Financials

[Staples11]

I've been playing OOTP since about version 2 came out. The financial aspect of OOTP hasn't been a strong suit of the program. I've experienced many problems especially in online leagues. But things have improved a lot over the last few years.


I believe one of the things that makes the NFL so popular is the parity. A lot that comes from teams being handicapped financially; teams often "cut" really good players in order to be under the salary cap. We see this every off-season.

This is a great article that explains a lot of details of what takes place.

A Guide to the NFL Salary Cap - Over the Cap


I realize you guys can't incorporate everything day one. But I'm wondering how the creators are feeling with the financial system that will be in place in version 1 and going forward.

[Francis Cole]

The full salary cap rules are already in.

[colourmebrad]

Glad to hear this will be done right (or at least per rules!) from the get go. Maybe I'm bizarre, but as a GM the need to make tough decisions to stick under the cap is exciting. I don't want to build a powerhouse and never have to dismantle it because it gets too expensive.

brad

[Bulldog221]

It will be interesting to see how AI teams will handle salary cap space. While some teams and GM's will cut big names (and this happens regularly), usually there is more than just a $ factor involved (e.g. age, other positions perceived as being higher value, etc.).

In a lot of cases you see big contract guys get restructured or even a few middle-of-the-pack type guys get cut to make space for a big contract. I hope that the AI teams will use a mix of strategies to deal with salary cap space and isn't "predictable" in the true sense.

Might be high expectations for V1 but that would be ideal long-term.

[Le Grande Orange]

I would point out the salary cap rules are only part of the picture for financials. There are other important considerations that go to the underlying financial engine, such as:

• Amount of revenue earned by individual clubs
• Sources of club revenue (e.g. ticket sales, luxury suites, concessions, national television, etc.)
• Degree to which revenue is shared between clubs (this is an important factor in the NFL)
• Types and amount of club expenses
• Growth and/or changes in revenue and expenses over time

I don't know how much BTS goes into these areas, but for a truly flexible, customizable, and realistically authentic financial model the above-mentioned areas are key factors.

[Bulldog221]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

I would point out the salary cap rules are only part of the picture for financials. There are other important considerations that go to the underlying financial engine, such as:

• Amount of revenue earned by individual clubs
• Sources of club revenue (e.g. ticket sales, luxury suites, concessions, national television, etc.)
• Degree to which revenue is shared between clubs (this is an important factor in the NFL)
• Types and amount of club expenses
• Growth and/or changes in revenue and expenses over time

I don't know how much BTS goes into these areas, but for a truly flexible, customizable, and realistically authentic financial model the above-mentioned areas are key factors.

This is largely not true. Not sure how much you understand about the NFL financials.

NFL has strong revenue share in place. Teams only keep their suite and club seating revenue, and sponsorship deals (e.g. stadium name sponsorships) and that's it. The rest is shared.

Teams receive 3.1% (or 1/32nd) of the rest of the NFL revenue. In 2014, that was $187.7 million per team. This largely goes to pay for player salaries (the 2013 salary cap was $123 million). We know this because the Green Bay Packers have to announce their revenue as a publicly owned team.

It's hard to derive the other financials from local sources (the sources I previously mentioned), but the Packers made $136 million. After salary cap that totals out to about $200 million to pay for everything outside of player salaries.

For simplicity I'm sure every team can have a flat amount taken off for front office expenses, you end up with the following significant variables:

• Player contract signing bonuses are paid in cash and are not part of the salary (although they do count against the salary cap).
• Coaching expenses.
• Stadium expenses (maintenance / upgrade / new stadium).

Practically everything else is minor expenses.

I would fully expect the first financial model to have a lot of flat values for all teams leaving only player contracts and coaching contracts to vary from team to team. It's set up this way for parity in the NFL and so that teams can largely spend the same amount of money to draw the same talent from various sources (free agency, resigning existing players) and not end up with a Yankees situation in the NFL.


TLDR: For all intents and purposes, for a GM simulation game, all that REALLY matters is the salary cap. As far as I'm aware, virtually all of the NFL teams are profitable and all of their financials are roughly the same, and the only difference is how each team approaches the salary cap and how that affects their ability to acquire talent (well, salary cap space + location + coaching style + team success can all factor into a teams ability to acquire free agent talent, but I digress). I have not once heard of a team that didn't have enough money to sign a free agent (although some owners may prefer to avoid large signing bonuses to not have to pay the cash up front). In light of this rarity it seems unlikely that the owners cash liquidity will play a large factor in the game (if at all). The only time the bigger financial picture comes into play is for stadium considerations, which I hope isn't a high priority for V1.

[Koprnkc]

I wonder if the bigger question might be, how will the AI handle the PRE-salary cap era's, then if you remember, there was the transition phase, when there were Plan A, B, etc... free agents when they were implementing the salary cap.

Will the game only have modern day Salary Cap, or will there be flexibility concerning these rules.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Bulldog221

This is largely not true. Not sure how much you understand about the NFL financials.

