OOTP9 Finances: Small Requests for Big Improvements?

kq76 · 04-24-2008, 05:53 AM

Someone help me with this new financial screen. Maybe I'm getting a little old, but I'm a bit confused.

(This is more a post of suggestions for improvements, but there are a few things I don't understand. If you don't understand a lot about this screen, I think my post will explain most of it.)

Okay, the last season numbers I get. After a quick look, everything seems to add up fine.

The current season numbers? Not so much. I'd consider naming it something like year to date which makes it clear that they're in progress numbers that will change. It might not seem like a big deal, but I think that can confuse people.

So we go from a preceding year balance of 26M to a starting balance of 2M, but how? I presume it's the silly cash max and if it is I think it would be helpful to list it inbetween.

Revenues look alright. The only thing I'd do with revenues are: 1) show what is made by the team itself and what is their share of what the league made and 2) roll merchandise into a miscellaneous revenue as what is listed isn't all the income that a baseball team makes. You don't really do anything special to make merchandise revenue in OOTP and there are certainly more revenues than this, so why not roll it into miscellaneous to make it more realistic. Up the amount if you want to too.

See USATODAY.com - 2001 team-by-team revenues and expenses forecast for an idea of what I'm getting at. It doesn't need to be exactly like that (and it should certainly be vertical like in OOTP), but the list is more realistic. I'd substitute the word league for national though.

Similar to revenues, I'd make a miscellaneous expenses and maybe have something showing share of league expenses. Last I recall, player salaries are only somewhere in the ballpark of 50-70% of total expenses, not 80%. No wonder so many teams are so flush with cash in OOTP that they yearly lose millions over the cash max. Now sure, you can't really believe the #s MLB puts out, but player, staff, and scouting are not the only significant expenses in running a baseball team. You certainly don't need to list them all, but just having a misc. field with a high enough number would be good. Anything you do have influence on (like player, staff, scouting) I'd list separate though.

The significance of showing the difference between team and league revenues and expenses shows you what is more or less controllable / susceptible to change.

So then we get revenues - expenses for a season profit/loss. Then a current balance is listed that takes the season starting balance plus the season profit/loss. Fine.

Then we get a projected balance of -6.3M, but how? Well, in the column to the left if we're really trying to make sense of it we can guess that projected expenses are be about 50.8M. But how is this, we guess, 44.5M projected revenues calculated? I have no idea. Last year's actual revenues amounted to 67.9M so why are this year's so much lower? Is the team a whole lot worse? Is there anything to indicate such a decrease? Surely this should be larger and so should the projected balance otherwise it should be left out.

What I'd actually do is make another screen that lists the balance sheets for the last 3 seasons (like you see in the last column on this screen), remove last season from this screen and in its place put a full projected balance sheet. That is, you'd have a year-to-date balance sheet like you already see in the middle column, but you'd also have a full projected end of year balance sheet on the same page. Arrange the columns left, middle, right however you like, it doesn't really matter, but a full projected BS would help clarify things immensely. Staff payroll, scouting expenses and player payroll from the left column could all be moved there to make room.

Now let's talk about budgets / $ for. Shouldn't budget mean just that, the amount of money your owner is willing to spend for that year? Instead, you're allowing one to spend the budget he's given you and the starting balance. In my mind, the budget should be just that and what is the starting balance should be money in his pocket. That would allow you to do away with that silly cash max too. Now sure, if you want to increase the budget by the starting balance then okay, but that end figure is the real budget, not that previous #.

For $ for FA you should maybe minus offered contracts from the budget, but a big problem with that is say you really have enough money for contracts for 2 players totaling 10M, but you realize there is a good chance that the players you've offered contracts to won't sign right away. While you're waiting for their response, however, you can't make offers to anyone else because those offers would bring you above your $ for FA. Then, in the mean time, these other players you might have offered contracts to sign elsewhere and then say 1 or both of the guys you offered contracts to decline your offers. You're now out in the cold. What I'd propose is you can offer contracts up to your budget plus your current balance (or something, but at least with the balance it is money that you do have and can spend if you really want to, but you could money from elsewhere in real life too), but once signed contracts reach above your budget, no other contracts can be signed. This would allow for one to offer contracts to more players to give everyone a better chance at an active free agent market.

Next you have $ for extensions which can be thought of as $ for players next year as opposed to $ for FAs $ for players this year. The first problem I see is this year's budget is used again. Now maybe an owner would want to use this same number, but maybe the owner has a plan to increase the budget by 5M each year or whatever. This should maybe be allowed for in the game. Then we're including starting balance again which I'd keep out again or at least only use it to make more room for offers. Staff payroll and scouting expenses are the same, but do they change too? Player payroll is projected to change, good. What about subtracting for offers? Anyway, $ for extensions should be pretty much like $ for FA, just that it uses projections for next year.

