Proposal / Rough Outline of Financial System Upgrade...

[kq76]

Originally posted by Henry
I'm beginning to think Owner, GM, and Manager are the only actual personalities that make sense. Medical and marketing teams can be handled in other ways.

I agree. I should have clarified my post to specifically refer to those 3. If the others get in there, that's ok by me, but I don't think they'll add that much.

Originally posted by chrisj
I'm not sure Youth - Mix - Veteran belongs in the GM section. Maybe more in a manager section. I would think the GM would want the best players out there. The thing that would be different is in how/what he looks for in a player.
Originally posted by Henry
This really is a GM attribute. In some cases Managers have a lot of input as well, but it's the GM that's charged with puting the team together.

I think perhaps it does not apply to either. The youth/vet mix more depends on where the org'zn is in its cycle, whether they're contending or rebuilding. It'd be silly for a team that needs to rebuild to favour vets over youth. I could see some teams refusing to rebuild till there's no other choice, but once you go into rebuilding mode I think all teams need to favour youth and a few vets to help teach the young guys. As for contending teams I think you just go with whatever players are the best performers, regardless of age.

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
...perhaps simply designating each stadium with an overall "fan friendliness" number would suffice.

This number would take in account all the variables, such as public transit access, parking availability, sight lines, ambience, food quality, and so forth, but would be presented as just a single number for simplicity's sake.

It could be a 1-10 or 1-100 scale, depending on how much fidelity is needed. And the more fan friendly the stadium is, the more likely a fan is to want to come back again to that ballpark (in conjunction with all the other factors, such as team performance, etc., of course).

This would at least give some of the effect of the differences between the quality of the various stadiums.

This is exactly what I meant in my previous post about "stadium niceties". I agree with LGO and Henry. For now, I think this is enough. At least until we get a workable financial system and then we can add to it with more detailed stadium factors if we like. But let's first get that workable system.

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
So, there would need to be a good system by which the time of the game (i.e. day of the week, day or night, single or double) will also affect the attendance figure, in addition of course to such things as the quality of the visiting team, how well the home team is doing, the weather, quality of the stadium, etc.

This all sounds excellent and I'd love to see these things eventually factored in, but I think these would fall into the aforementioned "more detailed stadium factors". Definitely things we need to remember for later though. I trust you'll be the person with the best suggestion on how to handle this.

On to page 5..

[kq76]

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
Here are the totals for weekdays (Monday through Friday) and the weekends (Saturday and Sunday). I hadn't compiled them previously, and thought they ought to be included.

...

Based on these totals, weeknight games draw around 2,500 more fans than do weekday games, while weekend day games draw around 6,000 more fans than do weekday games and 3,600 more fans than weeknight games. But, as noted before, the sample size is rather small.

Doubleheaders draw slightly worse than their single game counterparts. However, it should be noted that in 1963, the twin bill was not the affair it was in earlier years; as well, a number of doubleheaders happened late in the season after the Yankees had all but taken the pennant and as a result attendance was off and thus the average skewed lower.

Are these data and conclusions based on averages over all of baseball history, just 1 particular era, or just 1 year? My point is that I assume things have changed over the years. If OOTP does program these variables into attendance should it be the same no matter what year or should it change depending on the year?

I later see that this seems to be only one year, but my question remains, should attendance factors be static or dynamic over the years?

Originally posted by Henry
Doug,

My concept on how to use these calculations is "dynamically". As the Star ratings changed, as the teams record changed, etc. the attendance rating would change as well. This would reflect all kinds of interesting changes as the year progressed - and as a solo player, you would have to watch these things if you wnated to keep making money. (For those that do not want this kind of detail - remember you can turn it off).

Would you be able to just turn off the star component of the market? Or would you be turning off part f the pop and success components as well? Like I said before, I don't think it is needed as I believe that for the most part it is already factored in with success.

Originally posted by Henry
Just some random thoughts on broadcasting and merchandising revenues...

Broadcasting revenues...

...Should start in 1921 - very small income until 1939
...In 1939, television enters the picture... should gradually increase broadcast revenue until 1986
...In 1986, cable television was deregulated. At this point the large TV contracts should begin

Merchandising should start with television (1939) and grow steadily to present.

Where are you getting the info from that you are basing these recommendations on? The tv year seems to be a bit early and I wonder whether merchandising didn't start earlier.

