Historically Accurate Financials

[Scruff]

I'm trying to build a historically accurate financials.txt file. The one that comes with the game is basically just a 'straight-line' file that goes back to 1871, gradually increasing everything. That's not how it actually worked.

I'm trying to build a file that has historically accurate minimum salaries, average salaries, attendance, ticket prices, media contracts (the first was a telegraph contract that paid each team $300 a year starting in 1897) etc..

I've found a fair amount of data through google, but has anyone started something like this already? I'd hate to be reinventing the wheel and if someone else is doing this it would be good to combine forces as they say.

Also, is there any 'collateral damage' from doing something like this? Will other things be impacted that I need to worry about? I've read the help file, is it possible to change financial settings as a world develops, so that I could say play without free agency until the late 70s, without arbitration until it actually kicked in, etc.?

Also, if I know the average league payroll, and say what the highest paid player made and the minimum salary, is there a formula I can use to project the Superstar, Star, Good, Above Avg., Avg, Below Avg, Fair and poor numbers the financials.txt file uses?

Thanks for any help. I have searched the forums as best I could and didn't find anything . . . I'm pretty new to OOTP, I had an old version, I think 7 or 8 and I'm trying to get back into it now.

[Scruff]

I've added an excel that has the actual financials.txt and what I've been able to find so far. Not everything is exactly what it should be, but it should be somewhat understandable. The media money numbers are league totals, not team averages, etc.. But it's a start.

[BeachBum]

Here is a place with some info. Perhaps you have all ready found it. EH.Net Encyclopedia: The Economic History of Major League Baseball

I tried playing with this a couple of years ago. Made some revisions to the financial.txt file but the results were just as unrealistic as with the existing file. Different but unrealistic.

I think there are some underlying formulas in the game that get applied to the data in this file but could not find anyone that knew anything about.

I would be more than willing to help on this but at this point I am really stuck with what to try next.

This is an area that I would really like to see improvement in the game.

[Scruff]

Thanks Beachbum. I did find that link, a fair amount of the data in my spreadsheet came from there.

I also purchased two books from Amazon last night, Never Just a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball to 1920; and Much More Than a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball since 1921; both by Robert F. Burk. They are supposed to be a complete history of the financials of MLB, so we'll what data is in there.

When you say just as unrealistic, what do you mean?

I would definitely appreciate any help on this!

[SteveP]

This has been attempted by other people in the past. The way the financial DB looks is not the result of laziness, but is designed to mesh with the way the financial model works in OOTP. The fact is that the financial model does not account for all the expenses involved in running a team and a ballpark, so it is not possible to use actual salaries levels and the like from the past and have results work out in a reasonable way. The financial DB in OOTP10 is a marked improvement over OOTP9, as far as getting the salary levels much closer to what they actually were. I'd advise getting comfortable with that rather than trying to build your own. Tweaking is OK -- I've done it myself -- but you need to understand what's going on with the model.

[Scruff]

What types of things happen? Why can the sim handle this? I'm trying to understand before I get too deep into this.

Can the system not handle the minimum salary jumping a bunch in one year or not changing at all for 20 years? Can it not handle ticket prices changing rapidly, or not changing at all for a decade? Can it not handle if the average salary goes down like it has at times in the past?

From what I can tell, it also looks like the system uses much more of the total revenue for player salaries that has been used in real life historically, as owners used to get to pocket much more of the cash before the union became strong:

EDIT: Tried to post chart, but it didn't take, see the link BeachBum's post above, the chart I tried to post is near the bottom of that page.

I would add that the help file says the financials are 'realistic' and they most definitely aren't, so that was disappointing.

[BeachBum]

It was quite awhile ago but as I recall the Merchandising Revenue was a major problem. I played with many, many combinations of attendence and media but could not get this to be a reasonable number. It was all out of proportion.

Also, free agents were still demanding exorbitant amounts. And...the AI was paying them.

[Spritze]

Originally Posted by Scruff

I'm trying to build a historically accurate financials.txt file. The one that comes with the game is basically just a 'straight-line' file that goes back to 1871, gradually increasing everything. That's not how it actually worked.

The key to the financial file is to remember that things you might expect not to make much difference can wind up making huge differences and things that one might expect to see make huge differences don't. Keep in mind that a 1% increase in one small number may result in million dollar increases in revenue or expenses. Weird I know but that is how this file works.

This fact is the reason cash maximums were added. there is just no way to get things in balance so currently the game just has any extra $$$ go poof!!! You must keep things in a straight line, the game acts very strange if increases are not consistant and gradual. Non-gradual causes team finances to fluctuate wildly.

