Looking for salary cap help ...

[thevaliantx]

I have two questions:

Is there a way to set it so that the salary cap, year in and year out, doesn't change?

What would the salary cap have been in, say for example, the 1970's? The 80's?

[Tram2Whitaker]

Originally Posted by thevaliantx

I have two questions:

Is there a way to set it so that the salary cap, year in and year out, doesn't change?

What would the salary cap have been in, say for example, the 1970's? The 80's?

When you are setting up the game, you need to uncheck the box to automatically adjust financials each year. I don't know if you can do it after the game has started.

If there were a salary cap for the 70s/80s it would probably be about $6 - 10 million, unless you're talking late 80s, because that's when free agency started to amp up, and the PA won the collusion suit.

[thevaliantx]

Tram, thanks for looking. For the 90's what would have been an appropriate salary cap? I see the player salaries of today, and want to throw up. Actually I have felt that way for a long, long time. What should top tier players, in a world of economics that seems fair to the common man, be paid per year? Bench warmers? Draftees? The thought of playing with finances turned off is appealing, but players have to support their families, so ...

[Fyrestorm3]

This was a salary cap setup I used back in OOTP12 and 13. It's not perfect, and it was one of my early attempts, but it held pretty steadily for about 15 seasons.



The reason the Media Contracts and Cash Maximum were set the way they were was to ensure that each team made enough money to spend to the cap every season (I wanted some real parity). If you want realistic profits and all that jazz, you'd have to tinker with this setup. But the salary numbers on their own should still work.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I just set my modern cap where it hits the top four or five teams. Then try to personally spend between 1/2 & 2/3 of that. Figure that way the top spending PC teams have an advantage over me. It is interesting how teams can bump over the cap for a bit.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Tram2Whitaker

If there were a salary cap for the 70s/80s it would probably be about $6 - 10 million, unless you're talking late 80s, because that's when free agency started to amp up, and the PA won the collusion suit.

Well, it'd be more complicated to calculate, at least in terms of real-life figures. Note that salary caps are typically derived as a specified percentage of overall league revenue divided by the number of teams in the league. In addition to the cap there is also a salary floor, but OOTP's salary cap system doesn't model that if I recall correctly.

MLB proposed a salary cap system in the run up to the 1990 lockout. It called for players to be guaranteed 48% of revenue from ticket sales and both local and national broadcasting contracts. Using 1988 MLB revenues as an example, the players' share would have been $401.4 million. That works out to an average of $15.4 million per club, which likely would have been the cap. The average opening day payroll for the 1988 season was $11.5 million, with the range going from $5.4 million to $19.4 million.

Two other facets of real-world salary cap systems to note:

(1) If clubs fail to spend the designated portion of revenues on player salaries, they are required to cut checks to make up the shortfall, with the proceeds being divided amongst the players. That means clubs may have an extra expense at the end of the season. Either that, or the salary cap is raised by the shortfall amount for the next season (it depends on the particulars of the salary cap system used by a league).

(2) Salary cap systems have special accounting rules to handle how salaries are determined for salary cap purposes. That means what a player is actually paid during a season can differ considerably from what the salary is for salary cap purposes.

Note that OOTP's salary cap system doesn't recreate either of the above items.

[Tram2Whitaker]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Well, it'd be more complicated to calculate, at least in terms of real-life figures. Note that salary caps are typically derived as a specified percentage of overall league revenue divided by the number of teams in the league. In addition to the cap there is also a salary floor, but OOTP's salary cap system doesn't model that if I recall correctly.

MLB proposed a salary cap system in the run up to the 1990 lockout. It called for players to be guaranteed 48% of revenue from ticket sales and both local and national broadcasting contracts. Using 1988 MLB revenues as an example, the players' share would have been $401.4 million. That works out to an average of $15.4 million per club, which likely would have been the cap. The average opening day payroll for the 1988 season was $11.5 million, with the range going from $5.4 million to $19.4 million.

Two other facets of real-world salary cap systems to note:

(1) If clubs fail to spend the designated portion of revenues on player salaries, they are required to cut checks to make up the shortfall, with the proceeds being divided amongst the players. That means clubs may have an extra expense at the end of the season. Either that, or the salary cap is raised by the shortfall amount for the next season (it depends on the particulars of the salary cap system used by a league).

(2) Salary cap systems have special accounting rules to handle how salaries are determined for salary cap purposes. That means what a player is actually paid during a season can differ considerably from what the salary is for salary cap purposes.

Note that OOTP's salary cap system doesn't recreate either of the above items.

Right, but note how fast the inflation occurs from this point. During the 1994 strike, MLB wanted a hard cap at about $35 million, while the players wanted it at $56 million. So in effect, despite claims of hardship, MLB had to have at least doubled their revenues between 1990 and 1995. A lot of this artificial inflation was driven by free agents, and guys like Scot Boras; made possible by the anti-trust lawsuit the players filed in 1987.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Tram2Whitaker

So in effect, despite claims of hardship, MLB had to have at least doubled their revenues between 1990 and 1995.

