Financial Model for OOTP, new version

[darkcloud4579]

For those of you looking for a more realistic solution for modeling financials in OOTP, I humbly submit the latest version of my financial spreadsheet model.

It's streamlined (as much as something like this could be..) and the idea is simple. It's intended to be put into the game and you can run your league for 10 years or more using it. Basically, make sure that the media money is set to run for however long you want to run with those financial numbers and then once you do, you can play unfettered.

Oh and make sure that media money is set to "market size" rather than giving one solid number for everyone and that cash is set to a $500m maximum (so the game doesn't zero out team cash each year) and that revenue sharing isn't on.

I did this and over a ten year period, saw results that were realistic and the teams that are financially dominant didn't deviate from the current landscape of MLB. Mid- and small market teams were up and down, but that was the idea.

There will be kooky things that happen, like AI teams that spend too much and stuff. But that happens status quo, so I figured at least with a model like this, the teams are set on their paths early on.

So anyway..that's all I have. If you have questions, let me know of course. But I wanted to post this out here since a lot of folks don't go in the mods forum intentionally.

Cheers.

Edit: The newer version is listed below.

[darkcloud4579]

I've created OOTPFin7. It's the simplest, sleekest and most effective version of the tool.

It's only setup for you to input for one team. But you could rinse, wash and repeat for each team in the league. Or you could use 6.5 to store critical information and then save the information generated in there each time.

I felt this was the best way to do it for people who want realistic numbers for their own team and don't want to bother with the whole league OR just to present the information and the setup in the simplest way possible for setting up your team's financial information.

Here's a screenshot of what it looks like:



That's it. You input the information in the brown area and the blue area generate the information that you input into the game.

Here's a link to it.

[darkcloud4579]

ESPN Stadium Tour
MLB Valuations
MLB Attendance
Canadian Market Population (MSA) Data
US Market Population (MSA) Data
Ticket Prices (2006)
How the Luxury Tax works
Median income, by place, USA
Who fans root for, a US map
US Census Population Projections 2004-2030

That should get you going...and the DMA spreadsheet(TV Market Sizes from Nielsens) is also super useful, too. If you want to "boost" media markets, you can add radio market sizes to the TV market numbers, too. But that's up to you. I don't have the radio DMA numbers as part of these resources.

[Captain Walrus]

This is a great tool, but "Payroll 2 Years Ago" doesn't affect the results at all. Also, why 2 years ago and not last year?

[ctorg]

This is great for 2008 leagues. Really nice job. But I'm wondering if there is a way to modify it to work with historical and/or future finances. I don't use the financial coefficient in the game because it is kind of an artificial layer. I like the way historical leagues work by actually altering league financial levels.

[darkcloud4579]

We can tweak it for historical leagues or future finances. I need to figure out what variables ought to go into it to determine the results to make it work for any era. That's my next project for this.

Captain, Payroll 2 years ago is averaged with current year payroll to create a payroll average that's calculated. You just can't see the calcuation happening, because that payroll formula is hidden. The idea was to create a "snapshot" of team payroll. I figured that from the previous year to current, payroll is generally the same or close, but that from Year 1 to Year 3, that there might be some differences.

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by ctorg

This is great for 2008 leagues. Really nice job. But I'm wondering if there is a way to modify it to work with historical and/or future finances. I don't use the financial coefficient in the game because it is kind of an artificial layer. I like the way historical leagues work by actually altering league financial levels.

I'm going to work on this tonight. I'm going to try to attach some sort of coefficient to the calculations that would lower the financial numbers for older eras.

I don't really know how well that'll go. But I know it's possible and so, if I can make it work..I'll release a 7.5 version of OOTPFin with that capability.

Keep your fingers crossed.

[Le Grande Orange]

In terms of financial data for major league baseball, I highly recommend the following web sites. They contain a variety of data which would likely be very useful. For anyone who hasn't seen these sites before, you should find them quite interesting.


SABR's Business of Baseball Committee

Here you can find many of the CBAs between the players and owners; specifically, you can find the following on this page:

1970 Basic Agreement
1976 Basic Agreement
1990-1993 Basic Agreement
1997-2001 Basic Agreement
2003-2006 Basic Agreement
2007-2011 Basic Agreement

Also worth checking out are the committee's Outside the Lines newsletters. The more recent ones contain some articles with good details about the salaries and finances of past years. The list of newsletters available can be found on this page. Below are the issues and article titles I would recommend as being very helpful resources:

2007-2
Age, Experience, and Salary During the Era of Integration
The Dollar Value of the Last Piece of the Puzzle

2007-1
Fair Pay for Fair Play: A Preliminary Analysis of Race-Based Wages in MLB and the Negro Leagues

2006-2
Salary Arbitration: A Burden or a Benefit?
Do Players Outperform in Their Free Agent Year?

