merchandising

CardinalsFan · 10-02-2006, 05:43 PM

how does this feature get calculated? my team is near the bottom, but is top quarter in payroll, attendance, wins, and market size.

CardinalsFan · 10-03-2006, 06:30 PM

bump, any ideas? markus?

1998 Yankees · 10-03-2006, 07:30 PM

CardinalsFan, OOTP has always (well, in the year and a half that I've been around) been a bit mum about how financials are calculated. I'm only guessing (and replying to you since I see you've had none) that merchandising is related to team attendance which is in turn related to fan loyalty and interest, and market size. Obviously you will get more merchandising (assuming team stuff is sold only at the stadium) if you have more fans in the seats, so the higher those fan and market numbers, the higher the attendance and therefore the higher merchandising revenue received.

There, I at least bumped the thread again for you. I cannot be sure, but I would almost be willing to bet that no one is going to come up with a formula in response to your post. It's probably too complicated to put into an understandable formula in the first place. There have been calls for explaining the financial model in OOTP, and someone did do a decent job for OOTP5, which I used to some extent with 6.5, but I'm not sure how much of an authority that person was and whether his work would be at all applicable to OOTP2006.

CardinalsFan · 10-03-2006, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

CardinalsFan, OOTP has always (well, in the year and a half that I've been around) been a bit mum about how financials are calculated. I'm only guessing (and replying to you since I see you've had none) that merchandising is related to team attendance which is in turn related to fan loyalty and interest, and market size. Obviously you will get more merchandising (assuming team stuff is sold only at the stadium) if you have more fans in the seats, so the higher those fan and market numbers, the higher the attendance and therefore the higher merchandising revenue received.

merchandising in prior versions have been junk too.

its not the factors you mentioned. my market size is a 9 with a fan loyalty of 75 and #3 in the league (out of 20) in attendance averaging in the high thirties.

the only reason i ask is i'm second to last in merchandising with a 50 to 1 ratio with the top team.

i bet its tied to original market size. i created the teams and then based on cities and such i edited each team's market size, fan loyalty, etc. the current #1 merchandiser averages in the low teens in attendance but is a HUGE market and i did not adjust this.

Cras · 10-03-2006, 09:58 PM

The way it was calculated in earlier versions was to judge on the current year's success and then alter the previous year's merchandising value. Thus it grows with success and falls with failiure, neither at ridiculous rates. However the fault with that rubric is that you get the problem you mention, in that the value is not linked to factors marketing is linked to in the real world.

CardinalsFan · 10-03-2006, 11:16 PM

so an equitabe solution might be to see everyones last year's merchandising value to some fixed value and then go from there, it seems.

Cras · 10-03-2006, 11:18 PM

or be some sort of variable that is related to market size as well as success.

I could be totaly wrong about this, but that is what I was told years ago and my own observations don't contradict this.

I remember back in 6.5 if you expand the league, your expansion teams had no previous year's marketing and thus never had much in the future.

2006 could be different, but not much.

1998 Yankees · 10-05-2006, 12:52 PM

We need a comprehensive and definitive description of how finances work in OOTP Baseball. This is not just about the financial options provided, but how those work with other factors like fan interest, fan loyalty, and market size to produce the numbers on the Front Office Finances page. It is also about how the math is done on that page; how last season's results become the current season's cash and balance, and how the amount made available for signings is calculated.

Aside from the need to understand and have things buttoned down, neat and tidy (important concerns for many OOTP fans), an understanding of how financials work in this game is important to playing it well, IMO. For this reason, I urge battists to include a more detailed section on the OOTP financial module in his upcoming (and final for 2006, I believe) version of the game guide.

Cras · 10-05-2006, 01:50 PM

I agree completely

1998 Yankees · 10-05-2006, 03:25 PM

BTW, that was not a knock on battists and the game guide, which is a work of art IMO. It is a knock on OOTP if the attitude is "it's too complicated to explain, just accept it as it is."

scefalu · 10-05-2006, 04:03 PM

This sounds like an interesting question to try and answer. Maybe a few of us can do some testing and see what the significant variables are. I'll try some cases tonight and post my results.

Until then, have some popcorn!

scefalu · 10-05-2006, 05:03 PM

Everyone enjoying the popcorn?

Here's an interesting observation ... the team merchandising revenue does not change from year-to-year. This is based on 10 simulated seasons in the default Fictional Baseball League (2 sub-leagues, 2 divisions per sub-league, 4 teams per division). I have seen team market sizes change ... the media revenue goes in lock-step with the market size. I have seen attendance go up and down, but the merchandising revenue stays rock-solid steady.

