Salary Cap suggestions

[Halidon]

Hi all,

I did a search for this, but didn't find much good info on it. I'm starting a 16 team fictional league, and I'd like some suggestions on a Salary Cap setting, and a Team Max Cash setting - or any other factors or settings that could significantly contribute to financial competitiveness. How do you guys have yours set up?
I want the league to have NFL-type parity, so I want everybody to be able to compete....but only to a degree. I'm just trying to avoid a situation where it's like the Yankees against the universe, where one team has tons of money and nobody else does.
I figured to make it a bit more challenging for myself, I'll either make myself be one of the bottom 4 or 6 teams in payroll, or make my personal cap be like 8 million lower than the actual league cap. I haven't settled on which one yet.

Halidon

[Steve Kuffrey]

75-85M cap
35-40M cash max

[cgh3rd]

Personally, I think the game play is more challenging without any kind of cap or cash limit. It is my experience the computer run teams stay fiscally sound without a salary cap. I have a 36 team solo league in its 3rd year and only 3 teams have negative cash and most have a decent amount of cash. It makes signing free agents extremely tough.

[smeyers003]

I like to use a $72 million cap with a $15 million cash max. Just to let you know that no matter what kind of cap you institute, it will take 2-3 years before it starts to work.

[jmm8356]

If you really want an NFL-like experience, set your National TV Contract Minimum to equal your salary cap. You never hear about an NFL team that is unable or unwilling to spend up to the cap figure. (Never actually tried this, mind you... just a thought...)

If that's too extreme, as long as the market sizes are within a fairly narrow range (3 or 4 clicks apart) and the stadiums are about the same size, you should see good competition, with or without a cap.

[disposableheros]

edited

Originally Posted by jmm8356

as long as the market sizes are within a fairly narrow range (3 or 4 clicks apart) and the stadiums are about the same size, you should see good competition, with or without a cap.

im not so sure thats true

in a solo league i play, all 32 teams have the same markets (average) and fan loyalty (average). all teams in league 1 play in the same stadium and all teams in league 2 play in another, both with 50,000 seats. all teams have national and local tv deals the same, $15mil each. cash max $10mil. no cap.

the range of payrolls is $48mil to $101mil and the competition is only fierce among the top 10-12 teams.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by cgh3rd

Personally, I think the game play is more challenging without any kind of cap or cash limit. It is my experience the computer run teams stay fiscally sound without a salary cap. I have a 36 team solo league in its 3rd year and only 3 teams have negative cash and most have a decent amount of cash. It makes signing free agents extremely tough.

Really? I have a 5mill cash limit (default) which I just lifted because EVERY team was -5 million in the hole, except myself. (No cap).

It was so bad that the computer couldnt take the top draftpicks because the signing bonus was too big.

[jmm8356]

Originally Posted by disposableheros

im not so sure thats true

in a solo league i play, all 32 teams have the same markets (average) and fan loyalty (average). all teams in league 1 play in the same stadium and all teams in league 2 play in another, both with 50,000 seats. all teams have national and local tv deals the same, $15mil each. cash max $10mil. no cap.

the range of payrolls is $48mil to $101mil and the competition is only fierce among the top 10-12 teams.

That... is hard to figure. A couple thoughts... 1) how many seasons do you have in this league, and how many make the playoffs? 2) A low cash max like $10M might encourage some streaky-ness because teams can't sock cash away in a good year to get them through a bad one.

My dynasty has payrolls between $43M and $99M, and in thirteen years, only one team out of 12 has not been able to put a couple good years together at some point.

[disposableheros]

Originally Posted by jmm8356

That... is hard to figure. A couple thoughts... 1) how many seasons do you have in this league, and how many make the playoffs? 2) A low cash max like $10M might encourage some streaky-ness because teams can't sock cash away in a good year to get them through a bad one.

My dynasty has payrolls between $43M and $99M, and in thirteen years, only one team out of 12 has not been able to put a couple good years together at some point.

1 - just entered season 12. 4 div of 4 teams, so all div winners make it (8). 1 particular team is what i would call the yankees of this fictional world. made playoffs 7 of 11 years, won it all 4 times including the last 2. this team is also the only one to ever have $100mil+ payroll, 4 years in a row now. another team is like the braves, made it 6 of 11 times, never one it all.

2 - ive wondered if it would turn into a problem, but no team has ever been in the red longer than 1 season, although some regularly have less than $1mil in cash and no team has ever reached the cash max.

there are a 3 teams in the league that have never put a winning team on the field, but they are still not hurting for $. i wonder if its because i reset the markets and loyalty every season?

[jmm8356]

Resetting the loyalty definitely "un-penalizes" teams for doing poorly. (As for markets, I had a team's market drop after four division titles, so my guess is that it's completely random.) Three out of 32 doesn't seem too bad... just the law of averages, IMHO.

[disposableheros]

edited

Originally Posted by jmm8356

Resetting the loyalty definitely "un-penalizes" teams for doing poorly.

i thought it might help the bad teams stay competitive, but it doesnt appear to be working

[jmm8356]

Originally Posted by disposableheros

edited


i thought it might help the bad teams stay competitive, but it doesnt appear to be working

If they don't spend, or don't spend wisely, there's not much you can do about that.

I do find your situation very confusing though. If no team has lost money for more than a season, no team has hit the $10M cash max, both TV contracts are equal, market and loyalty are equal, and the stadiums are plenty large enough... where does the inequality in revenue come from? Are there large inequalities in the revenue?

I guess there doesn't necessarily have to be... last year my player expenses ranged from $42M to $98M but revenues only ranged from $55M to $86M.

[disposableheros]

edited

Originally Posted by jmm8356

where does the inequality in revenue come from? Are there large inequalities in the revenue?

it looks like attendance. the revs closely mirror the payrolls, $41.5mil-$105mil. the teams with low payroll are only getting 1mil fans, but the teams with high payroll 4mil+. to be honest, i havent really been keeping track, but as far as this year and last, thats how it looks. also over these 2 years, the low payroll teams are barely squeaking over or are barely under player expenses, but the high payroll teams are 2-4mil over. maybe thats why no teams are neg and no teams have reached max?

[jmm8356]

I guess so. My teams don't seem to let their revenues dictate their expenses too much, whether low or high.

I thought of this earlier, but I wasn't sure... 50,000 seats is a whole lot of stadium for Average markets. I think you could knock the higher end teams down a peg by making the stadiums 30K-40K.

To bring the bottom up, I was going to say a higher cash max (like $20M-$25M) but they aren't reaching it... maybe if you made every market Below Average instead of Average, you could get some revenue sharing going to even things out... also, if you're already equalling out the markets and loyalties, make sure you even out the Fan Interest... that's the biggest factor in attendance numbers.