2006-1
Purchasing Pennants: The New York Yankees Then and Now
Part 3: Player Performance

2005-3
Purchasing Pennants: The New York Yankees Then and Now
Part 2: Salaries

2005-2
Purchasing Pennants: The New York Yankees Then and Now
Part 1: Yankee Revenues and Expenses


Rodney Fort's Sports Business Data Pages

Check out the material available under the MLB section — you can find data on income and expenses, payroll, player salaries, and more. When you first open the site, follow the "Sports Business Data" link in the left pane to open up the page with the different sports sections listed.


The Biz of Baseball

Lots of great material here also. Try the "Articles and Opinons" and "BoB Documents" links in particular.


Super70s Baseball

Check out its major league finances section. While much of the data can be found on the previously mentioned sites, it still has a few useful pieces of its own worth checking out.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

How the Luxury Tax works

The link leads to a blank page.

Another way to understand how the luxury tax works, and more importantly, how revenue sharing works, is to read the relevant sections in the CBA.

I'd point out that the luxury tax is not that important; it usually only affects one or two teams, and the money collected from the tax does not go to the other MLB teams. Instead, it goes into a fund to promote baseball in the U.S. and other countries.

Revenue sharing is of a much greater impact, but works rather differently in MLB than it does in OOTP. In fact, MLB's version is actually fairly straightforward in how it operates. Teams pay a flat percentage of the amount of their payroll above the MLB average into the pool, and teams below the average payroll collect funds from the pool in proportion to how far below the average they are.

[darkcloud4579]

Thanks for the links. The luxury tax has been factored out of my formula, as has revenue sharing. I had a model that worked okay, but it just made things more complicated and not everyone wants to play that way, so I decided to nix it.

I'm not going to do anything other than find an inflation calculator and draw the numbers back that way. It's a gargantuan effort to try to account for past history of baseball financials from year to year and it's not really of any use to me, since I don't generally play that way. Something more general is better.

To that end, this inflation calculator will allow you to draw the numbers back to a different era to get their past values.

[darkcloud4579]

And I've updated it to include an area that calculates the team budget, too. The link has been updated with the new sheet.

[sofla97]

Darkcloud, Thanks for doing this.

When I input the numbers in your example I get a team budget of $2,638,120.
That's gonna get someone fired with a team that has a $98,000,000 payroll.

[darkcloud4579]

Hi there:
Hmm..well, I don't know why. Is it because your team is playing in a really small market? If so, you're screwed. Maybe you ought to "create" a Regional Sports Network and find a way to incorporate more viewers into your tv market to create an artificial amount. Or...just make your owner REALLY rich.

[sofla97]

DC

I meant when you plug in your numbers from your example [see above-post#2] into the latest version [ v2] I am getting a budget of 2mil when the last years payroll was 98 mill and 2 years ago was 87 mil.
Shouldn't the budget be somewhere around the payroll numbers?
What factors determine the teams budget in your Financial Model?

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by sofla97

DC

I meant when you plug in your numbers from your example [see above-post#2] into the latest version [ v2] I am getting a budget of 2mil when the last years payroll was 98 mill and 2 years ago was 87 mil.
Shouldn't the budget be somewhere around the payroll numbers?
What factors determine the teams budget in your Financial Model?

Maybe I made a mistake. Lemme take a look at it and I'll report back.

[darkcloud4579]

I made some changes to the budget calculation. I originally set it up a way so that the game could do what it needed to do with the calculations down the line, but...that obviously wasn't working and so, I made some adjustments that are more in line with how budget was calculated in previous versions of the model.

So..it should work okay now.

Thanks for pointing it out.

So you all should download the newest version here.

[sofla97]

Thanks DC. Looking forward to using this.

[DCHepler25]

I downloaded the latest version and I am interested in playing around with it!

Thanks for all the work you put into this!

[t-bone shuffle]

dc;

How are you establishing your "Stadium Rating's"?

Thanks,

tbs

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by t-bone shuffle

dc;

How are you establishing your "Stadium Rating's"?

Thanks,

tbs

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stadiums