Historically Accurate Financials

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Dr. P.R. Park III

I'm interested in anything between the 1930's-1960's.

The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies operating expenses, as reported in the April 18, 1951, issue of The Sporting News:

Team Expense                                     $  825,000
Team Replacement Expense                         $  478,000
Grounds Expense                                  $  232,000
Games Expenses                                   $  181,000
Publicity and Advertising Expenses               $   91,000
Administrative and General Expenses              $  167,000
Farm System Operating Losses                     $  158,000
Player Contract Purchases and Free Agent Bonuses $ $252,000
-----------------------------------------------------------
Total operating expenses                         $2,384,000

• Team expense includes player salaries, uniforms, medical, travel, spring training trip.
• Team replacement expense includes scout salaries and travel expenses, working agreements, schools, spring training. Does not include farm spring operating losses.
• Grounds expenses include working crew salaries, park rent, repairs to structure, electricity, taxes and insurance.
• Games expenses include ticket managers, tickets, stationery ticket taker and seller salaries, detached ticket office expense.
• Publicity and advertising expenses include salaries and advertising in radio, newspaper, outside programs, posters, schedules.
• Admnistrative and general expenses include executive and office personnel salaries, travel, office rent, auditing, employee pensions, telephone and telegrams.

The 1957 Pittsburgh Pirates financial statement, as reported in the Feb. 12, 1958, issue of The Sporting News:

REVENUES	
	
Home games                           $1,250,000
Road games                           $  220,000
Radio-TV                             $  510,000
Concessions                          $  172,000
Other                                $   98,000
----------------------------------------------
Total revenues	                     $2,250,000

	
OPERATING EXPENSES	
	
Administrative and general           $  395,000
Team operating                       $  180,000
Salaries (players, coaches, manager) $  409,000
Game                                 $  170,000
Grounds, operating, maintenance      $  302,000
Team replacement                     $  409,000
Team development                     $  340,000
----------------------------------------------
Total operating expenses             $2,205,000

	
OPERATING INCOME (LOSS)              $   45,000

The article also goes on to break down the Pirate dollar this way: 35% for team replacement and development; 27% for team operating expense, including salaries; 15% for adminstration and general; 12% for grounds and maintenance and repairs; 8% for game expenses; 3% for advertising and publicity.

[LordTC]

Something else to think about is if you mess around with the financial system significantly, you run into all sorts of other problems.

As an extreme example I tried a time warp league where I ran the 1901,1921,1941,1961,1981 and 2001 seasons simultaneously with inter-league trading. Babe Ruth for $500,000 was an automatic deal for the AI, but was an absurd steal for the 2001 team paying him, if they held out for $2,000,000 cash I'm sure one of the 2001 teams would try it.

I think the financial model can be made better in games with all human players. The fact is sudden changes to the economy of the game are not things you can handle without spending a lot more time on the AI. Free Agency and Trading are very hard if the AI is encoded with hard defaults and you radically alter finances. If you make much more cash available the AI overvalues it, if you make much less cash available the AI trades it away too easily.