Financial Model for OOTP, new version

[cbbl]

Is this program only designed for solo leagues in the year 2007 and above?

I ask because I run a historical solo league, but the calculator is not returning realistic budgets for the year I'm in (1955).

I haven't studied the calculations, but I'm playing a 120 game season. I've told the calculator I have a player budget of $398,154 and that my payroll two years ago was $403,000.

It tells me my current year budget should be nearly $237 million.

[darkcloud4579]

Yes, it's generally intended for modern day financials. But you can use this inflation calculator to draw the numbers back to the era you're trying to get to. But that means you have to draw ALL the numbers back. That includes all of the numbers you're calculating to get to a particular place. Hopefully, that will draw the numbers back closer to the era you're trying to get to.

If not, tell me the details of what particular example you have (e.g. all of the lines you're filling out for each value) and I'll take a look at it, because it might be endemic to the way I calculated things if it's still causing problems.

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by cbbl

Is this program only designed for solo leagues in the year 2007 and above?

I ask because I run a historical solo league, but the calculator is not returning realistic budgets for the year I'm in (1955).

I haven't studied the calculations, but I'm playing a 120 game season. I've told the calculator I have a player budget of $398,154 and that my payroll two years ago was $403,000.

It tells me my current year budget should be nearly $237 million.

I went through the process and tried to see maybe what you were running into. The biggest issue here is your media market. So that's where it all lies. If you're operating in the "olden days" then you might want to almost make that number miniscule because that's where the issue is. Figure there was no TV then and even if it was, it was so minimal for the average person that the dominance wasn't what it was now related to media money.

If you lower that amount, you'll get far more realistic numbers to those days. If not, it'll continue to be out of whack. I suggest numbers lower than 50,000 to determine the media market during that time. Or even lower.

[ctorg]

The trickiest thing about creating a historical version of this would probably be dealing with attendance and population numbers, since what constitutes good attendance and large population has changed over time.

Perhaps if, in another tab, people could actually enter the average attendance and maybe what constitutes an average population (this might be a bit tricky - maybe average population for a city with a MLB team?), the formula could be based on the percent of the average rather than the raw numbers.

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by ctorg

The trickiest thing about creating a historical version of this would probably be dealing with attendance and population numbers, since what constitutes good attendance and large population has changed over time.

Perhaps if, in another tab, people could actually enter the average attendance and maybe what constitutes an average population (this might be a bit tricky - maybe average population for a city with a MLB team?), the formula could be based on the percent of the average rather than the raw numbers.

Good foundation you've given me here to work from. I'll try it out in the next version. Don't know when I'll get going with it, but...I do want to attempt to do that, because I think it'd be the next logical step in the development of the tool for folks who start in the past.

[NCBeachBum]

I like the idea, but I'm not sure about the results. As a test, I entered the Braves numbers, with 2007 as the current year and 2006 as the previous (I probably underestimated Liberty Media's worth in the owner's spot, but it seemed better to go under than over):

CURRENT YEAR ATTENDANCE 2,745,203
CURRENT YEAR WIN TOTAL 85
LAST YEAR WIN TOTAL 79
PLAYOFF APPEARANCES (LAST 10 YEARS) 8
WORLD SERIES TITLES (LAST 5 YEARS) 1
STADIUM RATING (0-100) 65
CURRENT YEAR PAYROLL $89,492,685
PAYROLL 2 YEARS AGO $90,156,876
TEAM OWNER'S NET WORTH $3,600,000,000

And here are the results I got:

TICKET PRICE $31.12
FAN INTEREST 59
FAN INTEREST MODIFIER 93
FAN LOYALTY 10
MARKET SIZE 7
CASH $183,316,027
MEDIA CONTRACT (FIVE-YEARS) $59,325,000
BUDGET $282,466,146
LAST YEAR MERCHANDISE $44,213,692


It seems they have been licensed to print money.

