Financials

[Ragin Cajun]

Can anyone provide a little Financial 101 class for me (this is for OOTP17).

I'm only sure of payroll. If there is a cap of $5 million and I'm under the cap then that I know I can control. Beyond that I don't know. And now I'm in a spot where the team budget is slashed evidently due to a loss of revenue.

So I'm not sure where to go with ticket prices (currently $6) but only drew 333k in attendance for last season (last in the league). I've got the #1 farm system from trades and drafts and should have players coming up in 2-3 years but I'm now concerned that I won't be able to resign them when they come due if I don't fix my issue now. But honestly, just no clue where to start to try to become profitable in order to maximize my budget/cash on hand.

Thanks for any help.

[USF]

Originally Posted by Ragin Cajun

Can anyone provide a little Financial 101 class for me (this is for OOTP17).

I'm only sure of payroll. If there is a cap of $5 million and I'm under the cap then that I know I can control. Beyond that I don't know. And now I'm in a spot where the team budget is slashed evidently due to a loss of revenue.

So I'm not sure where to go with ticket prices (currently $6) but only drew 333k in attendance for last season (last in the league). I've got the #1 farm system from trades and drafts and should have players coming up in 2-3 years but I'm now concerned that I won't be able to resign them when they come due if I don't fix my issue now. But honestly, just no clue where to start to try to become profitable in order to maximize my budget/cash on hand.

Thanks for any help.

I posted a short video in the "new to the game" forum thread within OOTP17. Glad to discuss more details with you.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Ragin Cajun

Can anyone provide a little Financial 101 class for me (this is for OOTP17).

I'm only sure of payroll. If there is a cap of $5 million and I'm under the cap then that I know I can control. Beyond that I don't know. And now I'm in a spot where the team budget is slashed evidently due to a loss of revenue.

So I'm not sure where to go with ticket prices (currently $6) but only drew 333k in attendance for last season (last in the league). I've got the #1 farm system from trades and drafts and should have players coming up in 2-3 years but I'm now concerned that I won't be able to resign them when they come due if I don't fix my issue now. But honestly, just no clue where to start to try to become profitable in order to maximize my budget/cash on hand.

Thanks for any help.

i speak in modern default values - should scale, but jsut translate to your situation as far as my #'x being much larger. (forgot to mention this is with a 54k stadium and my goal is to fill it to 52-54k (~95%) every game) it may be more income with a lower attendance, but i want max attendance. as a smaller market team you may want to test out slightly higher ticket prices and be content with a smaller attendance. (if it results in more income only) i.e. pick a price that results in ~90% attendance instaead of 95. take note of what that causes and you can guess how it works or hammer it out exactly through these comparisons and some math and or spreasheet.

*max attendance does not have to be max profit - it could be, i've never worked it out. just don't assume it. allow the game to give the answer as you test out higher prices and lower attendance for a year or 2.

you can speed up the learning curve on choosing ticket prices by starting a game (just open to the initial settings page, do Not start the actual game, you will cancel the game to exit with no repercussions) and look at the attendance in the upper left corner. you can change ticket prices and repeat this process. i just eye-ball this stuff, but you can figure it out exactly with just a minor amount of effort. take notes of when you can increase prices as well as your wins / win pct (not sure which they tied it to, likely win pct, since it's a smarter choice) and how high you could go and still maintain ~95% attendance.

you'll notice you can ramp prices up throughout the year when you are winning. e.g. you'll learn that if you maintain a .600+ winpct you'll be able to charge $X by june 1, etc... (does it take steps based on time or purely scaled to win pct? my guess is that after a period of time it adjusts, but it could be after wins and X winpct, too... one is quite a bit simpler to use and more likely for tha treason, imo) it definitely doesn't change game to game (exclude opening day to 2nd game and possibly playoffs too). i'm nearly as certain it's not by month. so # of games or "weeks" likely the time measurement.

fri-sat-sun can be priced higher than the weekdays. learn a price for weekdays and weekends... every 10 or so wins (maybe 20 initially) test out higher ticket values if you are maintaining a good win pct. i haven't tried to hammer out the exact nature of when you can increase prices, but this is how you'd figure it out over time. keep testing new prices and make note when you can increase it (date, # of games?, # of weeks?, wins, win pct - the factors that are likely to be used by the code)

season ticket prices: if you are losing alot, currently, i'd jsut set it to what you think the price will be during the season - may not necessarily be the price during the first week, though. when you are losing... i don't know if you can still raise ticket prices duiring the year, but i doubt it... worth a look. (can = an increase in revenue)

if you are winning alot, i'd price it as high as you think you will make the tickets during the year. so, if i know i get upto 40-45-50 in a good year, that's where i'm setting season ticket price, so i don't lose income late in the year. This will make you more money, guaranteed! i am not saying it's optimized, you just need to do a little calculus to figure that out (2 independent variables) i'm happy with close enough. it should not hurt attendance when done properly, either.

i make about 25%-33% more from ticket sales than using 1 price from day one and as the season ticket price. that's a HUGE chunk of money, if it scales well to your fincancial environment.

also, you can jack up ticket prices for opening day significantly. same with playoff games. doing this will only add a few million a year, i don't bother anymore with opening day, but a smaller budget should eke out as much as they can. i definitely rais tickets for the playoffs - hopefully more than 3 home games.

a few things can cause a budget to drop... if you have owner's controlling the budget, it will be more than just tangible things causing the changes... it will be whimsical at times if you have a "cheap" owner (see Team Settings for owner involvment,spending and whatever). some find this frustrating (me) and set it so that "entire budgets" (or does it say revenue?) are available. it's in the financial settings. i also turn off owner goals, woot.

if you don't make enough as expected, the budget will fall - typically performance based but could be because you are not squeezing as much money as you could be squeezing out of each year... that's probably not likely. the ai has quite low standards for picking a budget.

not winning much will cause a lower budget, too. consecutive losing years likely makes it fall even faster, but you can only go so low, obviously. there is a hard floor that you won't go below. nearly max attendance is a good start, nonetheless, and likely close to the optimum revenue at the very least.

once you learn, you won't be doing the attendance trick unless you are super-an^l about maximizing income. what a pain that would be doing it for each game to set the price, lol. but, each to their own on that type of stuff. you'll be able to make a really good guess once you have a good grasp of how it works, and if you have to make a small adjustment after 1 home game tells you your price is off a bit, then you only miss out on a small amount of income in that 1 game. not a big deal. you can learn this way too, but without simming one day you can figure the bulk of it out by using the trick. you'll still need to learn how much success = an increas in ticket price as time goes by in a season.