[No Pepper]

I remember someone once said it was the amount of available cash in the league that directed how much players asked for, and that was either for contract extensions or new free agent contracts, cannot remember. I also can't remember if this was related to a bug or not. At any rate, you might want to check how much money each team has.

In my current historical universe, I have a similar setup but have kept salary structure the same but reduced at least the attendence and media contracts. Your numbers across the board might not be reduced enough. After year one, with free agency set to one year, I haven't seen "league 1" stars switch over to "league 2", any players that have are either "second tier" or names I don't recognize. I can't speak towards $ amounts, though, team finances or contracts.