competitive balance

[jg2977]

I've asked this question before, but it's been so long that I've forgotten what to do:

I have a 24-team league based on the National Hockey League. Right now, there are 6 teams that dominate the league every year, 6 teams that have absolutely no chance to win, and 12 teams in the middle who do OK. I want to adjust the financials so that the great teams and bad teams are on a more even playing field. What do you do with your financial system to ensure better competitive balance?

Here are the teams with the most playoff appearances:

Penguins - 34
Kings - 30
Rangers - 28
Canadiens - 28
Bruins - 26
Devils - 24

Here are the teams with the fewest playoff appearances:

Nordiques - 6
Sharks - 7
Flyers - 9
Whalers - 9
Sabres - 10
North Stars - 11

The top 6 teams have a total of 170 playoff appearances, while the bottom 6 have only 52. That's a fairly large disparity. I'd like that to be much closer. My league has just ended its 53rd season.

Unbelievably, the Sharks with only 7 appearances have won 2 Stanley Cups, while the Rangers with 28 appearances have won only 1 Stanley Cup.

[1998 Yankees]

Some other guys may have more ideas, but here's what I would concentrate on:

Media Contract Fixed? Yes, Same Contract for Every Team (longer alternative for same result - No, Based on Team Market Size, then edit every team's market size to be the same)

Revenue Sharing? Yes, Cash Over Maximum Will Be Shared

Cash Maximum - set a reasonable limit.

Team Market Size - as commissioner, go ahead and standardize them anyway, as it has an effect on attendance and merchandising revenue, IIRC.

[theasfl]

If you have it set to no cash maximum and these teams are making money every year while the bottom feeders are barely staying afloat every year this is ususally the direct result. Not as dissimmilar to real baseball as I wish it were. Of course if you have a cash maximum this doesnt apply, but you may want to lower it or try to give some form of cash bonuses to the worse off teams.

[jg2977]

How much is a reasonable limit for the cash maximum? I changed it to $40 million, and two of the bad teams got better (Hartford and Buffalo both won Stanley Cups in the past two years), but the rest of them are still lousy. Also, two of the dominant teams (Pittsburgh and Boston) got worse, so things are looking a little bit better now.

Secondly, how do you give cash bonuses to the teams that aren't making any money?

As you can probably tell, I like to simulate quickly through the regular seasons and then "watch" the playoffs.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by jg2977

How much is a reasonable limit for the cash maximum? I changed it to $40 million, and two of the bad teams got better (Hartford and Buffalo both won Stanley Cups in the past two years), but the rest of them are still lousy. Also, two of the dominant teams (Pittsburgh and Boston) got worse, so things are looking a little bit better now.

Secondly, how do you give cash bonuses to the teams that aren't making any money?

As you can probably tell, I like to simulate quickly through the regular seasons and then "watch" the playoffs.

1. That depends on the financial structure of your league, attendance, revenue, payroll, etc. Set the cash maximum too high and the rich teams will not share as much. Set it too low and there will not be enough cash to go around.

2. You can edit the cash figure for each team as commissioner. Go to the team's Front Office page and click Edit Financials.

[theasfl]

Originally Posted by jg2977

How much is a reasonable limit for the cash maximum? I changed it to $40 million, and two of the bad teams got better (Hartford and Buffalo both won Stanley Cups in the past two years), but the rest of them are still lousy. Also, two of the dominant teams (Pittsburgh and Boston) got worse, so things are looking a little bit better now.

Experiment with it, if the teams that are always good don't have much of a cash surplus it won't effect them much though. I've seen online leagues set it as low as $25,000,000 and some even have wanted to put it lower.

[conception]

I think it is harder for a human player to have a league where there is less competitive balance. If there are a few Yankee teams in the league, where talent is concentrated, it actually makes things interesting come playoff time. With competitive balance, where talent is spread out pretty evenly, its hard to get the teams that are really good and therefore it isn't that challenging to beat them.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by conception

I think it is harder for a human player to have a league where there is less competitive balance. If there are a few Yankee teams in the league, where talent is concentrated, it actually makes things interesting come playoff time. With competitive balance, where talent is spread out pretty evenly, its hard to get the teams that are really good and therefore it isn't that challenging to beat them.

This is the point I was going to make, darn it!

[Honolulu Blue]

Another idea, if you haven't already done so, is to share 100% of ticket revenue.

[jg2977]

Everything that you said definitely helped. I'm getting more different teams in the Stanley Cup Finals now.

However, there is a downside to this. The Pittsburgh Penguins and Los Angeles Kings had such a great rivalry because they were battling each other in the playoffs almost every year, but now it's gone because the teams can't stay good for a long period of time. I might go back to the way that I had it before. Or at least try to tweak the financial settings so that the old powerhouses are able to stay good, but the small markets still have a chance to compete.

Although, over the past few years the Rangers, Islanders, and Devils have been pretty good and have played each other in the playoffs several times. It probably won't last too much longer.