MLB Quickstart Financials

[PSUColonel]

I had a developer basically confirm these financial settings in the MLB setup are correct...but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that the average team profit is only 500K.

We were discussing this in another thread, but I didn't want to go too far off topic there, so I created this thread to discuss.

Does anyone else find this a bit odd?

[PSUColonel]

I guess I’m the only one lol

[SilentFox]

I find it exceptionally odd, and I've been having tons of issues with finances in this year's version, I'm just not certain where this value needs to be.

[dsthomp]

It's not a bit odd. Unwrapping your understated irony and replacing that with standard internet hyperbole, it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

Truly, very silly and annoying.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by dsthomp

It's not a bit odd. Unwrapping your understated irony and replacing that with standard internet hyperbole, it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

Truly, very silly and annoying.

huh?

[HoustonGM]

Fwiw, this is what it looks like at the end of the 2022. The one change to the financial settings that I made was to set the national media contract baseline to $60M.

(This was a live start that I created on May 3 and it had the low average profit initially)

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by HoustonGM

Fwiw, this is what it looks like at the end of the 2022. The one change to the financial settings that I made was to set the national media contract baseline to $60M.

(This was a live start that I created on May 3 and it had the low average profit initially)

OK...very interesting.

[SirMichaelJordan]

What are the actual profits in real life?

[progen]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

I had a developer basically confirm these financial settings in the MLB setup are correct...but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that the average team profit is only 500K.

We were discussing this in another thread, but I didn't want to go too far off topic there, so I created this thread to discuss.

Does anyone else find this a bit odd?

The average team revenue seems a bit low. Here are just a few for 2021, which can be found on the Statista website. They don't have the net profit, unless I missed it somewhere?

Dodgers - 565m
Yankees - 482m
Phillies - 323m

Bottom feeders:
Pirates - 258m
Orioles - 251m
Marlins - 240m
Oakland - 208m

[MathBandit]

To add another data point-

I just started a fresh save on the patch (2022 MLB Standard Game, no settings changes at all), and when it loaded the financials looked similar to what you posted with Avg Profit at 400k. I simmed to Opening Day 2022, and Avg Profit was up to 900k. I then simmed to end of playoffs, and now we have this.

This is Nov 5th, 2022.

[PSUColonel]

The point is…there’s no way to know what the effects are going to look like in the future…it just feels like the financial system is beyond the users control, and simply does what it does. I really wish we had a better way to control the financial environments.

It feels like I’m throwing darts.

[1991Twins]

This is just a complete guess. Could it possibly be that when the game starts that the markets and budgets are set to be the ceiling for most teams? I know it was mentioned that the market is based on payroll this year and does not seem to evolve.

When season 1 ends, contracts come off the books (sometimes quite large ones) which would show more of a profit. It could be that the entire draft pool budget was not used. Meeting or failing the owner goals could impact whether the owner increases or decreases the budget along with whether an organization's focus is "Win Now!" or "Rebuilding".

[oomm]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

The point is…there’s no way to know what the effects are going to look like in the future…it just feels like the financial system is beyond the users control, and simply does what it does. I really wish we had a better way to control the financial environments.

It feels like I’m throwing darts.

Trade off is we have little dorky '3d'. So win some lose some.

[HRBaker]

I remember some of the discussion when the financial part of the game was "added" and it seemed at the time that the required simplification of reality caused a lot of issues as well as the need to make sure teams didn't run out of money. It WOULD be nice if we really understood how each figure relates to another, but I'm not convinced it would give us the kind of control we want without hiring an accountant.

[Dave Stieb II]

Since we don't seem near a point where I'm comfortable starting any sort of 'keeper' save, I decided to scrub my computer entirely of OOTP23 and re-download the most current build 23.3.61.

Once installed, I started a new Standard 2022 Game as unemployed.

I made no changes to the set up and went directly to the financials page on the first day (March 14). The projected average profit per team was $400K. (first screenshot)

However, I set up a spreadsheet and recorded each team's projected net profit(loss) from their accounting (budget) pages. That list is the second screenshot.
The average net profit per team was $13.886M.

