OOTP Vastly Undervalues Actual Media Contracts Hampering Team Finances

[futuremarlinsgm]

One glaring issue I see with league wide finances with OOTP is that the media contracts for teams are vastly undervalued hampering financial growth for teams.

Such a glaring example of this exists with the Miami Marlins. Upon opening a new file, the National Media Contract for the Marlins is $50 million, and the Local Media Contract is a meager $22 million. (See OOTP Marlins Media Contracts screenshot.) Both of these values are severely undervalued and way below the real-life media contracts.

Back in 2021, the Marlins signed a 7-year contract with Sinclair Broadcast Group worth slightly over $50 million a year. Based on this contract, the Marlins should be making $28 million per year MORE for their Local Media Contract in OOTP. (See Marlins Local Media Contract screenshot.) I am sure many other teams in OOTP are getting screwed financially by the game severely undervaluing their Local Media Contracts.

In addition, in 2022, teams will be receiving at least $60.1 million in National Media Contracts and that value is estimated to increase up to $65.5 million per team this year in 2023. (See National Media Contracts screenshot.) Based on this, all teams should be making AT LEAST $10 to 15 million per year MORE for National Media Contracts.

Putting all the numbers together, the OOTP file undervalues the total of the actual Media Revenue for the Miami Marlins for 2023 by a whopping $43 million per year. OOTP needs to incorporate updated media contract data into the game; the numbers in the game are antiquated and severely undervalued. This is particularly important for small market teams.

I would be willing to do the research for current Local Media Contracts for MLB teams.

[Brad K]

Plug in actual income numbers when the game doesn't simulate actual expenses? Why is this a good idea?

Yes, this is a baseball management game, but how about we concentrate on the players rather than the cost of picking up hotdog wrappers after the game.

[darkcloud4579]

The beauty of OOTP is that it's massively customizable. Lots of ways for you to manage the game to simulate financials that reflect the way you want to play aka reality, though it's not a MLB sim, so it's not going to match 1:1 nor should it try to.

There are mods that will even let you spreadsheet you way into generating contracts that suit you better. (I've even made one, though the data is a little outdated now)

Enjoy playing your customized experience!

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by futuremarlinsgm

Putting all the numbers together, the OOTP file undervalues the total of the actual Media Revenue for the Miami Marlins for 2023 by a whopping $43 million per year. OOTP needs to incorporate updated media contract data into the game; the numbers in the game are antiquated and severely undervalued. This is particularly important for small market teams.

Keep in mind teams in OOTP don't have many of the expenses real-life clubs have. There's no general and administrative costs, for example, nor game costs (stadium maintenance, stadium personnel, field maintenance, repair, heat, power, security, etc.), nor team expenses (travel, hotels, meals, equipment, medical, and so forth), nor the costs associated with advertising and promotions. These other areas eat up a significant amount of a club's revenue.

If you want to see numerous examples of real-life financial data for professional baseball teams (as well as for other sports). see this thread in the Talk Sports sub-forum.

[futuremarlinsgm]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Keep in mind teams in OOTP don't have many of the expenses real-life clubs have. There's no general and administrative costs, for example, nor game costs (stadium maintenance, stadium personnel, field maintenance, repair, heat, power, security, etc.), nor team expenses (travel, hotels, meals, equipment, medical, and so forth), nor the costs associated with advertising and promotions. These other areas eat up a significant amount of a club's revenue.

If you want to see numerous examples of real-life financial data for professional baseball teams (as well as for other sports). see this thread in the Talk Sports sub-forum.

You do raise some very valid points there that many other costs get left out of the game. Never thought about stadium operating costs.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by futuremarlinsgm

You do raise some very valid points there that many other costs get left out of the game. Never thought about stadium operating costs.

It's been a long-standing issue in OOTP's finances that there aren't enough expenses to match revenues. Which means if you use real-life revenue figures, player salaries will end up much higher than reality since more money is available to spend on them. If you want player salaries to be closer to real-life, then you have to greatly reduce the revenue available to teams in OOTP.

All that said, if you want to research the broadcasting contracts of MLB teams and post that in the aforementioned financial data thread in Talk Sports, it'd be great to see that info get added.

[Pelican]

I would simply adjust the share of the national media contract upward - for each of the MLB teams. And then correct the Marlins figure to the real amount. The impact of that is giving more revenue to each team, and an additional bump to the Fish, who desperately need it. I don't think that's "cheesing" the game. It's using information you have from IRL.

[monkeyman576]

I don't really expect the game to immulate real life financially when I play the game. There are just too many unknown variables.

[Pelican]

I don’t know about imitating real life. What the game achieves is to impose the same kinds of financial constraints that real GM’s face. With ways to increase revenue that are also realistic and limited and hard to achieve. And the option of changing the rules to impose a hard salary cap and/or a minimum salary spending floor, for example. Which allows me to explore “what if” the Pirates and the Royals and the Marlins had the dough-re-mi that the Yankees, Mets, Braves, Dodgers spend each year. The important thing is for the financial reality of each team to mirror the real life situation, relative to the other MLB teams. I think OOTP does that very well. It may not imitate the entire budget; but it incorporates the main variables that control spending.

[PSUColonel]

For me, the financial engine just needs to do a good job of representing the "Baseball Operations" side of things. While I wouldn't mind other financial considerations being modeled, that type of thing should be best determined by the AI (ownership) and the interaction the human player has with finances should be restricted to anything and everything related to baseball operations.