I am well aware of NFL financial data as I have numerous file relating to it in the form of team and league financial statements sitting on my hard drive. This is in addition to other sources such as the annual Forbes club valuations.

Originally Posted by Bulldog221

NFL has strong revenue share in place. Teams only keep their suite and club seating revenue, and sponsorship deals (e.g. stadium name sponsorships) and that's it. The rest is shared.

Concessions revenue is not shared. Local media revenue is not shared. Advertising revenue is not shared. Local club merchandising is not shared. Stadium rental and parking revenues are not shared. Ticket revenue is shared (and has been since almost the beginning of the NFL) and of course the national broadcasting and national merchandising revenue is shared (by virtue of it being national, i.e. league-wide contracts).

So how much proportionally do the various sources of revenue contribute? Let's look at the 2010 data for the Green Bay Packers.

Local Revenue
Ticket sales (home games, net): 12.1%
Ticket sales (share of away games): 6.2%
Private suites income: 5.0%
Marketing/Pro Shop (net): 16.7%
Local media, concessions, parking (net): 5.2%

National Revenue
Television and radio broadcasting: 37.1%
NFL Properties (i.e. national merchandising): 17.8%

National revenue thus accounts for 54.9% of total club revenue while local sources amounted to 45.1%. Of the local revenue, ticket sales income is the shared revenue (and has been since almost the beginning of the NFL).

On the expense side of the ledger:

Expenses
Player costs: 64.8%
Game expenses (operations/maintenance [net]): 3.0%
General and administrative: 13.0%
Team expenses: 10.3%
Sales and marketing: 8.8%

So just under 65% of expenses were the players with the other 35% being all the other operating costs associated with running a pro sports club (front office staff, stadium staff, ticket office staff, trainers, coaches, medical costs, travel, equipment, and so forth). Of course these costs will fluctuate depending on the particular club examined. If other clubs have more revenue than player costs, being curtailed by the salary cap, will constitute a lower share of total expenses.

The last league-wide financial data available that I'm aware of was for the 1999 season. Overall, player costs amounted to 66.6% of expenses. On a club-by-club basis, however, player costs (excluding Cleveland) were as low as 57.0% for Dallas and 58.2% for Seattle to a high of 74.4% for Minnesota and 74.3% for Cincinnati. In terms of club revenue in 1999, the league average was $110.4 million. It ranged from a low of $90.9 million for Cincinnati and $94.6 million for Arizona to a high of $142.1 million for Dallas and $148.7 million for Washington.

Let's contrast the top and bottom clubs. Washington had total income that was over 1.6 times that of Cincinnati. In dollar terms the difference was $57.8 million. Washington spent $73.2 million on player costs while Cincinnati spent $61.1 million. Washington expenses overall were also higher, at $116.4 million compared to Cincinnati which had $82.3 million. In other words, Washington earned $57.8 million more, of which $12.1 million was additional spending on players compared to Cincinnati and $22 million in additional operating costs compared to Cincinnati. The remainder, $23.7 million, was additional operating profit for Washington compared to Cincinnati.

The lesson to be drawn is that, while the salary cap artificially constrains expenses, there is still a range of expenditures that clubs can have, and that range is affected by the amount of income the club generates. While gate sharing and especially the amount of the national revenue reduces the disparities in income between clubs, it does not eliminate it entirely. And income disparities will be seen in terms of player expenses as a result (to the degree to which the salary cap permits).

Originally Posted by Bulldog221

For all intents and purposes, for a GM simulation game, all that REALLY matters is the salary cap ...

That's all well and good if all you want this game to be is NFL Simulator 2015™. Some of us would like it to be more flexible than that. The NFL has not always had a salary cap. The NFL has not always had the same degree of dependence on national revenue as it does now. Some folks might like to run fictional leagues and not have to be tied to the NFL way of doing things. Some folks might like to experiment by adjusting the salary cap amounts or structure, or even dispense with it altogether. Some folks might like to run something closer to historical NFL seasons.

It's perfectly fine if the first couple of BTS versions have rather basic financials. But to truly shine in the long term the game needs a more robust financial engine that can accommodate different time periods, different situations, different setups, and can handle a decent range of user input customization. And that's where other forms of revenue, expenses, and distribution of revenue comes in.

[colourmebrad]

Everyone wants different things, but count me as one person that couldn't possibly care less about concessions revenue. If the cap rules are implemented properly and you have some kind of system for providing a budget for coaches/scouts, then the rest is just silliness (for me).

brad

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by colourmebrad

Everyone wants different things, but count me as one person that couldn't possibly care less about concessions revenue

You don't have to have it explicitly delineated. The point is that revenue comes from local and national sources, and the variance in the amount of local revenue is important in that it affects total revenue which in turn affects the amount there is to spend on players.

Ever wonder what it would be like in the NFL if it had something more like MLB's system with no salary cap? A robust financial engine would allow a BTS user to do something like that. Or simply to mimic the earlier days of the NFL where there was no salary cap.