I'd be very interested in knowing where this number comes from.

Back to finding the answer.

Cras · 10-05-2006, 05:41 PM

It is obvious that Market size does impact directly on media revenue.

Your finding on the stagnent merchandising revenue is quite interesting, as this is a phenomenon only inherint in the re-coding. 6.5 and earlier had a changing merchandising value.

battists · 10-05-2006, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

BTW, that was not a knock on battists and the game guide, which is a work of art IMO. It is a knock on OOTP if the attitude is "it's too complicated to explain, just accept it as it is."

Don't worry about it. Unfortunately, this won't make it into the revised manual, because that's already gone out for final edits. I'll see if I can squeeze some information on this out of Markus.

If nothing else, this thread is ammunition for adjusting how it works in 2007.

DreamTeams · 10-05-2006, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scefalu

Everyone enjoying the popcorn?

Here's an interesting observation ... the team merchandising revenue does not change from year-to-year. This is based on 10 simulated seasons in the default Fictional Baseball League (2 sub-leagues, 2 divisions per sub-league, 4 teams per division). I have seen team market sizes change ... the media revenue goes in lock-step with the market size. I have seen attendance go up and down, but the merchandising revenue stays rock-solid steady.

I'd be very interested in knowing where this number comes from.

Back to finding the answer.

You've got it. This has always been the case in ootp. I've always used merchadising to stablize my league finances because it changes very little from season to seaso, once it's set.

scefalu · 10-05-2006, 06:55 PM

Yes, I am beginning to suspect that the merchandising revenue amount is used as the adjustment for team finances after the initial draft that ensures that each team is able to make a profit based on its initial payroll.

scefalu · 10-05-2006, 10:43 PM

Well, here is the evidence for mechandising as an arbitrary value.

The attached figure shows the three sources of income: gate, media, and merchandise. The income data are plotted as a function of the team payroll.

Here's my take on the data:

1. The market size is based on the initial payroll. It's known that the media revenue tracks directly with the market size, and I'm not surprised that the initial market size is based on the initial payroll.

2. The gate revenue tracks with the market size also, but it isn't such a strong correlation. I am okay with that. It may or may not be realistic, but it is reasonable.

3. The merchandising revenue is not linearly related to the market size ... it's more of a second-order relationship. That's okay, by itself. Teams from larger markets tend to sell more caps and jerseys. The problem is in #4.

4. A close look at the data shows that teams with higher gate revenues will have lower merchandising revenues than other teams in their payroll 'neighborhood.' Clearly, the merchandising and attendance are tied together, but not in the way we would expect. Apparently, when more people come to games, they buy less merchandise. That doesn't make sense to me.

None of this would be a serious issue if the merchandising revenue varied with the market size and fan interest/loyalty. However, the numbers don't change, that's what makes the merchandising revenue arbitrary in my mind. The way it is now, some teams will have a guaranteed $100 million in merchandising income each year no matter how poorly they play, or how small their market becomes.

My suggestion is to edit these numbers to reflect whatever parity/disparity you want in your league. You can be reasonably assured that these numbers won't change until you go back and change them again.

CardinalsFan · 10-06-2006, 01:14 AM

Thanks for all the information folks. It is simply an adjustment to last years numbers so i simply made some up based on 5 years of team history, ie the 4 time defending champs got the most money, the 3 time defending losers got the second most, then by market size and by some "other" factors that i incorporated.

does anybody else go through their initial league settings and set some things up? for example i usually have a small market team with incredible fan loyalty (like the green bay packers).

for expansion i have been simply creating minor league system players with no active roster and give them some money to play for in free agency. i like the idea of mimicking a draft but that would take fairly long to do. what are some other quick, workable solutions people do in expansions (for a fictional, non historical league)?

tysok · 10-06-2006, 11:23 AM

Merchandising revenue is annoying to me. The number is the basis for way too much of a teams strength.

In the real world merchandising revenue is split between all teams equally. What constitutes merchandising revenue in the real world I don't exactly know, I would suppose it's anything officially licensed by MLB (jersies for example, or revenue from computer games etc) but not things that are completely specific to (and paid for by) that team (like the big picture St. Louis was selling of the new stadium all year). By far the largest amount of "merchandising" revenue would be from officially licensed material... with teams making some extra money on side products.
Another thing that would have to go into this category would be money from concessions.

