Advice on budgets

bulldog55 · 05-19-2010, 10:25 AM

Hey fellow commissioners, I was hoping to get some advice on how to handle budgets in my league. One of my owners is being a particularly squeaky wheel about how budgets don't match up to the previous year's revenue, and his team is getting particularly short-changed. His team has been making about $50k/year for several years, then last year his revenues jumped to $84k, while his budget rose to $72k (yeah, it's 1884). I see from this thread that it is by design and has been for some time, which makes sense to me - his team only saw that revenue spike last year, and the game is hedging against his revenue falling back down to previous levels. I assume that if he keeps making money, his budget will rise accordingly, but the game is looking for a pattern.

Since he's one of three teams whose budget is below their revenue level, I offered to raise budgets to revenues if they fell short, willing to let teams face the consequences of overspending. He wasn't satisfied with that, saying it gives the high-budget teams an unfair advantage. I'm very hesitant to lower budgets if they exceed revenue. Case in point: New Orleans made $100k two years ago when they finished in first place, then just $36k last year when they fell under .500. Their budget this year is $76k. What is a fair budget in this case?

My first impression is that it doesn't seem fair to penalize them for one bad season and instead let the game gradually adjust it down if they keep losing money; otherwise it should leave their budget largely intact in the event they bounce back to previous levels.

Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone had to tackle this issue in their own league, and if so, what did you do about it?

05-19-2010, 10:25 AM	#1
bulldog55 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: California's Canada Warnings: 17 Posts: 2,481	Advice on budgets Hey fellow commissioners, I was hoping to get some advice on how to handle budgets in my league. One of my owners is being a particularly squeaky wheel about how budgets don't match up to the previous year's revenue, and his team is getting particularly short-changed. His team has been making about $50k/year for several years, then last year his revenues jumped to $84k, while his budget rose to $72k (yeah, it's 1884). I see from this thread that it is by design and has been for some time, which makes sense to me - his team only saw that revenue spike last year, and the game is hedging against his revenue falling back down to previous levels. I assume that if he keeps making money, his budget will rise accordingly, but the game is looking for a pattern. Since he's one of three teams whose budget is below their revenue level, I offered to raise budgets to revenues if they fell short, willing to let teams face the consequences of overspending. He wasn't satisfied with that, saying it gives the high-budget teams an unfair advantage. I'm very hesitant to lower budgets if they exceed revenue. Case in point: New Orleans made $100k two years ago when they finished in first place, then just $36k last year when they fell under .500. Their budget this year is $76k. What is a fair budget in this case? My first impression is that it doesn't seem fair to penalize them for one bad season and instead let the game gradually adjust it down if they keep losing money; otherwise it should leave their budget largely intact in the event they bounce back to previous levels. Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone had to tackle this issue in their own league, and if so, what did you do about it? __________________ Commissioner, Trans-Continental Base Ball Association Owner/GM, Los Angeles Electrics (TCBA), Beaverton Rangers (OTBL), Portland Mavericks (Union League), and Los Angeles Superbas (Century League) Being smart, don't always make you popular. Last edited by bulldog55; 05-19-2010 at 10:26 AM.