Geographic Awareness, Shared Markets, and Rivalries

[eriqjaffe]

It would be really great if OOTP had...well...the features I mentioned in the title of this thread.

When two teams share a market, a few things should happen:

1) When the two teams play against each other, there is an attendance spike.

2) The fortunes of one team affect the market size / interest / loyalty of the other team's fan base.

Rivalries would work in a similar fashion, although without the effect on fan interest & market size - they would tend to be geographically based (teams closer to one another would tend to have more of a rivalry, and thus tend to be higher-drawing games), but could also develop naturally over time - if two teams are not particularly close (say, for example, Toronto and Baltimore) but are frequently competing for a division title, or consistently playing close games, a rivalry would tend to develop, and those games would also show a spike in interest.

The geographic awareness is of particular interest to me. As a fan of a team in a two-team market, I see this effect first-hand in real life. Cub success has an impact on the popularity of the White Sox. Sure, it's not a huge impact (the effect could be greater depending on the overall market size), but it's definitely there.

[eriqjaffe]

I still would like to see this.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by eriqjaffe

It would be really great if OOTP had...well...the features I mentioned in the title of this thread.

When two teams share a market, a few things should happen:

1) When the two teams play against each other, there is an attendance spike.

2) The fortunes of one team affect the market size / interest / loyalty of the other team's fan base.

The one thing to note about two-team markets is that total attendance in the market is higher than it would be if there were only one team in the market. Historical data bears this out. Indeed, it can even be seen at the minor league level. A second team in a market means more fans in total go to the ballpark in that market, not an existing amount of fans split between two clubs.