So, if you add up every teams merchandising revenue (in the game) and come up with 300 million... every team should have 10 million in merchandising revenue to start out. Then as the season is played merchandising revenue would increase for the best teams (the ones drawing the most fans) by maybe another 10 million, while the ones drawing the fewest fans may increase only 2 million.
Right now that's not the way the game works. And it's wrong. It creates situations where the team that has the huge merchandise revenue is the most dominate, and remains that way. The only redemption from this is that the computer doesn't spend it's money well.

Another annoying aspect is the teams market size, and revenue numbers are generated AFTER the inaugural draft (or after the computer assigns players if there is no draft). Again that's wrong. Anytime you can pull up New York and see a small market size, and pull up Kansas City and see a huge market size... it's wrong.
It sets these things up based on the teams payroll after the draft... again wrong. Knowing this... what fool wouldn't go in and draft the absolute best players they could find? Even if they end up with a team of 2 starting pitchers and 28 outfielders? Then you have all the money in the world, and can trade to better lay out your team. Ridiculous.
Market size and all the revenue numbers should be generated from the size of the city the team is in comparative to the other team's cities, then you hold the draft. You could end up with a 100 million payroll that you can't possibly cover... that's not bad. That's how other games have done it... you can either keep those players and lose moeny until the contracts end (which isn't very wise) or you can trade to get down to what you can afford and create a more stable outlook for your team.

Having a 157 million dollar budget after 23 years of play, never having finished above 4th place in a 6 team division is ridiculous... but because the merchandising revenue is so high, that's what a team is in one of my leagues.
Teams don't finance everything off merchandising, they make their money off gate revenue and broadcasting rights... but everyone gets a good healthy chunk of cash from merchandising.

battists · 10-06-2006, 11:35 AM

If someone wants to propose a more graceful and realistic merchandising/front office model, I would be happy to present it to Markus. However, please bear in mind that Markus and SI have already stated that they don't want the focus of OOTP to be on the front office, which is why promotion days and so forth disappeared.

Any model you propose should NOT attempt to match the real-world. It should be simple enough that non-economics majors can grasp it. Basically, IMHO, the more complex the recommendation, the less likely Markus is to be able to change it in time for 2007.

So, start brainstorming!

Steve

10-03-2006, 09:58 PM	#5
Cras Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: LEO Posts: 3,789	The way it was calculated in earlier versions was to judge on the current year's success and then alter the previous year's merchandising value. Thus it grows with success and falls with failiure, neither at ridiculous rates. However the fault with that rubric is that you get the problem you mention, in that the value is not linked to factors marketing is linked to in the real world. __________________ The Chicago White Sox 1906, 1917, 2005 World Series Champions 1900, 1901, 1906, 1917, 1919, 1959, 2005 American League Champions 2000, 2005, 2008 American League Central Division Champions 1983, 1993 American League West Division Champions OOTP \| Orbiter \| SSMS \| FSX \| LoL \| MLP:FIM!

10-03-2006, 11:18 PM	#7
Cras Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: LEO Posts: 3,789	or be some sort of variable that is related to market size as well as success. I could be totaly wrong about this, but that is what I was told years ago and my own observations don't contradict this. I remember back in 6.5 if you expand the league, your expansion teams had no previous year's marketing and thus never had much in the future. 2006 could be different, but not much. __________________ The Chicago White Sox 1906, 1917, 2005 World Series Champions 1900, 1901, 1906, 1917, 1919, 1959, 2005 American League Champions 2000, 2005, 2008 American League Central Division Champions 1983, 1993 American League West Division Champions OOTP \| Orbiter \| SSMS \| FSX \| LoL \| MLP:FIM!

10-05-2006, 01:50 PM	#9
Cras Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: LEO Posts: 3,789	I agree completely __________________ The Chicago White Sox 1906, 1917, 2005 World Series Champions 1900, 1901, 1906, 1917, 1919, 1959, 2005 American League Champions 2000, 2005, 2008 American League Central Division Champions 1983, 1993 American League West Division Champions OOTP \| Orbiter \| SSMS \| FSX \| LoL \| MLP:FIM!