Other than LGO, do we have any other OOTP people who are big baseball historians? We could really use their help with this.

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
I think your year for TV is too early - I'd say it's more like the late 1940s or early 1950s before there would be an TV broadcasting money. Might be wrong on this, but it was my impression that the number of TVs in homes was very small until the 1950s, after which it then began to grow rapidly.

I had one thought that could be applied to radio/TV contracts, both national and local. Perhaps they could be "dynamically" renegotiated every couple of years to reflect the real-world variation that these sort of contracts typically undergo.

I was thinking of something like this: give these contracts a fixed term length, say 4 or 5 years. Then, when the contract is up, a new value for the contract is generated by the game based on how the league(s) did in overall attendance during the course of the expiring contract. If the league held steady, then the new contract would be more or less similar in value to the expiring one. If the league had good growth in attendance, then the new contract would be worth more. Similarly, if the league decreased in average attendance, then the new contract offered would be worth less.

It could also factor in overall league competitiveness as well; if over the term of the contract one team dominated, then perhaps the networks would be less interested since the other markets in the league would be harder sells. If several teams won championships, then perhaps the new contract might be worth more (since the league is more "dynamic" and offers more excitement in more of its markets).

This same renegotiation of local contracts could be similar, except in this case it would be more dependent on the performance of the team in question. Of course, the loyalty of the market would play a role in this as well (a very loyal market would likely see good contract offers in spite of poorer performance, for example).

Great stuff on the differences between the national and local deals!

One question though is should all teams share equally in the national deal, or should their share be based on their % of the overall league market. So say team X has a market of 100 and the entire league has a total market of say 1000, should team X get 10% of the national deal? I would argue that they should share in it as it is a league, no one team on its own could make a business out of baseball, or at least nowhere near as much as a league would. Plus, it's just simpler.

I don't know how OOTP currently handles this, but I do know that the teams do not share equally in the national deal.

Originally posted by Henry
Here's a cut of the proposed two plan system....

I don't see any difference in your graphic. Were you just trying to show us a timeline?

Originally posted by Ktulu
... a historical team rating which would
take into account a number of variables such as:

-championships
-winning vs losing seasons ratio
-all time record
-playoff appearances
-hall of fame players
-modifier to put some emphasis on the past 5-10 seasons

The teams that win more and are in the post season tend to develop fans outside of their local market(Yankees,Braves etc). These teams tend to sell merchandise outside of their local market and they also boost attendance when they play in other markets.

Expanding on this idea you could also have a historical stadium rating(If a new stadium system is implemented). Basically this would allow the game to differentiate between an old stadium that is just plain old and one that is old but has great historical 'mystique'. For instance you have two teams with 50 year old stadiums. One of these teams is a 'yankee' like franchise which has multiple championships and has a high ratio of winning seasons vs a team that has been mediocre for most of their 50 years. One stadium is regarded as a shrine and fans love going to it even though the facilities are old/uncomfortable/outdated. On the other hand fans dont like going to the other stadium because its simply old and regarded as a pile of trash because it lacks the history and 'mystique'. What you are left with is one team that has an old stadium and needs to build a new one because fans dont come to the park, and you have another team that could use a modern facility but doesnt need to build one because fans still love the old park.

I like both of these ideas, a historic (or mystique) orgzn rating and a historic (or mystique) stadium rating. I'd prefer to see a historic orgzn rating in place of Henry's stars component of the market figure. The Yankees have a great history, while the Mets just don't. Having the same pop base and if they had the same current success, they still would not have the same market, just because there's many more fans around the world because of Yankee history.

[Le Grande Orange]

Yes, the attendance breakdowns I posted were only for the 1963 AL, the earliest figures I could find (thanks to Retrosheet). I am certain the attendance patterns of the 1910s were quite different from those of the 1940s which were quite different from the 1970s and so forth.

If I could find the data, I'd add up a couple of years for each decade so at least an idea of how the patterns changed over the years could be estimated.

The differences between night and day games during the week, and weekday games versus weekend games is important.

(And I still think my idea for picking the overall category for league average attendance is a good idea - it would definitely make minor league style leagues or even high school leagues much more true-to-life).

