust attendance down if teams have a lot of cash and vice versa.

In real life, the owners either pocket the difference (usually) or sign a new record contract like A-Rod or Manny. We didn't want players earning 100 million by 2025, but we did feel we needed to keep cash levels low. In a league where everyone has $100 million, there are no teams willing to give up good players for cash -- and that helps keep a league fun.

[dolfanar]

Why not have teams pocket a dividend at the end of the year instead of sabotaging attendance? That would be 100x more realistic (teams don't become unpopular due to being profitable...).

By the same token, teams who are at negative cash should have ownership absorb the loss to get back to zero. Do that right before the Free Agent period and that way maybe teams will, you know, sign free agents... I do this manually at the end of each season in commissioner mode just to keep the game balanced as is...

[Rand]

Q: It looks like team revenue drops in BB2K6 and BMO when all the teams in the league have a lot of cash. Is this intentional?

A: We programmed it that way. There's not really an easy way to keep cash levels from spiraling up or down, depending on what teams spend. So we adjust attendance down if teams have a lot of cash and vice versa.

In real life, the owners either pocket the difference (usually) or sign a new record contract like A-Rod or Manny. We didn't want players earning 100 million by 2025, but we did feel we needed to keep cash levels low. In a league where everyone has $100 million, there are no teams willing to give up good players for cash -- and that helps keep a league fun.

This was a great idea that just misses the intended mark because all teams lose income equally. Having been in four different leagues now, I can tell you that the teams which get hurt the most by this are the teams you didn't want to hurt: middle-low to low market teams.

The high and middle-high market teams still make loads of cash and pretty much have the run of the league(s), expense spending, free agents, etc. That often means they don't have to pay other teams for players, or trade their good prospects for great current players, they just wait until the low income teams release the best players to free agency and simply outbid everyone else. They also are the ones that can afford to pay the contract demands of the top players already on their teams.

If you'd consider it, I think you'd realize that the best way of doing this would be to use a sliding scale based on population so that the highest market teams take the biggest attendance hit while the low market teams take a much smaller hit.

A little input from someone who has been on both sides of the market share gap.

[Chipper_Jones]

Is this in the online or CD Rom games? Because if it's the CD game then this is B.S. because the only way to build a new stadium is to save the damned cash.

[robinhoodnik]

That bothers me. I only have the time to run one BBMO team so I got the bronze package. I joined a league late, and wound up with the best available team, which was the Padres. Now I've been cutting back my more expensive players in hopes of saving enough to keep/buy more players in the future. It now seems that I may as well have waited to try and grab a major market team when another league started. Why not institute a luxury tax? If you can never really improve your financial position then it really is a pointless effort to try and take on a rebuild/small market.

[robinhoodnik]

If there were a luxury tax, it could go into a fund for commisioners to distribute as rewards/incentives to poorer teams (not necessarily poorly run teams) who really show improvement. If a guy goes out and signs an all-star team then goes on a tear he'd get nothing. If someone makes good decisions and doesn't run thier team into the ground or conversely pulls a team out of the dumps, then they'd qualify for some sort of bonus. The money would not have to ever be paid out either, you could just take it out of play completely.

[dolfanar]

Two suggetions for two options in the league editor to fix this. Basically 2 check boxes to go along equalize cities.

Option 1: Revenue Sharing
At the end of the year you total up the cash in the league, and split it evenly amongst the teams. This would be the financial equivalent to equalize cities. Equalizing cash right before the free agent period so everyone can get a crack at the FA's.

Option 2: Luxury Tax
All teams with positive profits will be taxed on anything over 10 million dollars, to be used to equalize cities who lost money in that season.