I do not believe the current financial system can be fixed or adjusted very much through the financials.txt file. There is just too much in game randomness to get a good outcome. The best you can probably do is to get salaries that make sense for the era and to keep each individual team from rolling into the red permanently.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Scruff

What types of things happen? Why can the sim handle this?

Because the game uses a simplified financial system to give the feeling of having to manage the finances of a ball club.

Consider: teams in OOTP have just three revenue streams: ticket sales (i.e. attendance), a media contract, and merchandising. That's it. Real world clubs have ticket sales, local media contracts, national media contracts, concessions, luxury suites and club seats, stadium naming rights, advertising, promotions, sponsorships, and merchandising (both on the local level and league level). Some clubs also get stadium parking revenue.

Now, some of these areas could be combined, but even then, there'd still be more revenue streams than OOTP offers at the moment.

And this doesn't even touch the expenses side of the ledger.

[Spritze]

The positive thing about the way finances are handled currently is that it gives the OOTP program creator a whole lot of things to improve in a future version.

[BeachBum]

Having been an accountant in a previous life, I have prepared many budgets using variable and fixed factors. I believe that is all this is and the only thing that needs to be done is to tweak the formulas and factors. I have tried to detail this more fully twice now and get blown off the forum, probably because I was timed out.

While not everything could be encompassed to begin with, I think definite improvements can be made.

I am willing to volunteer to assist in this in some way.

[SteveP]

I've certainly read a ton of financial reports in my day, and when I started playing OOTP last summer, I did spend a little time trying to figure out the financials in the game. I got over that notion pretty quickly.

Like other aspects of the game, I suspect that asking for incremental improvement is the smart move. Just getting the front office financial display to make more sense would be a substantial improvement, without worrying too much right now about whether the actual numbers were historically realistic.

Just my

[Scruff]

I would take the exact opposite approach Steve, no offense.

Get the underlying data correct first (which shouldn't be that hard, I mean I found what I put in that spreadsheet above in a few hours). Then once you know how things really worked, you build a financial system for the game that can handle it.

It seems like they've gone about it backwards, building what they think the financial system should look like, based on the last few years, and they jury-rigging the history part.

Like Beachbum, I would volunteer to help out in this respect. I'm not a developer, but I understand the history of the game, and can help with research, etc..

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Scruff

Get the underlying data correct first (which shouldn't be that hard, I mean I found what I put in that spreadsheet above in a few hours).

Last year, I did a lot of research into the financials of baseball, both major and minor. I came up with a fair amount of stuff (both online and offline). What you have in your spreadsheet is really just scratching the surface in terms of realism and detail—there's lots more that could be done in terms of a system in OOTP which encompasses both.

Here's a sampling of some of the data I've collected.


From the book Baseball and Billions by Andrew Zimbalist:

Average MLB team revenue

1929 = $758,324
1933 = $430,211
1939 = $760,980
1943 = $678,141
1946 = $1,719,322
1950 = $2,002,217
1980 = $12,795,400
1982 = $16,224,000
1984 = $23,503,600
1986 = $28,701,400
1988 = $36,854,000
1990 = $51,715,400

Average MLB player salary

1898 = $2,200
1910 = $2,500
1929 = $7,531
1933 = $6,009
1939 = $7,306
1943 = $6,423
1946 = $11,294
1950 = $13,288
1951 = $13,300


From the book Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team Sports by James Quirk and Rodney D. Fort:

Aggregate MLB radio and television income, 1962-1991, in thousands of dollars

Year    Local  National   Total
-------------------------------
1962   12,775    4,000   16,775
1963   13,000    5,200   18,200
1964   14,325    7,000   21,325
1965   15,970    9,700   25,670
1966   17,335    9,750   27,085
1967   17,125   11,800   28,925
1968   18,340   12,700   31,040
1969   21,690   15,500   37,190
1970   21,850   16,240   38,090
1971   22,450   18,000   40,450
1972   23,085   18,000   41,085
1973   24,405   18,000   42,405
1974   25,245   18,000   42,245
1975   26,200   18,000   44,200
1976   26,700   23,000   49,700
1977   28,900   23,000   51,900
1978   29,300   23,000   52,300
1979   31,500   23,000   54,500
1980   39,000   41,000   80,000
1981   48,100   41,000   89,100
1982   64,600   53,000  117,600
1983   94,700   59,000  153,700
1984  105,400  163,000  268,400
1985  115,800  161,500  277,300
1986  140,100  181,500  321,600
1987  154,400  196,500  350,900
1988  157,600  206,500  364,100
1989  232,000  246,500  478,500
1990  250,000  362,500  612,500
1991  252,500  367,500  615,000

The Oct. 31, 1958, issue of The Sporting News reported on monthly salaries in the minors, as determined by the Celler report.

