Payroll / Budget problem

[Ryan Express]

I decided I was going to replay the exciting Brewer glory years (81' and 82') and when I loaded up the 81' season my beloved Bambi's Bombers had a payroll of 84,000,000 and a budget of 17,000,000!!!!! This would leave me in a 67,000,000 dollar hole at the end of the season!!!

There is no way the Brewer payroll was anywhere near 84 million back then...**** thats twice what the current payroll is today!!

Is the game looking at the player ratings and adjusting their salary according to what players would be making in 2005?

Since this is the last time we actually had a good team in Milwaukee I would really like to play the 81'-82' Brewers so please tell me how to fix this issue.

Thanks!!

PS - I'm playing version 8.30

[SFSteveG]

I'd suggest manually cutting the salary. I can't get the revenue above 55mil so I'd suggest cutting salary for the players you know weren't making the current equivalent.

[Chipper_Jones]

Another thing that might help make more revenue is if you modify the team to have A+ fan support. If these were your "glory years" then that's not too unrealistic, and it will allow you to sell out more seats in your stadium at higher prices (thus making more revenue). That, coupled with manual edits to the contracts, should help you enjoy your sim experience

Hope this helps!

[Ryan Express]

But the Brewers payroll wasn't that much in 1981-82. Why is their payroll all wacked out like this?

Is it a bug????

[21C]

The game does not use historical salaries. It uses modern economics for any year in the past. It is too difficult to adjust the finances to match history.

[Ryan Express]

That sucks, how are you supposed to play past years if the payrolls are out of wack???????????????????????????????

[liveandletdie]

Lower the salary demand and go to advanced options/Calculate Saleries. This should make it so all the saleries are lower. Do this with what the others mentioned

[21C]

That sucks, how are you supposed to play past years if the payrolls are out of wack???????????????????????????????

It is too difficult to adjust the finances to match history.

You would need historical figures for salaries - the Lahman files have them for 1985+ - as well as ticket prices. Besides that, there would be no real free agency before 1975 since the reserve clause was in effect and players were bound to each club as long as they wanted.

Somebody suggested dropping the League Revenue and Salary Demands when starting past seasons ( along with liveandletdie's suggestion ) and slowly raising them as each decade passed. Like:
1900 -100%
1910 -90%
1920 -80%
1930 -70% etc.

Not an elegant solution but worth pursuing nonetheless if you want more realism.

Besides that, you would have to enter the salaries yourself to the numbers you want but these are hard to come by pre-1985.

[SFSteveG]

Another thing that might help make more revenue is if you modify the team to have A+ fan support. If these were your "glory years" then that's not too unrealistic, and it will allow you to sell out more seats in your stadium at higher prices (thus making more revenue). That, coupled with manual edits to the contracts, should help you enjoy your sim experience

Hope this helps!

I actually tried the fan support thing when I was trying to solve this for him and the best I could raise it to was 55 so unless you cut salaries or mess with the league revenue slider there's no way to make that particular situation functional.

[Rand]

You would need historical figures for salaries - the Lahman files have them for 1985+ - as well as ticket prices. Besides that, there would be no real free agency before 1975 since the reserve clause was in effect and players were bound to each club as long as they wanted.

Somebody suggested dropping the League Revenue and Salary Demands when starting past seasons ( along with liveandletdie's suggestion ) and slowly raising them as each decade passed. Like:
1900 -100%
1910 -90%
1920 -80%
1930 -70% etc.

Not an elegant solution but worth pursuing nonetheless if you want more realism.

Besides that, you would have to enter the salaries yourself to the numbers you want but these are hard to come by pre-1985.

I was just going to start a thread about this, but since you're discussing something close to what I had in mind...

You're on the right track here. Add to that the option of letting us put in our own high/low/average salaries and high/low/average ticket prices, and we'd have as close to a total solution as we're ever going to get, barring some massive research on Clay's part.

Not really accurate, but in the ballpark. If we can do this (again, optionally) at the start of a game, all player salaries could be calculated from there. In 1930 we'd probably end up with a dozen players making 80k, instead of just the one, but compared to 15M+ that's nothing.

We also need the ability to turn off free agency. Since we're stuck with player moods, let the salary we decide to pay influence the player mood. That would also mean that we should be able to raise a salary at any time. Rather than contract demands, we should get requests that we know we'll need to get close to to maintain the player's happiness... and if we meet it, he'd be happy no matter what other team his all time bestest BumBuddy is playing on.

The more hard core among us would have to do some research, but it would only be a matter of time before we end up with a thread filled with suggested salaries and ticket prices broken down by period.

[jonnymo]

I decided I was going to replay the exciting Brewer glory years (81' and 82') and when I loaded up the 81' season my beloved Bambi's Bombers had a payroll of 84,000,000 and a budget of 17,000,000!!!!! This would leave me in a 67,000,000 dollar hole at the end of the season!!!...
Since this is the last time we actually had a good team in Milwaukee I would really like to play the 81'-82' Brewers so please tell me how to fix this issue.

I have an alternate solution, Ryan. I had a similar problem for the opposite goal when I tried to replay my beloved 1982 Reds. (Boy, did they suck.) However, they had a crazy high payroll, because the year before they had the best record in the NL. By moving my start date forward one year, I got to take advantage of players who underperformed the year before -- and were paid appropriately.

When you start in any historic season, you are, in effect, starting w/ a team of FA's. I the case of the '81 Brewers, you are paying individually for the parts of a team that won 86 games the year before.

My recommendation is to include all of the glory years, not just the two when they made the playoffs. From 1978 to 1980, Milwaukee averaged 91 wins. If you start in 1978, the payroll begins at $53M. If you go back one year further, the payroll is $38M. From there, maybe experiment w/ Steve's and Chipper's suggestions until you increase revenues or cut expenses.

Either way, you and the spirit of Staten Island native George Bamberger can enjoy turning the team around instead of taking over a team that is already a winner.

Good luck!