Note that the budget # is awfully close to last year's revenue which is pretty much what v6 did. I imagine it might fluctuate a bit if the owner expects the team to do better or worse than last year (does it?), but no real change there. And then when you add the cash balance and minus player payroll and contract offers for $ for FAs that's also basically what you did back in v6. v6 $ for extensions was kind of messed up, but this also looks similar to what was trying to be accomplished back then.

Finally, what I think would be icing on the cake would be a screen of projected balance sheets for the following 3 years, especially noting the projected player payrolls. The math is easy for these past and future balance sheet screens and you've already got the format from the regular screen, it wouldn't take much to include these.

wilkiburger · 04-24-2008, 07:52 AM

I havn't even read this, but it is quite clear you should be consulted in future!!!

tysok · 04-24-2008, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Then we get a projected balance of -6.3M, but how? Well, in the column to the left if we're really trying to make sense of it we can guess that projected expenses are be about 50.8M. But how is this, we guess, 44.5M projected revenues calculated? I have no idea. Last year's actual revenues amounted to 67.9M so why are this year's so much lower? Is the team a whole lot worse? Is there anything to indicate such a decrease? Surely this should be larger and so should the projected balance otherwise it should be left out.

There are some bugs in there we're looking at.

I can tell you what's going on with that number though. This isn't anything different than we see in the last 2 versions, at least, of OOTP.

The projected final balance is taking into account all of your projected expenses, but only the revenue you've made so far. There is no projected revenue right now... so as you continue the year your projected final balance gets bigger as you bring in more revenue. There's only 1 revenue certainty (media revenue) but the others build slowly as the year progresses.

kq76 · 04-24-2008, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tysok

There are some bugs in there we're looking at.

I can tell you what's going on with that number though. This isn't anything different than we see in the last 2 versions, at least, of OOTP.

The projected final balance is taking into account all of your projected expenses, but only the revenue you've made so far. There is no projected revenue right now... so as you continue the year your projected final balance gets bigger as you bring in more revenue. There's only 1 revenue certainty (media revenue) but the others build slowly as the year progresses.

Thanks for the explanation.

The YTD rev of 31.9M doesn't equal 44.5M, but maybe that is one of the bugs you spoke of. Either way, that's not a "projected balance" if they're only taking certain revenue and projected expenses. It should make more sense to take a projected revenue with an understanding that it's not guaranteed. I don't know what you'd call what they're using now and I don't really see it being more useful than a real projected balance. It's misleading at best.

Can you confirm or deny that that 2M is also the cash max? I'm guessing it might not be after all seeing as how the previous year's starting balance was 10M.

The most important part of my post, however, was probably that of suggesting a solution to the problem of only being allowed to offer contracts amounting to X$ when some or most of those offers won't be accepted. Please tell me, has anything been done to get around this?

(This is the first time in a long time I've looked at the game's post OOTP6 finances so what I bring up might not seem new to some.)

kq76 · 04-24-2008, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wilkiburger

I havn't even read this, but it is quite clear you should be consulted in future!!!

I wrote up a lengthy explanation of recommendations years ago, but didn't hear anything back. Since then (and probably before that too) so have others though and thankfully I think others have had more success of being heard. Patience is key, patience is key.

BoofBonser26 · 04-24-2008, 09:49 PM

I love the new financial page and how it breaks down the information given.

Much better than the old version!

