Financials - Evening the Playing Field

[Stu]

I started a quick league with 20 games, letting the CPU draft and determine financials. To start, teams had payrolls ranging from $20 mil to $70 mil and their corresponding market sizes, etc reflected this.

What do people do to even the playing field in terms of financials in a fictional league? I'd like to even it up some without putting teams too far in the hole or make them too profitable.

[Jason]

Even the field how? Do you mean everyone getting equal income or equal salary levels...?

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Dale And Eli's Dad

Even the field how? Do you mean everyone getting equal income or equal salary levels...?

Evening the field in terms of allowing lower payroll teams to eventually compete with the higher payroll teams.

It seems like after a few test runs, the teams with the higher payrolls keep making money while the lower payroll teams continue to struggle.

[Exorcst]

Yeah, is there a Salary cap option? I woudl love that for my league. I dl'd it this moring, but wont get to play around till tomorrow afternoon.

[Iconoclast37]

Yes, a salary cap can be imposed. Game Setup>League Setup>Rules, then, in the Financial Rules subsection, go to "Salary Cap" and edit in the dollar figure you desire. Presto!

[Matter2003]

Originally Posted by Stu

Evening the field in terms of allowing lower payroll teams to eventually compete with the higher payroll teams.

It seems like after a few test runs, the teams with the higher payrolls keep making money while the lower payroll teams continue to struggle.

I have to admit tho, that is pretty realistic...I mean look at the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox versus the Royals, Pirates and Marlins....

Just means that the smaller market teams are gonna have to do a much better job scouting and developing players than their big market counterparts, just as in real life...


I suppose one could even the playing field by implementing a cap or by instituting a very low revenue sharing rate....

[SC_Dawg]

Originally Posted by Stu

I started a quick league with 20 games, letting the CPU draft and determine financials. To start, teams had payrolls ranging from $20 mil to $70 mil and their corresponding market sizes, etc reflected this.

What do people do to even the playing field in terms of financials in a fictional league? I'd like to even it up some without putting teams too far in the hole or make them too profitable.

Note these are my untested opinions and some probably will find fault with them as I have not done any serious testing to prove these idea right or wrong as of yet.

Teams make money in 4 ways

1: Media contract
2: Gate Revenue
3: Merchandising Revenue
4: Revenue Sharing

If you want to balance everythign as much as possible IMO you need to control 3 of the 4 above. The gate revenue is not as controlable because if a team sucks they will not draw well.

Now how you control the other 3 aspects is

1: Media contract - At league creation under the rules tab amke the Media Contract Fixed and do not allow market size to control it.

2: Merchandising Revenue - Last season's revenue plays a major role in what this season's revenue will be. I pretty much know for a fact that in 6.5 merchandizing revenue sdoe not fluctuate greatly year to year. I believe, and I have not tested this to verify this theory, if you set everyone's previous years revenue, market size, fan interest and fan loyalty exactly the same you will create as level a playing field here as you can. Now it will fluctuate some in the current season but I believe the amounts should not vary so much to cause imbalance.

3: Revenue Sharing - This itself does not do as much as one would think, or at least in my limited experience it does not do what I originally thought. Think of it as a penalty for not spending to the max every season. It is not a luxury tax that penalizes the big spenders. I have not tested this but I am considering setting it at such a high level thus not penalizing teams who may rebuild by saving some cash then going on a FA spending spree to get better quickly in the hopes the other revenues will climb dramatically due to the much improved team.

Teams spend money in only 1 way.

1: Contracts

Setting a salary cap will indeed cap spending but it does not solve the revenue stream problem. Only tinkering with the revenue streams will income be normalized.