SQL Utilities/Financial Utility

[Andrew]

So, I fucked up. In trying to upgrade the utilities to the OOTP 11 version I somehow managed to delete our entire BLB SQL database. Under normal circumstances this wouldn't be a big deal but it also appears that my backups haven't worked successfully since March. My normal backup routine is to create a backup and have it automatically FTP over to our hold host which has unlimited file storage. Unbeknown to me, the old host has been deleting these files as this is apparently a violation of their terms of service.

The last good backup I have is from March 13. With this backup I can recover most of the regular utilities. We will lose some data from the last round of all-star and award voting, but this isn't a deal breaker.

The big issue is that sometime during that time period I made significant changes to the Financial Utility that may not be possible to re-create and I definitely don't have the time to re-create at the moment. The data in the utilities would be so out of date/inaccurate that it's not even worth using.

The problem is without the cash reserve, the small market teams are at even more of a disadvantage. I know several of them had $10m+ in their cash reserve and were set to receive even more from the latest round of luxury tax.

My proposal is that we take the time right now to come up with a financial system that is more balanced and can be maintained completely in game without any complicated external record keeping. I know people are anxious to get started again but it's not fair, in my opinion, to continue with a system that is even more tilted towards the large market teams than it already was.

Ultimately the decision on how to proceed is Clay's decision but just wanted to explain what the situation is now and what impact it has on the league.

[Jake]

Stuff like this never happened with the last commish...

I'm down for whatever. I'd be down for salary caps, equal budgets, etc.

I do think it might be cool, if possible, to start everyone at the same budget, popularity, etc, and just let our performance dictate where our markets go. If that's possible.

[BradZ]

Stuff like this never happened with the last commish...

I'm down for whatever. I'd be down for salary caps, equal budgets, etc.

I do think it might be cool, if possible, to start everyone at the same budget, popularity, etc, and just let our performance dictate where our markets go. If that's possible.

That would be so hard to institute though, since teams' salary structures for the next few years have already been established based on the existing financial model.

[Andrew]

That would be so hard to institute though, since teams' salary structures for the next few years have already been established based on the existing financial model.

Right. You could bring the small market teams up easily enough but it would be difficult to bring the large market teams down all at once. The problem is we'd need to meet somewhere in the middle to keep salary demands from getting out of control.

[Jake]

Not that it wouldn't be too ridiculous and intrusive, but is it possible to average down salaries to that number?

For example, lets say our mid range budget is 75 mill... could we take a team with a 100 mill budget and edit all their salaries to 75%?

Like I said... probably stupid idea anyways.

[Andrew]

The good news I guess is that the average budget is about $94m and only 3 teams had player expenses greater than $94m last season.

[Matt]

Stuff happens, no big deal. You've done enough for the BLB we'll let it slide.

[Andrew]

This is the page that explains most of OOTP's financial options:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/docu...inancial_rules

It looks like the revenue sharing system is robust enough now to come close to what we were doing before. The only difference is the soft cap would be based on the current year rather than previous year.

[BradZ]

My proposal is that we take the time right now to come up with a financial system that is more balanced and can be maintained completely in game without any complicated external record keeping.

So would this do away with bonuses if we are looking for a way to keep it maintained completely in game?

[Delandis]

Can we just move up the media revenue baseline, say 50 million? I understand that we don't want an insanely, large influx of cash into the financial models, but my guess is that this would be the least complex option.

From that point on, allow the game to handle finances, market drift, etc. Its not a cure all, but it does allow smaller market teams to instantly become more financially competitive, without disturbing salary structures of teams above the benchmark.

[Andrew]

Stuff happens, no big deal. You've done enough for the BLB we'll let it slide.

Thanks but I'm still pissed because it was such a rookie mistake. I should have taken a fresh backup or at a minimum checked to make sure the nightly backups were working before I did anything. I only meant to drop one of the tables generated by the game but I clicked the wrong button and dropped the entire database instead.

[BradZ]

Has there ever been any thought to increasing the 'Away Team's Gate Share' as a way to boost smaller market teams' gate revenue or would that be so negligible that it wouldn't have an impact? Aren't we set at 20% right now? What if it was increased to 33 or even 40%?

[Andrew]

So would this do away with bonuses if we are looking for a way to keep it maintained completely in game?

I think we should still do bonuses for articles but I would propose doing away with the other stuff (all-stars, award winners, etc) This would greatly reduce the amount of record keeping.

[Plastic]

The problem is without the cash reserve, the small market teams are at even more of a disadvantage. I know several of them had $10m+ in their cash reserve and were set to receive even more from the latest round of luxury tax.

Don't worry Andrew we will deal with and figure it out somehow...we always do.

Although what I quoted from your post was exactly what my plan has been. Trying to save up money to try to be in a position to keep my prospects when the are out of arbitration and demanding huge paydays. Now if that was actually going to happen is an entirely different story but it was the plan :)

[BradZ]

I think we should still do bonuses for articles but I would propose doing away with the other stuff (all-stars, award winners, etc) This would greatly reduce the amount of record keeping.

I've volunteered in the past to be a financial record keeper for the league, but someone created a nifty online utility for that instead.

I'd volunteer again, if there was interest. It would all be transparent (no secret spreadsheets).