A fictional League Project

[brewers22]

I decided to go with a fictional league for my long term league in OOTP14. I haven't done fictional leagues before, so I'm a little unsure how they work in different areas. I set up an MLB-type 32 team league with a full compliment of minor leagues. The minors can be actual minor league cities and team names, but I wanted the teams in the majors to be from cities that don't have MLB teams in real life. They could be near real MLB team cities, but I like the uniqueness of the smaller cities and nicknames.

My concerns - Will the disparity in market sizes have a long term impact on attendance, finances and income for the different teams? If so, can I adjust for that somehow?

I am not too concerned if one of my ML teams is also from a city that has a minor league team, but will this affect either team within the game at all?

I gave all teams stadium capacities of 40,000 to 60,000, regardless of city or market size (I sim all games so I'm not concerned with stadium graphics, etc). Which seems to be relatively accurate for big league teams.

Finally, how do I save this as a Quick Start, so that if I run into a problem I can go back and re-start without having to rebuild everything?

Thanks Everyone !

Go Brewers !

[Tyler87898]

I gave all teams stadium capacities of 40,000 to 60,000, regardless of city or market size (I sim all games so I'm not concerned with stadium graphics, etc). Which seems to be relatively accurate for big league teams.

The highest average attendance per game last year in MLB was about 44 thousand, so 60 thousand is a bit of a stretch.

Finally, how do I save this as a Quick Start, so that if I run into a problem I can go back and re-start without having to rebuild everything?

EDIT: Do what Bluenoser said below.

[Bluenoser]

There's an option on the main menu for "Save as Quickstart".

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

Originally Posted by brewers22

My concerns - Will the disparity in market sizes have a long term impact on attendance, finances and income for the different teams? If so, can I adjust for that somehow?

If you mean disparity between your major league teams, then yes, it will affect finances. But not too much more than in real life (though I would turn off the storylines feature if you are worried about huge changes in market size). Some will be small market, some will be large, etc. One thing to know is that market size is completely independent of city size, so you can have a tiny market team in NYC or a huge market team in some small town somewhere. If you know that you want some of your teams to be large or small market, you can edit this manually in Commissioner Mode (just check every year, since market size can change slightly over time).

I am not too concerned if one of my ML teams is also from a city that has a minor league team, but will this affect either team within the game at all?

No, they won't affect each other.

[conception]

From what I understand, market size is relevant. If every city in your league has an 18 size market, then they will all fall around the same attendance levels, at least without taking into account things like team performance, player popularity, etc. But if several cities are size 18 and several size 4, then there will be a large disparity between the two.

One way to mitigate this is to have such things as national media contracts, shared amongst the teams, be a larger percentage of income, or to increase the visitors share of gate receipts.

[brewers22]

Thanks. This is very helpful. All of the market sizes are between 4 and 10, so I hope that those are close enough does that it not cause too much disparity.

This is actually more fun than I thought it would be. I have always used MLB team and players, but the fictional league means no pre-conceived ideas on players or franchises, and I have to do more than just look at a players name to know what kind of a player he is. Much more interesting.

[conception]

Originally Posted by brewers22

Thanks. This is very helpful. All of the market sizes are between 4 and 10, so I hope that those are close enough does that it not cause too much disparity.

This is actually more fun than I thought it would be. I have always used MLB team and players, but the fictional league means no pre-conceived ideas on players or franchises, and I have to do more than just look at a players name to know what kind of a player he is. Much more interesting.

One thing I enjoy about fictional is that I can expand, Im losing authenticity. Also, over time you will feel as familiar to fictional players who have been standouts on your team or league as you do real players.