[kq76]

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
However, the options talked about here would allow for a more likely historically correct free agent salary by limiting teams only to attendance revenue until 1920 or so. If instead teams have access to large sums from TV contracts or merchandizing, then naturally the salaries should be expected to be quite ahistorical even when corrected for inflation, since the teams are going to have much more cash to spend than their real-world counterparts did.

I'm not sure this is the point you mean here, but I like it. Let me explain what I think the point is... Say in 2000 the avg team's total revenue minus non-player expenses (it's important to subtract the other expenses here and let's say the owners minimize these other expenses, not fudge them up) was 100M$ and say in 1900 it was 1M$ (I have no idea if this is close to accurate, but let's pretend). Given the nature of free agency, players will get as much money out of the owners as possible, which should (given a good CBA) allow the owners a decent profit and the players a decent income. Regardless of how much money the owners are making, 1M or 100M, under free agency the players will get say a certain % of this, say 80%. So say in 1900 an avg team makes 1.2M, has non player expenses of 0.2M (profit before player expenses = 1M) and players get 80% which would be 0.8M. For the year 2000 it would be the same calculations, just using the larger #s.

Originally posted by BruceM
This is irrelovent in a fictional world. It doesn't matter what salaries would have been in 1910, it's "f i c t i o n a l". I just want them to be relovent to the value of a dollar in 1910. In other words, there wouldn't have been $20M dollar contracts, especially not in the 20's during the depression. You don't need a degree in rocket science to figure that out.

Henry, you're worng. Because you're telling me I still have to make more choices, which is exactly what I said in my post. Are you coding this system? No. Then how can you say what it will and won't entail.

I've tried to ignore the criticisms up to now, but I feel the need to interject here. To put it simply, I don't think you understand. Right now and presumably forever, OOTP will ship with a set of defaults. If you don't want to change the game, then you don't have to, you just skip any tweaking. Right now, we, the customers, have very few ways in which to tweak the financial system and that is unfortunate. If you don't want to tweak it, then don't, just play with the recommended or default settings. Right now, you don't tweak because you don't have the option. For people like you who do not want to tweak, nothing will change.

Henry, and most of us I believe, realize that although it would be great to add as many features as possible, you still need to make it simple enough for most customers to enjoy the game. It's not good for any game to have a steep learning curve. It's great for customers to find, understand, and enjoy new things about the game, but that does not mean these new things have to be difficult to understand. I don't think detail and simplicity are entirely mutually exclusive (you can have one but not the other). For instance, right now we have very little detail in the financial system and for even me, someone with a great deal of education in finance, it took quite awhile to fully understand how it all worked. Hell, there are aspects of it I still don't understand. The point is, we understand it needs to stay simple, we understand that it needs to be fun for the customers, we understand it needs to be more about baseball than finance, we're just looking to add more detail into it while remaining within these boundaries.

Originally posted by holyroller
So just because ONE person doesn't like it you are stopping? Come on, everyone else in this thread was very constructive and supportive. Please don't let one person stop you from continuing. There are a lot of great ideas in this thread and I think a great deal of progress made. Just because one person doesn't like the results does not mean, well, anything. Please continue.

I agree wholeheartedly Henry. We need you to spearhead this effort. Like BruceM, I have not agreed with everything you've proposed either, but if we want to improve the system, we need you to continue.

Maybe think of yourself as our team's offensive line. You're doing most of the work and every now and again someone else is going to get a first down, but it most likely wouldn't have happened without the hard work of the line battling in the trenches up front.

[Bluenoser]

*

[kq76]

Originally posted by BruceM
I do understand, and I thought this was already behind us, but I guess you want to dig it back up and pursue it more.

I don't know which version of OOTP you are the playing, but the version I play (OOTP 5.13) I certainly do have the option to tweak things on the financial side.

Can we cut the crap about criticism's already and carry on with the topic?

Yes, we most certainly can. As I said previously, I was going to post as I caught up in the thread. I now see that things have been resolved.

I'm now doing some research for the financial report that Henry asked me to work on. I'll probably start a thread tomorrow detailing some preliminary thoughts I have on it and asking for input from others.

[sporr]

Alright, I admit I didn't read every page of this thread yet, but doesn't MLB accumulate every team's merchandising profits and divide and distribute it evenly to all teams? I seem to remember reading this on some baseball financials website.

[Maple Leafs]

Bump... there was some good discussion here. Did anything at all make it into v6?

[darkcloud4579]

Wasn't a terrible idea.