[NCBeachBum]

And on the flip side, the D-Rays (I just tried a number for Sternberg's worth, since I haven't been able to find it anywhere):

CURRENT YEAR ATTENDANCE 1,389,031
CURRENT YEAR WIN TOTAL 66
LAST YEAR WIN TOTAL 61
PLAYOFF APPEARANCES (LAST 10 YEARS) 0
WORLD SERIES TITLES (LAST 5 YEARS) 0
STADIUM RATING (0-100) 56
CURRENT YEAR PAYROLL $24,124,200
PAYROLL 2 YEARS AGO $35,417,967
TEAM OWNER'S NET WORTH $800,000,000


And the results:

TICKET PRICE $20.97
FAN INTEREST 34
FAN INTEREST MODIFIER 55
FAN LOYALTY 0
MARKET SIZE 3
CASH $39,975,088
MEDIA CONTRACT (FIVE-YEARS) $59,325,000
BUDGET $98,327,604
LAST YEAR MERCHANDISE -$332,159


They must have made an awful lot of merchandise that never sold.

[darkcloud4579]

The model isn't perfect, but it's mostly designed to work with OOTP. It wasn't developed with an intent to exact real life, it works within the flaws of OOTP's model to create a system where there are true haves and have-nots and where teams that don't excel on the field or have deep pocketed owners, will be in debt perpetually to where you'd be induced to move them or remedy the situation another way. It's done on purpose.

If you did the numbers for each team in the league, you'd be able to get a better account of how well the numbers work as a whole and even then...I don't really know what you're asking for?

A way for it to mimic real life numbers?
A way for the Rays to make a profit on their merchandise sales after sucking it up?

If there is a certain pool of cash throughout the marketplace, what you signaled with the Braves there wouldn't be that unusual. And in the situation with corporate ownership, Liberty Media's net value isn't TOTALLY designed to running the Braves. So you can't use that number as the value for the team owner's net worth, because by design it was made for a team owned by an individual.

Sternberg isn't close to a billionaire. He only paid $65 million for a controlling stake of the Rays. If his pockets were that deep, he'd have built a new stadium himself or put up the cash to do something to overhaul that roster.

Carl Pohlad is the richest of the owners these days and he's a billionaire by himself, the team's owned by companies, you can allocate about 1-5% of their value to the team owner category. That's what it was intended for. I should've made that more clear.

We've worked on a new edition of this, that includes a modifier for historical calculations and it'll be released soon. Thanks for the comments.

[NCBeachBum]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

The model isn't perfect, but it's mostly designed to work with OOTP. It wasn't developed with an intent to exact real life, it works within the flaws of OOTP's model to create a system where there are true haves and have-nots and where teams that don't excel on the field or have deep pocketed owners, will be in debt perpetually to where you'd be induced to move them or remedy the situation another way. It's done on purpose.

If you did the numbers for each team in the league, you'd be able to get a better account of how well the numbers work as a whole and even then...I don't really know what you're asking for?

A way for it to mimic real life numbers?
A way for the Rays to make a profit on their merchandise sales after sucking it up?

If there is a certain pool of cash throughout the marketplace, what you signaled with the Braves there wouldn't be that unusual. And in the situation with corporate ownership, Liberty Media's net value isn't TOTALLY designed to running the Braves. So you can't use that number as the value for the team owner's net worth, because by design it was made for a team owned by an individual.

Sternberg isn't close to a billionaire. He only paid $65 million for a controlling stake of the Rays. If his pockets were that deep, he'd have built a new stadium himself or put up the cash to do something to overhaul that roster.

Carl Pohlad is the richest of the owners these days and he's a billionaire by himself, the team's owned by companies, you can allocate about 1-5% of their value to the team owner category. That's what it was intended for. I should've made that more clear.

We've worked on a new edition of this, that includes a modifier for historical calculations and it'll be released soon. Thanks for the comments.

Ah, so it wasn't really meant to model real life in terms of numbers. That's all that was throwing me, man. I love the idea, and I'd love to see one in which you ended up with team budgets, for the most part, staying in the more normal (when non-historical, obviously) $30-130 million range. The nigh-$300 million budget just threw up a big red flag for me, considering what I was looking for.