Example: 10 teams made 400 million combined over 10 million. 5 teams lost 100 million combined. Devide the losses by the taxable profits (anything over 10 million) for a percentage. In this case 25% which will be the tax rate, so ever one of those 10 teams will lose 25% of their profits over 10 million. If the Yankees made 60 million, they lose 12.5 (60-10 * .25). All this to cover operating losses on teams who lost money, therefore bringing them back to zero (and allowing them to sign their FA's... particularly for AI teams). If the leagues profits >10 million are insuficient to cover the losses, you bring the cut off down to 5 million, and if that doesn't work down to zero, and if THAT doesn't work... the league goes under I guess... I dunno. Maybe you contract the worse team? Or you pay off the maximum possible...

Just some ideas. This is PARTICULARLY aimed at making sure the AI controlled teams in single player mode don't go into a salary dump mode and end up losing 130 games.

[robinhoodnik]

I hate the revenue sharing idea (too much incentive to just run amok in the FA market). I am a fan of the luxury tax. You cannot however just pay off debt for poorly managed teams. If i go out and spend like the Yankees on a Royals budget, I deserve to be bankrupt for a few years. How about a ceiling for spending over your limit (BBMO) say10 or 20 million over your highest limit for the previous year. This may work until stadium improvements are inevitably added. The formula would work until then though. Or just implement a cap for teams that are perennially over what they can pay. Bring them back to zero once only? Maybe keep a waiting list for all leagues and rate all leagues; you'll have to earn your way into more difficult leagues. Or rate players and make the ratings a part of your public profile. This would allow commissioners a chance to see beforehand if a player is able to play effectively enough to be in thier league.

[dolfanar]

I hate the revenue sharing idea (too much incentive to just run amok in the FA market). I am a fan of the luxury tax. You cannot however just pay off debt for poorly managed teams. If i go out and spend like the Yankees on a Royals budget, I deserve to be bankrupt for a few years. How about a ceiling for spending over your limit (BBMO) say10 or 20 million over your highest limit for the previous year. This may work until stadium improvements are inevitably added. The formula would work until then though. Or just implement a cap for teams that are perennially over what they can pay. Bring them back to zero once only? Maybe keep a waiting list for all leagues and rate all leagues; you'll have to earn your way into more difficult leagues. Or rate players and make the ratings a part of your public profile. This would allow commissioners a chance to see beforehand if a player is able to play effectively enough to be in thier league.

from a solo players perspective I just hate seing PC controlled teams field AA lineups because they're losing money. Even in their worse years the expos still managed to field a Major League team and sign the odd free agent or two... even when they were bleeding money and drawing 8,000 a game. In BBM the second an AI team starts to lose money they begin a mindless fire sale and end up losing more money as they keep losing and drawing fewer fans.

[adam]

The obvious question about saving money runs up here.

Why can't you pay for stadiums over a long period of time?

[Rand]

The obvious question about saving money runs up here.

How about another obvious one?

Why can't you improve stadiums without building a whole new one?

You still need to build a new stadium just to change the infield quality or mow the lawn. (yes, I know about commissioner mode and the stadium editor)

[21C]

Another option should be stadium maintenance. Teams should be paying some sort of annual fee to look after their stadium.

The fee would increase as the stadium gets older and require teams to eventually build a new stadium ( or relocate ) if the costs get too excessive.

I'd also think that the fee would be greater if you had a stadium with all Excellents since it would involve more to keep it that way.

[B. Gizzle]

these are all good suggestions and should be implemented. Also, I think a team should be able to get a bank loan to build stadiums. The loan would carry a interest, and might drive the team into debt should the team underperform for several years.

[SFSteveG]

I think it's very important to implement these things just as it was important to implement the new features in the other areas. Because this game is so financially oriented it's one area which has been almost completely overlooked and really shouldn't have been.

[henry296]

On a similar topic, I am into 2014 with my original game. I am using +20% revenue and -20% for salary and almost 90% are spending way over their payroll budget. The good news is that they are almost all profitable and have enough cash to cover their payroll, but I was wondering what determines the budget? And if most teams don't follow the budget, what good is it?

Todd