Market Size

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Kemp

Personally I think the financial model (at least the revenue side) should be simpler... For me, this "stabilizes" the financials for each team and they can expect to generate close to the same amount of revenue each year.

Under the system I have in mind, the finances are completely adjustable.

Want a league with independent league-like finances? No problem, just enter in the proper starting amounts. Want the league to generate consistent revenue each year? Easy, just don't change your initial settings. Want instead to mimic how revenues have grown over the years? Simple, enter in higher values each year. (For historical leagues, there'd be a file which would list for each major league year the proper settings so that finances follow reality in how they've changed dramatically over the years.)

Originally Posted by spark240

Minor League Financials... Depending on parameters set, a team in an affiliated minor league might be, in net, either a revenue source or an cost to the parent team (beyond the value of players, of course), just as an independent minor league team could be profitable or not in its own right.

Exactly. And quite necessary I'd say.

The tricky area for this is nailing down good numbers. There's only a small amount major league financial data available; there's even less for the minors. An additional complication is how the major-minor relationship evolved. Early working agreements had minor league clubs shouldering more of the financial burden but gave them control over their rosters; today's player development contract means the major league club pays most of the bills for a minor league team in exchange for almost complete control over the roster.

On the other hand, the fact that salary limits (i.e. salary caps) existed in the minors for a long time means their finances were more rigid as compared to the majors.

Originally Posted by spark240

Travel Costs.

I've included something like this as part of a team's expenses. It's not just travel though, but rather "team operations" which includes other things like spring training costs. I have this expense as a fixed percentage cost of a club's expenses and not user-selectable (I can't see what meaningful effect it should have if it was selectable, plus I wanted to keep things reasonably simple).

Originally Posted by spark240

Ballpark Maintenance/Game Operations Costs.

I have this expense item in as "stadium operations." It can either be a fixed percentage cost, or it could be made user-selectable, I haven't decided yet which is best.

If selectable, then by allotting more of your budget to operating the stadium, it results in a small boost to your attendance. By spending more, it represents keeping your stadium clean and with up-to-date facilities thus making it a more attractive place to watch a ballgame. Spending the minimum amount represents letting your park become dirty and rundown thus putting fans off and lowering your attendance a bit from where it might otherwise be. Penny-pinching owners might opt to go for the minimum amount in order to save some money, while owners flush with cash may go for the maximum in order to boost their financial fortunes even more.

My hesistation in making it selectable is that I fear OOTP users would always use the minimum amount and spend the left over money on player contracts, thus defeating the point of making it selectable. The only way around that would be to make the penalty for minimum stadium costs substantial, and I'm not sure how realistic that would be.


Constructing new ballparks I haven't expressly considered, but it can be added to the system. A team could opt to want to build a new park and then choose its new park's parameters from a range of different stadium types (e.g. number of regular seats number of luxury suites, dome or open air, turf or grass, etc.). The club then has to pay a fixed cost every year for a set number of years to pay for its portion of the new park. Thus for a long time the club might be financially hobbled by having to pay its share of the new park, but in compensation the increased revenue from a newer stadium offers a greater level of profitability once the new park is paid off.

[theasfl]

Originally Posted by ctorg

Since populations are already known from the cities.txt file, it would be cool if the game would base market size on that. It's far from perfect, but it's a better starting point than random.

I'd like the option to do either, but make city populations metropolitan populations.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Curtis

The basic principle for startup of fictional leagues needs to be reversed. The financial (revenue) information should be generated or input first, THEN the managers (AI and human) would do their intial drafts based upon the funds available.

Agreed.

I see two possible ways of doing it:

1) In the inaugural draft, each player comes with a pre-determined, non-negotiable contract. Each club only has a set amount of money to spend on contracts, based upon its financial capacity. When clubs make their player selections, they have to balance the skill of the player and the price tag associated with him.

2) The inaugural draft functions like the amateur draft. Clubs are merely choosing the right to negotiate with the selected players. After players have all been selected, then the clubs have to begin negotiating and haggling with each drafted player to arrive at a mutually agreeable contract. It may be some drafted players and clubs won't reach an agreement, and the player becomes a free agent.

[Curtis]

I like both of those. The second seems more realistic to me (and I wish it was the was amnateur drafts workd now), but you might run into two problems:

1) How long do you have to negotiate? Most new games begin January 1 and spring training begins around March 1. Would you have until the start of ST? Until the last day of ST?

Another option would be to perform the negotiation immediately. If you aren't able to agree with the draftee, one or the other of you could 'end negotiations' and you would get to pick again… and again… and again, until you finally found a player willing to tolerate your pfennig-pinching. This would be a nightmare for online leagues, but pretty reasonable for solo gaming.

2) Some players would be driven crazy. In my (solo) leagues each team starts with 200 players (Majors and full minors). I could just imagine what some of these guys would say about having to undertake 200 negotiations. You might say that only the first 40 (or whatever the size of the secondary roster) rounds of draftee need to be negotiated with, and everyone else will settle for a minor league contract.

Or, some smart cookie could figure a way to add a 'mass select' option to the game.