10-05-2006, 04:03 PM	#11
scefalu Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 355	This sounds like an interesting question to try and answer. Maybe a few of us can do some testing and see what the significant variables are. I'll try some cases tonight and post my results. Until then, have some popcorn! __________________ Shawn

10-05-2006, 05:03 PM	#12
scefalu Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 355	Early Returns! Everyone enjoying the popcorn? Here's an interesting observation ... the team merchandising revenue does not change from year-to-year. This is based on 10 simulated seasons in the default Fictional Baseball League (2 sub-leagues, 2 divisions per sub-league, 4 teams per division). I have seen team market sizes change ... the media revenue goes in lock-step with the market size. I have seen attendance go up and down, but the merchandising revenue stays rock-solid steady. I'd be very interested in knowing where this number comes from. Back to finding the answer. __________________ Shawn

10-02-2006, 05:43 PM	#1
CardinalsFan Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 208	merchandising how does this feature get calculated? my team is near the bottom, but is top quarter in payroll, attendance, wins, and market size.

10-03-2006, 06:30 PM	#2
CardinalsFan Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 208	bump, any ideas? markus?

10-03-2006, 07:30 PM	#3
1998 Yankees Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Yankee Stadium, back in 1998. Posts: 8,645	CardinalsFan, OOTP has always (well, in the year and a half that I've been around) been a bit mum about how financials are calculated. I'm only guessing (and replying to you since I see you've had none) that merchandising is related to team attendance which is in turn related to fan loyalty and interest, and market size. Obviously you will get more merchandising (assuming team stuff is sold only at the stadium) if you have more fans in the seats, so the higher those fan and market numbers, the higher the attendance and therefore the higher merchandising revenue received. There, I at least bumped the thread again for you. I cannot be sure, but I would almost be willing to bet that no one is going to come up with a formula in response to your post. It's probably too complicated to put into an understandable formula in the first place. There have been calls for explaining the financial model in OOTP, and someone did do a decent job for OOTP5, which I used to some extent with 6.5, but I'm not sure how much of an authority that person was and whether his work would be at all applicable to OOTP2006.

10-03-2006, 11:16 PM	#6
CardinalsFan Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 208	so an equitabe solution might be to see everyones last year's merchandising value to some fixed value and then go from there, it seems.

10-05-2006, 12:52 PM	#8
1998 Yankees Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Yankee Stadium, back in 1998. Posts: 8,645	We need a comprehensive and definitive description of how finances work in OOTP Baseball. This is not just about the financial options provided, but how those work with other factors like fan interest, fan loyalty, and market size to produce the numbers on the Front Office Finances page. It is also about how the math is done on that page; how last season's results become the current season's cash and balance, and how the amount made available for signings is calculated. Aside from the need to understand and have things buttoned down, neat and tidy (important concerns for many OOTP fans), an understanding of how financials work in this game is important to playing it well, IMO. For this reason, I urge battists to include a more detailed section on the OOTP financial module in his upcoming (and final for 2006, I believe) version of the game guide.

10-05-2006, 03:25 PM	#10
1998 Yankees Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Yankee Stadium, back in 1998. Posts: 8,645	BTW, that was not a knock on battists and the game guide, which is a work of art IMO. It is a knock on OOTP if the attitude is "it's too complicated to explain, just accept it as it is."

10-05-2006, 05:41 PM	#13
Cras Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: LEO Posts: 3,789	It is obvious that Market size does impact directly on media revenue. Your finding on the stagnent merchandising revenue is quite interesting, as this is a phenomenon only inherint in the re-coding. 6.5 and earlier had a changing merchandising value. __________________ The Chicago White Sox 1906, 1917, 2005 World Series Champions 1900, 1901, 1906, 1917, 1919, 1959, 2005 American League Champions 2000, 2005, 2008 American League Central Division Champions 1983, 1993 American League West Division Champions OOTP \| Orbiter \| SSMS \| FSX \| LoL \| MLP:FIM!

10-05-2006, 06:55 PM	#16
scefalu Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 355	Yes, I am beginning to suspect that the merchandising revenue amount is used as the adjustment for team finances after the initial draft that ensures that each team is able to make a profit based on its initial payroll. __________________ Shawn