1950 MONTHLY SALARY BY CLASSIFICATION

     Lowest  Highest  Average   Median
--------------------------------------
MLB   $893   $16,071   $2,373   $1,964
AAA   $200   $ 4,000   $  876   $  850
AA    $300   $ 4,200   $  639   $  600
A     $100   $ 1,555   $  391   $  350
D     $ 80   $ 1,000   $  192   $  165


1950 MONTHLY SALARY BY LEAGUE

Class  League                 Average   Median  Length of Season
----------------------------------------------------------------
 ML    Major League Baseball   $2,373   $1,964     5.6 months
----------------------------------------------------------------
 AAA   Pacific Coast League    $  978   $  917     6.5 months
 AAA   American Association    $  814   $  750     4.9 months
 AAA   International League    $  832   $  800     4.8 months
----------------------------------------------------------------
 AA    Texas League            $  641   $  600     5.1 months
 AA    Southern Association    $  654   $  550     5.0 months
----------------------------------------------------------------
 A     Eastern League          $  432   $  400     4.6 months
 A     Western League          $  391   $  350     4.9 months

The TSN issue only listed the full season 1950 figures for the Major Leagues ($5,000 minimum; $90,000 maximum; $13,288 average; $11,000 median). I calculated the monthly rates by simply taking the annual rates and dividing by the 5.6 month long MLB season.

[BeachBum]

This is great stuff. I also am not a developer but I can certainly build formulas and do have an understanding of revenue streams and expenses.

So.....is there someway of contacting someone within OOTP and getting them involved and allowing us to help. Otherwise, we are just wasting our time and building frustration but doing nothing about talking about it.

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by Scruff

I would take the exact opposite approach Steve, no offense.

Get the underlying data correct first (which shouldn't be that hard, I mean I found what I put in that spreadsheet above in a few hours). Then once you know how things really worked, you build a financial system for the game that can handle it.

It seems like they've gone about it backwards, building what they think the financial system should look like, based on the last few years, and they jury-rigging the history part.

Like Beachbum, I would volunteer to help out in this respect. I'm not a developer, but I understand the history of the game, and can help with research, etc..

No offense taken. More power to you guys! I just think you will make more progress with Markus by taking baby steps on this subject, whatever those might be. I doubt that his interest in this is great enough to expect a major overhaul.

[BeachBum]

I don't think a major overhaul is needed. I just think the formulas and tables need to be tweaked.

It looks to me like Marcus has not devoted the time and energy in this area to make it good. I can understand this in that the other areas are probably more pressing.

If a couple of us can get access to how the game currently caluculates this info MAYBE we could adjust the formulas and the financials.txt file to yield more realistic results.

Again, without this access and interest, this is a dead end and a waste of time even thinking about it.

[Dr. P.R. Park III]

LGO,
Any chance you could post some more data?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by BeachBum

I don't think a major overhaul is needed.

I disagree, at least in terms of the longer view. A major overhaul is definitely needed since the finanical area touches upon many other areas. If you want to redo the major-minor relationship, for example, financials need to be reworked.

It's because of the interconnectedness that it can be difficult to write up a comprenhensive proposal.

Originally Posted by Dr. P.R. Park III

LGO, Any chance you could post some more data?

Anything in particular you'd like to see? I can't guarantee I have it, but I did find a lot of very good online and offline resources for information. Some of it, however, still needs to be turned into more post-friendly formats.

But here's something in the meantime. Here's the regular season revenue source percentage breakdown for the 1996-98 Cleveland Indians, as derived from the club's filings with the SEC (it was a public company at that time and had to file the relevant financial paperwork):

SOURCE                              1996   1997   1998
------------------------------------------------------
Net ticket sales                    43.8   41.4   42.1
Local radio & television            12.6   13.9   14.4
Concessions and catering            13.6   11.5   11.9
Private suite and club seat rental   6.5    7.1    6.9
Advertising and promotion            6.4    7.1    7.2
Merchandise (net)                    2.8    3.6    3.0
Major Leagues Central Fund          11.5   12.6   12.0
Other (primarily MLB Properties)     2.8    2.7    2.5
------------------------------------------------------
Total                              100.0  100.0  100.0

Note that "Major Leagues Central Fund" is the revenue from the national television contracts, copyright arbitration panel awards, and superstation payments. "MLB Properties" represents the revenue generated from MLB-level merchandise sales.

So, for these three years, Indians merchandise sales accounted for between 2.8%-3.6% of total operating revenue (in dollar terms, between $3 million and $4.5 million).


MLB per game average attendance, 1871-2008, in chart form (at least, I hope the chart is visible):

[Dr. P.R. Park III]

I'm interested in anything between the 1930's-1960's. Unfortunately, the chart is not displaying for me.