Market sizes, fan loyalty

[Captain Walrus]

I'm thinking about using real life team financial data as well as U.S. / Canada metropolitan census data and attendance records (taking into account stadium capacity and team performance records) to make a table of historical to modern market sizes and fan loyalty data, as well as possible expansion locations for the future.

I wanted to gauge community interest in such a table. (Or to find out if such a table already exists)

[Gambo]

I think it would be good. The fan loyalty/market size information in game tends to be very vague.

[bleachercreature]

Great idea

[DCHepler25]

I did this about three years ago for OOTP6 or 6.5 but have not looked at it for a while. I will see if I still have it.

As for the "real" MLB financials, good luck! MLB has not released any information since 2000 and even that has been questions throughout the baseball and financial world for its true accuracy. You may be able to guess at good media contracts since MLB just made a new deal with DirecTV. Merchandizing is going to be a crap shoot!

Anyway, not trying to discourage you, just a shot of baseball reality

Go for it and Good Luck!

I'll look for that info I did a while back. Maybe it can help you out.

[rasnell]

Beware that settings allowing automatic historic financials would override your manual settings unless these changes are done in the text files where this data comes from.

You probably already know this, but just wanted to warn before you did tons of work.

[pbar25]

Originally Posted by rasnell

Beware that settings allowing automatic historic financials would override your manual settings unless these changes are done in the text files where this data comes from.

I have the automatic historic financial setting 'on' - but with the understanding that this would not effect edited market sizes & fan loyalty.

Help reads that the automatic financial settings are brought in from the financial text document within the database folder -
in that document is has this info -
--YEAR,coefficient,cash maximum,avg coach,min player,super star,star,good,above avg,avg,below avg,fair,poor,media,MLB Avg Attend,Sugg Ticket $--
and I don't see any of those as the market size, all yearly average salaries. But it does include the average media contract.

Within the rest of the database folder, in the search for the market sizes, cities.txt has 4 numbers for each city - I assume, chance of rain, temp, wind, and possibly a city id.

I'm about to start a 1988 league, and I thought that I could adjust the market sizes and fan loyalty to the levels I deemed appropriate for each franchise. Then the yearly financial modifier would adjust the average media contract with inflation - while the teams with the largest markets & fan interest would be rewarded with the largest of the adjusted media contracts.

I still haven't simmed a league yet with this game so I'm not really sure about any of this. I think your table is a great idea.

[Captain Walrus]

I'll be performing some tests on fictional leagues to get the team payroll and attendance I desire by editing market size, fan loyalty, and media contracts. I'll keep you all posted on any breakthroughs.

[bleachercreature]

Although it may not be totally correct, doesn't Forbes do soemthing every year that estimates the value of MLB franchises. I know Selig has criticized their work, but it may be closest thing to accurite that is available. Call me synical, but I would trust a Forbes estimate over anything that came out of Bud's mouth.

Originally Posted by DCHepler25

I did this about three years ago for OOTP6 or 6.5 but have not looked at it for a while. I will see if I still have it.

As for the "real" MLB financials, good luck! MLB has not released any information since 2000 and even that has been questions throughout the baseball and financial world for its true accuracy. You may be able to guess at good media contracts since MLB just made a new deal with DirecTV. Merchandizing is going to be a crap shoot!

Anyway, not trying to discourage you, just a shot of baseball reality

Go for it and Good Luck!

I'll look for that info I did a while back. Maybe it can help you out.

[Captain Walrus]

I've been using the Forbes financial data. I've also found that fan loyalty seems to have very little effect on crowds or the rate fan interest increases or decreases. But since fan interest hasn't been my focus yet, I can't say for sure. It's just something I've noticed.

[canadiancreed]

Any word on how this is going? I'm intrested to see your collrelation between market size and how large said market is.

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by bleachercreature

Although it may not be totally correct, doesn't Forbes do soemthing every year that estimates the value of MLB franchises. I know Selig has criticized their work, but it may be closest thing to accurite that is available. Call me synical, but I would trust a Forbes estimate over anything that came out of Bud's mouth.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/33/...all_Value.html

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by Captain Walrus

I'm thinking about using real life team financial data as well as U.S. / Canada metropolitan census data and attendance records (taking into account stadium capacity and team performance records) to make a table of historical to modern market sizes and fan loyalty data, as well as possible expansion locations for the future.

I wanted to gauge community interest in such a table. (Or to find out if such a table already exists)

This is a good idea. I've done research like this a lot over the past few years. The bottom line is, there isn't a "good" way to measure this. I'd suggest not trying to make it a "historical to modern" measure, but more like a modern one, as that data is a lot easier to find.

Historical data could be derived largely on population and such alike. Because moving teams in the old days dealt a lot with population, etc., and in the current era it's almost ALL about how much you can get from your team's TV sphere.

[darkcloud4579]

Here's the MLB blackout map regarding particular markets and the ones that get blacked out for home games. If nothing else, it can give you a visual of where markets are, etc.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lackoutMap.jpg
Another thing to consider about market sizes is, whether or not your league has revenue sharing. For example, without revenue sharing, it's extremely unlikely that the NFL would have teams in places like Green Bay, Jacksonville and Nashville, but not Los Angeles.

If you don't have revenue sharing, there are always going to be small market teams and as a result, teams that aren't doing well. The game does an extremely haphazard job of figuring out what markets are "large" and "small" because the game doesn't base it on population, so if you sim for too long, it'll change a team's market size based on success, which has very little to do with it for a team in a metropolitan area (E.G. The yankees)

So...it's a philosophical thing, almost.

[darkcloud4579]

Here an article from Biz Journals that talks about the most overextended v. the most ripe markets for new markets.

It only covers US markets, however.

In any case, it comes with a spreadsheet covering every MSA and which ones would have ample income for new teams v. ones that do not.

I suggest for baseball if you were looking at a smaller area, that combining metro areas would work too.

You can download the database here.

[Captain Walrus]

I have found that market sizes mostly affect the media contract, and seemingly very little else. With every team having a fixed media contract at $30,000,000, the smallest market team ended up making the most money because they built a kick ass team that won for years.

I'm having difficulty seeing any effect of fan loyalty. A formerly good team gone sour with poor fan loyalty doesn't decline in fan interest much faster than a formerly good team gone sour with good fan loyalty. I haven't tested bad teams getting good and seeing how quickly fan interest rises...but that seems the opposite of loyalty.

The best results I've had, in getting realistic advantages for large market teams vs. small market teams, comes by creating arbitrary media contracts based on metro-area size. This gives big market teams an advantage, but when you have a small market team that plays really well, it makes more money than some of the moderately larger markets.

[Captain Walrus]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

Here an article from Biz Journals that talks about the most overextended v. the most ripe markets for new markets.

It only covers US markets, however.

In any case, it comes with a spreadsheet covering every MSA and which ones would have ample income for new teams v. ones that do not.

I suggest for baseball if you were looking at a smaller area, that combining metro areas would work too.

You can download the database here.

That spreadsheet will come in real handy in determining some of my numbers. Thanks!

[fhomess]

Fan Loyalty has a small effect on merchandising revenue, but attendance and fan interest have larger effects.

Market size is linearly related to media revenue if you've got the league configured to have media revenue based on market size.