League Financials

[Andrew]

For those of you that have the game and have played around with it a little.

I need some input on how to set up the initial league financials. Specificaly:

Should I try to set market size, fan loyalty , fan interest and initial cash to be equal for all teams?

In a couple test leagues I created, initial payrolls ranged from $20-$70 million. Obviously teams with a higher payroll need to have a bigger market so they can afford player salaries.

Options that I've considered so far:
-Make everyone as close to average as possible, but still have some variations.
-Let the CPU decide and use revenue sharing and/or a luxury tax.

What are your thoughts?

[HWessinmouse]

from what I recall, teams stuck with small markets had a hard time competing. I'd lean towards starting everyone out on equal-ish footing and let the markets change as the game dictates.

[Jistic]

The whole trick is gonna be to see how they are AFTER the draft. If you have a young team with lower salries, the CPU automatically gives you a smaller market from what I remember. Hopefully that can be edited.

[Andrew]

The whole trick is gonna be to see how they are AFTER the draft. If you have a young team with lower salries, the CPU automatically gives you a smaller market from what I remember. Hopefully that can be edited.

It can be edited but it's kind of a catch 22. If you have a low payroll and edit the market up, your team will make more money than it should. On the other hand, if you edit the high payroll teams down, they'll lose money.

I'm going to do a few tests with the revenue sharing spreadsheet I found and see how that works. It's difficult to get consistent results however because they are so dependent on how a team performs.

[Andrew]

Here's the idea I'm going to test out tomorrow.
- Set all team interest to 65
- Set all team loyalty to 5
- Set all teams cash to $10 mil
- Set TV contract average to $10 mil, determined by market
- Set market's from 3-7. Top 4 payrolls = 7, next 4 payrolls = 6, etc

I'll then review the outcome and implement revenue sharing, if necessary.

[Andrew]

Here's the idea I'm going to test out tomorrow.
- Set all team interest to 65
- Set all team loyalty to 5
- Set all teams cash to $10 mil
- Set TV contract average to $10 mil, determined by market
- Set market's from 3-7. Top 4 payrolls = 7, next 4 payrolls = 6, etc

I'll then review the outcome and implement revenue sharing, if necessary.

This seemed to work very well. I simmed a season letting the CPU run the teams.

After revenue sharing:

2 teams lost between $0-$5mil
13 teams made between $0-$10mil
4 teams made between $10-$15mil
1 team made $20mil (had the highest payroll, but ended up reducing it by $20 million)