[colourmebrad]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

You don't have to have it explicitly delineated. The point is that revenue comes from local and national sources, and the variance in the amount of local revenue is important in that it affects total revenue which in turn affects the amount there is to spend on players.

I suppose the argument can be made that not every owner wants to spend all of the available salary cap space. But I think with a V1 where pragmatic decisions need to be made on what does and doesn't get implemented, the salary cap system gives the game an easy out of not implementing a complex/robust financial system.

Ever wonder what it would be like in the NFL if it had something more like MLB's system with no salary cap? A robust financial engine would allow a BTS user to do something like that. Or simply to mimic the earlier days of the NFL where there was no salary cap.

I'm not particularly interested, but certainly BTS will eventually need that kind of functionality if it wants to provide historical play, plus it gives fictional leagues the ability to go with no cap. All reasonable desires for a given person to have.

I just don't want to set hotdog prices.

brad

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by colourmebrad

I just don't want to set hotdog prices.

Nor would I ever suggest such.

[Bulldog221]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Local Revenue
Ticket sales (home games, net): 12.1%
Ticket sales (share of away games): 6.2%
Private suites income: 5.0%
Marketing/Pro Shop (net): 16.7%
Local media, concessions, parking (net): 5.2%

National Revenue
Television and radio broadcasting: 37.1%
NFL Properties (i.e. national merchandising): 17.8%

National revenue thus accounts for 54.9% of total club revenue while local sources amounted to 45.1%. Of the local revenue, ticket sales income is the shared revenue (and has been since almost the beginning of the NFL).

On the expense side of the ledger:

Expenses
Player costs: 64.8%
Game expenses (operations/maintenance [net]): 3.0%
General and administrative: 13.0%
Team expenses: 10.3%
Sales and marketing: 8.8%

Confused because even you admit that the ticket sales (except club and suite ticket revenue) are shared. So basically, the math indicates the shared national revenue model all but pays for the players (if not, it's 90%+). The rest goes to extraneous costs that people looking to play GM aren't going to care about. To go into any detail beyond the player costs vs cap is nice for anybody looking for a business simulation, but this is a football game. I'm sure players would rather worry about the strategy their coaches and staff have than how much they cost, and worrying about how to get more $ from parking so they can pay for them.

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

That's all well and good if all you want this game to be is NFL Simulator 2015™. Some of us would like it to be more flexible than that. The NFL has not always had a salary cap. The NFL has not always had the same degree of dependence on national revenue as it does now. Some folks might like to run fictional leagues and not have to be tied to the NFL way of doing things. Some folks might like to experiment by adjusting the salary cap amounts or structure, or even dispense with it altogether. Some folks might like to run something closer to historical NFL seasons.

You nailed it pretty much on the head. My hope very much is that Francis very much gets the core NFL engine in place, with good AI when it comes to trades and player acquisition, player development, and the simulation "right" before tackling historic or alternate NFL rules (e.g. no cap), deep-dive financials (keeping track of parking revenue, etc.) and the other pieces you've mentioned. The biggest thing about this is that you have the get the game of FOOTBALL right. This is an American football simulation and not a business simulation, and that's why I would argue against any of these kinds of things.


The cap being in place is a given. I just hope that we have a strong AI that doesn't trade away the house (except for the occasional top 3 QB blockbuster trade), drafts relatively competitively, and has relatively smart player acquisition and re-signing abilities before moving onto other things.

All in all I wouldn't mind it being there down the road, but for V1 I'm just hoping for high quality in these other areas first.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Bulldog221

You nailed it pretty much on the head. My hope very much is that Francis very much gets the core NFL engine in place, with good AI when it comes to trades and player acquisition, player development, and the simulation "right" before tackling historic or alternate NFL rules (e.g. no cap), deep-dive financials (keeping track of parking revenue, etc.) and the other pieces you've mentioned.

Which is what I said:

"It's perfectly fine if the first couple of BTS versions have rather basic financials."

Originally Posted by Bulldog221

This is an American football simulation and not a business simulation, and that's why I would argue against any of these kinds of things.

The NFL is a professional sports league. That means money is fundamental to the operation of the league. The players expect to be paid for their efforts and the clubs want to make a profit (that is the point of the exercise). Pro sports is a business first and foremost, and always has been (romanticism notwithstanding).

One need not explicitly model every single detail. But for a proper model one has to use real-world data as the reference, and recognize how revenue is generated, how it is distributed, and what expenses exist.

[garion333]

I knew there was a post about financials in V1 somewhere. It was in the FAQ.

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

The first thing to remember is that V1 will be as realistic as possible, and that will include all the real life cap rules.

Now it will be similar to OOTP (for V1 at least) in that you are the GM, and you have the cap to stick to. As a GM you won't be overly concerned with how many tickets you are selling or what the price of concessions are.

We realise a lot of people may want to customize the finances or maybe even have no cap, but it's far better/easier to get everything 100% realistic and then try to make that customizable, rather than start out with things customizable and trying to make it 100% realistic from there.