04-24-2008, 05:53 AM	#1
kq76 Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 12,104	OOTP9 Finances: Small Requests for Big Improvements? Someone help me with this new financial screen. Maybe I'm getting a little old, but I'm a bit confused. (This is more a post of suggestions for improvements, but there are a few things I don't understand. If you don't understand a lot about this screen, I think my post will explain most of it.) Okay, the last season numbers I get. After a quick look, everything seems to add up fine. The current season numbers? Not so much. I'd consider naming it something like year to date which makes it clear that they're in progress numbers that will change. It might not seem like a big deal, but I think that can confuse people. So we go from a preceding year balance of 26M to a starting balance of 2M, but how? I presume it's the silly cash max and if it is I think it would be helpful to list it inbetween. Revenues look alright. The only thing I'd do with revenues are: 1) show what is made by the team itself and what is their share of what the league made and 2) roll merchandise into a miscellaneous revenue as what is listed isn't all the income that a baseball team makes. You don't really do anything special to make merchandise revenue in OOTP and there are certainly more revenues than this, so why not roll it into miscellaneous to make it more realistic. Up the amount if you want to too. See USATODAY.com - 2001 team-by-team revenues and expenses forecast for an idea of what I'm getting at. It doesn't need to be exactly like that (and it should certainly be vertical like in OOTP), but the list is more realistic. I'd substitute the word league for national though. Similar to revenues, I'd make a miscellaneous expenses and maybe have something showing share of league expenses. Last I recall, player salaries are only somewhere in the ballpark of 50-70% of total expenses, not 80%. No wonder so many teams are so flush with cash in OOTP that they yearly lose millions over the cash max. Now sure, you can't really believe the #s MLB puts out, but player, staff, and scouting are not the only significant expenses in running a baseball team. You certainly don't need to list them all, but just having a misc. field with a high enough number would be good. Anything you do have influence on (like player, staff, scouting) I'd list separate though. The significance of showing the difference between team and league revenues and expenses shows you what is more or less controllable / susceptible to change. So then we get revenues - expenses for a season profit/loss. Then a current balance is listed that takes the season starting balance plus the season profit/loss. Fine. Then we get a projected balance of -6.3M, but how? Well, in the column to the left if we're really trying to make sense of it we can guess that projected expenses are be about 50.8M. But how is this, we guess, 44.5M projected revenues calculated? I have no idea. Last year's actual revenues amounted to 67.9M so why are this year's so much lower? Is the team a whole lot worse? Is there anything to indicate such a decrease? Surely this should be larger and so should the projected balance otherwise it should be left out. What I'd actually do is make another screen that lists the balance sheets for the last 3 seasons (like you see in the last column on this screen), remove last season from this screen and in its place put a full projected balance sheet. That is, you'd have a year-to-date balance sheet like you already see in the middle column, but you'd also have a full projected end of year balance sheet on the same page. Arrange the columns left, middle, right however you like, it doesn't really matter, but a full projected BS would help clarify things immensely. Staff payroll, scouting expenses and player payroll from the left column could all be moved there to make room. Now let's talk about budgets / $ for. Shouldn't budget mean just that, the amount of money your owner is willing to spend for that year? Instead, you're allowing one to spend the budget he's given you and the starting balance. In my mind, the budget should be just that and what is the starting balance should be money in his pocket. That would allow you to do away with that silly cash max too. Now sure, if you want to increase the budget by the starting balance then okay, but that end figure is the real budget, not that previous #. For $ for FA you should maybe minus offered contracts from the budget, but a big problem with that is say you really have enough money for contracts for 2 players totaling 10M, but you realize there is a good chance that the players you've offered contracts to won't sign right away. While you're waiting for their response, however, you can't make offers to anyone else because those offers would bring you above your $ for FA. Then, in the mean time, these other players you might have offered contracts to sign elsewhere and then say 1 or both of the guys you offered contracts to decline your offers. You're now out in the cold. What I'd propose is you can offer contracts up to your budget plus your current balance (or something, but at least with the balance it is money that you do have and can spend if you really want to, but you could money from elsewhere in real life too), but once signed contracts reach above your budget, no other contracts can be signed. This would allow for one to offer contracts to more players to give everyone a better chance at an active free agent market. Next you have $ for extensions which can be thought of as $ for players next year as opposed to $ for FAs $ for players this year. The first problem I see is this year's budget is used again. Now maybe an owner would want to use this same number, but maybe the owner has a plan to increase the budget by 5M each year or whatever. This should maybe be allowed for in the game. Then we're including starting balance again which I'd keep out again or at least only use it to make more room for offers. Staff payroll and scouting expenses are the same, but do they change too? Player payroll is projected to change, good. What about subtracting for offers? Anyway, $ for extensions should be pretty much like $ for FA, just that it uses projections for next year. Note that the budget # is awfully close to last year's revenue which is pretty much what v6 did. I imagine it might fluctuate a bit if the owner expects the team to do better or worse than last year (does it?), but no real change there. And then when you add the cash balance and minus player payroll and contract offers for $ for FAs that's also basically what you did back in v6. v6 $ for extensions was kind of messed up, but this also looks similar to what was trying to be accomplished back then. Finally, what I think would be icing on the cake would be a screen of projected balance sheets for the following 3 years, especially noting the projected player payrolls. The math is easy for these past and future balance sheet screens and you've already got the format from the regular screen, it wouldn't take much to include these. __________________ My OOTP Wishlist \| My FAQ List OOTP Wiki \| Your Recommended Team Nicknames, By City (A Crowdsourced Project) For Beta/Devs: Full screen (1920x1080)

04-24-2008, 07:52 AM	#2
wilkiburger Minors (Double A) Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 191	I havn't even read this, but it is quite clear you should be consulted in future!!!

04-24-2008, 09:49 PM	#6
BoofBonser26 Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Chicago Posts: 358	I love the new financial page and how it breaks down the information given. Much better than the old version!