[Charlie Hough]

OOTP is actually calculating REAL budgets and not fictional ones. It's taking into account the future value of player contracts. Since they tend to rise as each year progresses, your payroll will increase each year. Plus you have to pay out any bonuses as well. So OOTP is calculating the REAL value of your payroll for subsequent seasons, and it's budgeting accordingly.

This is realistic. The way that this should be addressed is that there should be a feature added to request additional investment by the ownership beyond the current and projected funds that are available. An owner has the option to approve that kind of spending in real life, but a GM does NOT have the authority to write checks for more than the current and projected costs on the books. That requires permission and possible investment from the ownership.

So even if the game is set up so the owner does NOT determine the budget, the human GM should still have to seek approval to go beyond the full budget. Think about it: you're asking the game to allow you to use MORE than the club's entire funds available to spend on players. This is literally impossible in the real world without seeking a loan or asking for a cash injection by the ownership.