10-05-2006, 10:43 PM	#17
scefalu Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 355	Well, here is the evidence for mechandising as an arbitrary value. The attached figure shows the three sources of income: gate, media, and merchandise. The income data are plotted as a function of the team payroll. Here's my take on the data: 1. The market size is based on the initial payroll. It's known that the media revenue tracks directly with the market size, and I'm not surprised that the initial market size is based on the initial payroll. 2. The gate revenue tracks with the market size also, but it isn't such a strong correlation. I am okay with that. It may or may not be realistic, but it is reasonable. 3. The merchandising revenue is not linearly related to the market size ... it's more of a second-order relationship. That's okay, by itself. Teams from larger markets tend to sell more caps and jerseys. The problem is in #4. 4. A close look at the data shows that teams with higher gate revenues will have lower merchandising revenues than other teams in their payroll 'neighborhood.' Clearly, the merchandising and attendance are tied together, but not in the way we would expect. Apparently, when more people come to games, they buy less merchandise. That doesn't make sense to me. None of this would be a serious issue if the merchandising revenue varied with the market size and fan interest/loyalty. However, the numbers don't change, that's what makes the merchandising revenue arbitrary in my mind. The way it is now, some teams will have a guaranteed $100 million in merchandising income each year no matter how poorly they play, or how small their market becomes. My suggestion is to edit these numbers to reflect whatever parity/disparity you want in your league. You can be reasonably assured that these numbers won't change until you go back and change them again. Attached Images __________________ Shawn

10-06-2006, 01:14 AM	#18
CardinalsFan Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 208	Thanks for all the information folks. It is simply an adjustment to last years numbers so i simply made some up based on 5 years of team history, ie the 4 time defending champs got the most money, the 3 time defending losers got the second most, then by market size and by some "other" factors that i incorporated. does anybody else go through their initial league settings and set some things up? for example i usually have a small market team with incredible fan loyalty (like the green bay packers). for expansion i have been simply creating minor league system players with no active roster and give them some money to play for in free agency. i like the idea of mimicking a draft but that would take fairly long to do. what are some other quick, workable solutions people do in expansions (for a fictional, non historical league)?

10-06-2006, 11:23 AM	#19
tysok Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 4,925	Merchandising revenue is annoying to me. The number is the basis for way too much of a teams strength. In the real world merchandising revenue is split between all teams equally. What constitutes merchandising revenue in the real world I don't exactly know, I would suppose it's anything officially licensed by MLB (jersies for example, or revenue from computer games etc) but not things that are completely specific to (and paid for by) that team (like the big picture St. Louis was selling of the new stadium all year). By far the largest amount of "merchandising" revenue would be from officially licensed material... with teams making some extra money on side products. Another thing that would have to go into this category would be money from concessions. So, if you add up every teams merchandising revenue (in the game) and come up with 300 million... every team should have 10 million in merchandising revenue to start out. Then as the season is played merchandising revenue would increase for the best teams (the ones drawing the most fans) by maybe another 10 million, while the ones drawing the fewest fans may increase only 2 million. Right now that's not the way the game works. And it's wrong. It creates situations where the team that has the huge merchandise revenue is the most dominate, and remains that way. The only redemption from this is that the computer doesn't spend it's money well. Another annoying aspect is the teams market size, and revenue numbers are generated AFTER the inaugural draft (or after the computer assigns players if there is no draft). Again that's wrong. Anytime you can pull up New York and see a small market size, and pull up Kansas City and see a huge market size... it's wrong. It sets these things up based on the teams payroll after the draft... again wrong. Knowing this... what fool wouldn't go in and draft the absolute best players they could find? Even if they end up with a team of 2 starting pitchers and 28 outfielders? Then you have all the money in the world, and can trade to better lay out your team. Ridiculous. Market size and all the revenue numbers should be generated from the size of the city the team is in comparative to the other team's cities, then you hold the draft. You could end up with a 100 million payroll that you can't possibly cover... that's not bad. That's how other games have done it... you can either keep those players and lose moeny until the contracts end (which isn't very wise) or you can trade to get down to what you can afford and create a more stable outlook for your team. Having a 157 million dollar budget after 23 years of play, never having finished above 4th place in a 6 team division is ridiculous... but because the merchandising revenue is so high, that's what a team is in one of my leagues. Teams don't finance everything off merchandising, they make their money off gate revenue and broadcasting rights... but everyone gets a good healthy chunk of cash from merchandising.

10-06-2006, 11:35 AM	#20
battists Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 18,506	If someone wants to propose a more graceful and realistic merchandising/front office model, I would be happy to present it to Markus. However, please bear in mind that Markus and SI have already stated that they don't want the focus of OOTP to be on the front office, which is why promotion days and so forth disappeared. Any model you propose should NOT attempt to match the real-world. It should be simple enough that non-economics majors can grasp it. Basically, IMHO, the more complex the recommendation, the less likely Markus is to be able to change it in time for 2007. So, start brainstorming! Steve