[KevinV]

I have recently joined an OOTP online league. I am not seeing eye to eye with my commissioner on an issue. What is in dispute is how much cash my team has available to it. He claims -$5,837,290. I claim +$7,150,849. I realize he is a veteran of this sort of thing and is probably right but I do not see the flaw in my reasoning. Please see the picture below and both of our explanations and let me know where I am wrong. Thanks in advance for your insight.



My explanation:

Here is my assessment of the "Current Financial Overview"



The first section that gets summed up in the "Starting balance" is for one time cash transactions. Those being:
1. The Preceeding Year Balance.

2. Revenue Sharing

3. Cash from Owner

4. Cash from trades



Those get added up in to the "Starting Balance". The only reference to it being "Cash" is one word on the online manual that doesn't even match the picture it is supposed to be describing. My guess is that this is a typo and a relic from a previous OOTP version. I also think "Starting Balance" is a bit of a misnomer. It could more accurately be called "some thing like "One Time Cash Transactions Balance." This sum is not a projection. It is the adding up of actual transactions that have happened.



The second section normally is for keeping track of the money flowing in and out of an organization throughout the course of the year. That gets added up in to "Season Profit/Loss". "Season Profit/Loss" is actual money that you have made or lost. It is not a projection or an estimate. Think about it, you host a home game and get money from the ticket sales. You immediately have that money. Same thing for money you get from the media for that game and the salaries you pay your players for that game. They are all actual transaction. They are not projections.



Next the "Starting Balance" and "Season Profit/Loss" get added together to get the "Current Balance". The "Current Balance is money that I contend that you actually have on hand. It adds up all of the real things that have actually happened, from the preceding year balance to the merchandising revenue from the last game.This value contains no projections at all. Only actual transactions.



What you referred to as "Current Balance" is what OOTP calls "Projected Final Balance". That is the value that estimates where you will end up at the end of the year. It is a projection, not a sum.



With all of that said. The reason why I contend that I have $
7,150,849 on hand as available cash is the that you set the league up so that I got a lump sum $14,500,000 media revenue payment. Because of the lump sum (that I have already received) I have a positive "Current Balance". If you had set things up to run differently, with me getting that $14,500,000 over the course of 144 games as is normally done, I would not have $7,150,849 on hand. But you gave it in a lump sum, so I have it all now.

Here is his explanation:

The cash I’m reporting to you is the cash that OOTP reports to me. In commissioner mode I have access to a “Cash” field for your team. The amount in that field reads “-$5,837,290”. That is what you have, pure and simple.