This is the best way to get a realistic challenge for the human player...I am still against the idea of setting ticket prices for human players for this reason.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Pelican

The important thing is for the financial reality of each team to mirror the real life situation, relative to the other MLB teams. I think OOTP does that very well. It may not imitate the entire budget; but it incorporates the main variables that control spending.

The problem is tuning it when using real-world data because of the mismatch between revenue and expenses. If club revenue and expenses were closer to real-life figures, such tuning and adjusting should be easier because there is actual data to compare against and use as a frame of reference.

Note that this need not mean having more expenses in the game for the user to have to deal with; such other expenses can be abstracted.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

If club revenue and expenses were closer to real-life figures, such tuning and adjusting should be easier because there is actual data to compare against and use as a frame of reference.

The frame of reference is the budget given by the owner in the game, how high you can raise ticket prices in the game without killing attendance, and how much players in the game will sign for. The current system works.

If they were to put in a system of matching real life expenses and revenue the frame of reference is still what OOTP does not what real life does. It is my impression the majority of people play fictional. Efforts to duplicate real revenue and expenses are irrelevant to them. It's also irrelevant to historical players who enable free agency before its historical date.

[PSUColonel]

Don’t look now, but it appears revenue sharing isn’t working as it once did either


https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=348668

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Brad K

If they were to put in a system of matching real life expenses and revenue the frame of reference is still what OOTP does not what real life does.

Look at the examples shown in the thread PSUColonel mentioned. Player salaries are accounting for 74% to 79% of club expenses. That is too high and unrealistic.

According to the Forbes analysis of the 2022 MLB season, player expenses (which include benefits OOTP does not model) ranged from a low of 38.3% to a high of 64.7%, with a league average of 52.6%. If you look at 1956, player expenses were even lower as a percentage of expenses, ranging from 15.0% to 29.7%, with an MLB average of 21.9%.

To produce realistic player salaries in OOTP requires curtailing revenue significantly, or if revenue figures are realistic, player salaries will be well in excess of real-world figures.

I suspect OOTP's financial system was created without much referencing of real-world data. This is understandable considering when the game originated, given the limited availability of financial data back then and that it required digging to find it, but there is much more financial information available these days to provide valuable real-world reference, and researching it is easier.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Look at the examples shown in the thread PSUColonel mentioned. Player salaries are accounting for 74% to 79% of club expenses. That is too high and unrealistic.

So what? The point of the finances is to limit what teams can spend on players. It works. How does adding $x revenue and $x expenses that the human GM can't do anything about make the game better?

Then we'd have posts complaining about all that money human GMs can't touch. But how many people really want a game where they have to negotiate vendors contracts to see if the team can get a bigger cut of their revenue?

If people want to deal with popcorn prices they should play Roller Coaster Tycoon.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Brad K

So what? The point of the finances is to limit what teams can spend on players. It works. How does adding $x revenue and $x expenses that the human GM can't do anything about make the game better?

Then we'd have posts complaining about all that money human GMs can't touch. But how many people really want a game where they have to negotiate vendors contracts to see if the team can get a bigger cut of their revenue?

If people want to deal with popcorn prices they should play Roller Coaster Tycoon.

I don't think people really want to have control over that type of stuff, but maybe just modeled in a way that might be called concessions or parking, or whatever. So the revenue might be there, but you as the GM/President of Baseball Operations really would never have any control or interaction with that type of stuff.

I think it's just more for realism and immersion than anything. Like I said, I don't even like that the human has control over ticket prices.

[Brad K]

Put it in the game like that and some people will want to control it. The rest will see it as needless decoration that adds nothing to functionality. Actually it creates the potential for more problems with finances functioning correctly.

[kidd_05_u2]

They would just have to create a model for concessions/parking/merchandising/stadium costs/minor league costs/training facility costs/travel costs/long etc.

The models have to work well together for an infinite number of possible economies. Oh, and the results have to be realistic for MLB 1880-2023 as well.

It would definitely take a lot of work. If they added this as a key feature for a new game, I can see the reaction being something like: "OOTPd is clearly using 90% of its resources for PT and leaving the base game abandoned, following the orders of Com2Us"

By the way, Football Manager added all the little categories to their financial model. What ends up happening is that an unobserved spending category labeled "others", which is necessary to keep finances from exploding, ends up explaining 90% of non-player non-staff costs in most leagues.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by kidd_05_u2

It would definitely take a lot of work. If they added this as a key feature for a new game, I can see the reaction being something like: "OOTPd is clearly using 90% of its resources for PT and leaving the base game abandoned, following the orders of Com2Us"

Not sure how or why this part of the game would be targeted by people saying the development team is following the orders of Com2Us, but if we are going to get technical here, yes....yes they do have to follow the orders of Com2Us....I think we have clearly seen this in the past year without a doubt. So while I am sure the team does have some creative freedom (for things like this maybe) it's also clear they do NOT have carte blance here either. But I really don't want to go down that rabbit hole again here.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by kidd_05_u2

By the way, Football Manager added all the little categories to their financial model. What ends up happening is that an unobserved spending category labeled "others", which is necessary to keep finances from exploding, ends up explaining 90% of non-player non-staff costs in most leagues.

Not surprised.