The following data appeared in The New York Times on April 11, 1996, and may be of interest.

Operating revenues, operating expenses, and operating profits (losses)
for the 26 major league baseball teams (28 teams beginning in 1993),
as obtained by The Associated Press from management financial statements.
Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand dollars after 1983, except
for 1994, which is rounded to the nearest million.

Year     Revenues       Expenses    Profit (Loss)
-------------------------------------------------
1975    162,598,094    166,312,851    (3,714,757)
1976    182,035,149    186,704,462    (4,669,313)
1977    233,285,111    236,155,850    (2,870,739)
1978    265,308,026    265,303,440         4,586
1979    301,750,111    302,363,300      (613,189)
1980    351,404,824    371,177,557   (19,772,733)
1981    279,148,414    384,533,669  (105,385,255)
1982    442,642,488    534,737,436   (92,094,948)
1983    521,656,909    588,260,780   (66,603,871)
1984    624,223,000    665,211,000   (40,988,000)
1985    717,813,000    724,896,000    (7,083,000)
1986    791,875,000    780,347,000    11,528,000
1987    910,877,000    809,933,000   100,944,000
1988  1,007,519,000    885,915,000   121,604,000
1989  1,241,059,000  1,026,550,000   214,509,000
1990  1,336,530,000  1,193,663,000   142,867,000
1991  1,537,395,000  1,438,442,000    98,953,000
1992  1,663,367,000  1,641,146,000    22,221,000
1993  1,865,561,000  1,829,479,000    36,082,000
1994  1,208,000,000  1,584,000,000  (376,000,000)
1995  1,354,556,000  1,680,107,000  (325,551,000)

Notes

1981 revenue does not include $46.8 million from strike insurance
1995 figures were preliminary estimates

Original article listed 1978 profit as (4,586). This was likely a typo and
is corrected in the above table.

Original article listed 1990 profit as (19,772,933). This was likely a typo
and is corrected in the above table.

[thevaliantx]

Thank you, everyone, for taking a look. I guess I would make for a boss most enjoying work for, but an investor would never touch my business. In my world there would never be inflation. The salary cap would be the same each year, all money coming out of nowhere. Let's just call it "the jackpot". Whether teams spent all of that money or not, the yearly contribution to them from the jackpot would be the same. If a team's balance at season end was 3.7 million, and the yearly gift to them is 40 million, the balance heading into the new season would be 43.7 million. In effect teams could "tank" for a better shot the next season or even five seasons down the road. Teams could trade away players for cash, raising their balance. There would be free agency so that players could seek an upper echelon salary, but that salary could never be higher than the allotted salary for said level. Allotted salaries would never change. Players in their prime would earn the better of the allotted salaries, those on the decline or less talented would not make as much.

[Tram2Whitaker]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

The following data appeared in The New York Times on April 11, 1996, and may be of interest.

Operating revenues, operating expenses, and operating profits (losses)
for the 26 major league baseball teams (28 teams beginning in 1993),
as obtained by The Associated Press from management financial statements.
Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand dollars after 1983, except
for 1994, which is rounded to the nearest million.

Year     Revenues       Expenses    Profit (Loss)
-------------------------------------------------
1975    162,598,094    166,312,851    (3,714,757)
1976    182,035,149    186,704,462    (4,669,313)
1977    233,285,111    236,155,850    (2,870,739)
1978    265,308,026    265,303,440         4,586
1979    301,750,111    302,363,300      (613,189)
1980    351,404,824    371,177,557   (19,772,733)
1981    279,148,414    384,533,669  (105,385,255)
1982    442,642,488    534,737,436   (92,094,948)
1983    521,656,909    588,260,780   (66,603,871)
1984    624,223,000    665,211,000   (40,988,000)
1985    717,813,000    724,896,000    (7,083,000)
1986    791,875,000    780,347,000    11,528,000
1987    910,877,000    809,933,000   100,944,000
1988  1,007,519,000    885,915,000   121,604,000
1989  1,241,059,000  1,026,550,000   214,509,000
1990  1,336,530,000  1,193,663,000   142,867,000
1991  1,537,395,000  1,438,442,000    98,953,000
1992  1,663,367,000  1,641,146,000    22,221,000
1993  1,865,561,000  1,829,479,000    36,082,000
1994  1,208,000,000  1,584,000,000  (376,000,000)
1995  1,354,556,000  1,680,107,000  (325,551,000)

Notes

1981 revenue does not include $46.8 million from strike insurance
1995 figures were preliminary estimates

Original article listed 1978 profit as (4,586). This was likely a typo and
is corrected in the above table.

Original article listed 1990 profit as (19,772,933). This was likely a typo
and is corrected in the above table.

OK, so a few years off, but if not for the strike and the ensuing backlash, yeah; the anti-trust suit is the trigger.