[darkcloud4579]

With ctorg's help, there is a whole historical conversion (that can be used for future years, too, incidentally) added to the newest version. I haven't been able to translate it for regular users and to tweak it so that I understand what it's doing to the way the numbers are generated, but once I do..I'll hopefully release it by April or so and folks can take a stab at it.

[remangiii]

It's April!

[darkcloud4579]

Here's a link to the file

Version 8 is here kids.

This version includes a historical modifier to where you can transport your calculations to the past (or future values up to the year 2025) into the game. Here are screenshots.

Ctorg was the one responsible for adding the historical modifier, so give him props for all of the historical population and financial data.


For this screen, input MODERN numbers in there. That's in today's dollars.


All you have to input here is the year at the top. This will cause the sheet to recalcuate your modern numbers into the modifer year you are using.


Here are the modifiers. The only thing you'd need to change is the length of your season if you have a longer/shorter season than what's indicated here. It's intended to mimic real life and you shouldn't have to make any changes, but...that's what these are there for.

Here is the original thread with all of the information from past versions, etc.

[EMSoccerCoach]

Appears daunting, but yet very cool. I just have to form some patience to sit down with this. Regardless, thanks for the work. You third party guys have made this game (and many others) for years.

[remangiii]

Great! Thanks.

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by EMSoccerCoach

Appears daunting, but yet very cool. I just have to form some patience to sit down with this. Regardless, thanks for the work. You third party guys have made this game (and many others) for years.

If you read the original thread where the whole thing originated, it might seem less daunting. It'll explain the whole thing from the start there, though get to the last two pages to get the spreadsheet in its current iteration. If you run into questions/problems, let me know.

[No Pepper]

Ooh, I'll ask questions! They'll be more, I'm sure, and I apologize if I've missed something, if it's obvious, or I just appear like a lazy numbnut:

1) How do I use your model in the first year? You have a field that asks for team record in previous year, current attendence, etc.? Or am I to use this only after the first year has ended, using OOTP generated financials at first, then input at the end of the first regular season/before free agency?

2) Just a clarification, I input today's numbers (2007/2008) into the orange section in columns B/D or C/E?

3) Does this model have any minimum limits? That is, must a market population or media market size be above some floor value? Payroll? Net worth? for the formulas to work? I ask because I'd like to test it using smaller markets in the early part of this century, ie, non-MLB.

4) Did you ever release your Star Negotiator or was that part of the Trade Evaluator in a previous model?

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by No Pepper

Ooh, I'll ask questions! They'll be more, I'm sure, and I apologize if I've missed something, if it's obvious, or I just appear like a lazy numbnut:

1) How do I use your model in the first year? You have a field that asks for team record in previous year, current attendence, etc.? Or am I to use this only after the first year has ended, using OOTP generated financials at first, then input at the end of the first regular season/before free agency?

2) Just a clarification, I input today's numbers (2007/2008) into the orange section in columns B/D or C/E?

3) Does this model have any minimum limits? That is, must a market population or media market size be above some floor value? Payroll? Net worth? for the formulas to work? I ask because I'd like to test it using smaller markets in the early part of this century, ie, non-MLB.

4) Did you ever release your Star Negotiator or was that part of the Trade Evaluator in a previous model?

1. Use it after the first year has ended and it usually presumes you've simmed a few years ahead, but...after the first season for sure.

2. You want to enter the today's numbers under the two teams (replace New York and Boston for two teams in your league) and those values will trigger changes in the values below to enter into the game. The ones to the left are for the first team and the ones to the right in grey are for the 2nd team.

3. You just need to set the year you're using to go back to the "olden days". To do that you must go to the 2nd tab of the spreadsheet and change the "Year" to the year you're trying to account for. That's the only thing you need to change, as the spreadsheet will do the rest.

4. I jettisoned the Star/Trade negotiator after v.5 or 6 I think. I like the concept, but couldn't get it to work right. I think it'll be a separate tool that I release that isn't directly related to this tool, because trying to make them work in tandem is very hard.