If anyone can explain this to me, even a little, I'd greatly appreciate it.



OOTP project Profit (loss) by team.pdf

Edit: Sorry, the second attachment is actually a link to the pdf of my excel spreadsheet.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by 1991Twins

This is just a complete guess. Could it possibly be that when the game starts that the markets and budgets are set to be the ceiling for most teams? I know it was mentioned that the market is based on payroll this year and does not seem to evolve.

When season 1 ends, contracts come off the books (sometimes quite large ones) which would show more of a profit. It could be that the entire draft pool budget was not used. Meeting or failing the owner goals could impact whether the owner increases or decreases the budget along with whether an organization's focus is "Win Now!" or "Rebuilding".

No…I don’t think so…it’s only based on payroll in a way such that a large market team like the Nationals are listed as average because their payroll happens to be down this year. (Rebuilding)

[PSUColonel]

I was told by the developers that everything had to be balanced as far as the settings go…so there isn’t too much or too little money available for contracts. Too much money will yield unrealistically bloated contracts, while too little will result in teams not being able to sign players. The problem is I don’t know what balanced is, or is supposed to be.

From what I can tell with this version (he told me balanced changes with each version…and that avg. profit doesn’t matter at all) the number too look at is avg team revenue. I am trying to keep it right around 210 million. I don’t know if that’s a good guideline or not, but I am basing my market sizes on that number, and approx revenue range.

I figure if I can stay very close to the defaults I should be ok.

[Dave Stieb II]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

I was told by the developers that everything had to be balanced as far as the settings go…so there isn’t too much or too little money available for contracts. Too much money will yield unrealistically bloated contracts, while too little will result in teams not being able to sign players. The problem is I don’t know what balanced is, or is supposed to be.

From what I can tell with this version (he told me balanced changes with each version…and that avg. profit doesn’t matter at all) the number too look at is avg team revenue. I am trying to keep it right around 210 million. I don’t know if that’s a good guideline or not, but I am basing my market sizes on that number, and approx revenue range.

I figure if I can stay very close to the defaults I should be ok.

For the purposes of setting your market sizes at start up that makes sense enough. (and I know how thorough and precise you try to be)

But to say "everything has to be balanced" to ensure there isn't either too much or too little money available for contracts in one breath.....and then to suggest that average profit doesn't matter at all in the next, creates a huge disconnect for me. Common sense tells me average profits will impact the amount available to spend on players beginning in 2023.

Must be missing something.

No matter. As I pointed out, the financials page at start up showed $400K profit per team but the actual team pages showed an average profit of $13.88M. Don't understand that disconnect either but....whatever.

[MathBandit]

Originally Posted by Dave Stieb II

For the purposes of setting your market sizes at start up that makes sense enough. (and I know how thorough and precise you try to be)

But to say "everything has to be balanced" to ensure there isn't either too much or too little money available for contracts in one breath.....and then to suggest that average profit doesn't matter at all in the next, creates a huge disconnect for me. Common sense tells me average profits will impact the amount available to spend on players beginning in 2023.

Must be missing something.

No matter. As I pointed out, the financials page at start up showed $400K profit per team but the actual team pages showed an average profit of $13.88M. Don't understand that disconnect either but....whatever.

To add on to this, I forget if I posted it in this thread or another one, but I also did a test on this build and while Average Profit was showing $400k when I booted up the game, doing nothing but simming to Opening Day increased that number to $900k.

[Dave Stieb II]

Originally Posted by MathBandit

To add on to this, I forget if I posted it in this thread or another one, but I also did a test on this build and while Average Profit was showing $400k when I booted up the game, doing nothing but simming to Opening Day increased that number to $900k.

Yes. I saw your post and it helped inspire me to look at what the projected profit/loss for each team was and more importantly what the avg. p/l from those totals would be.
I advanced one day and the avg. profit per team on the league financials page increased to $600K, which makes sense enough based on projected ticket revenues changing. (no other explanation)
If I had the time or inclination, I'd do a more complete spreadsheet, including projected revenues and expenses from the individual team pages. Ultimately though, they would lead to the same projected avg. profit of $13.886M - as opposed to the $400-600K on the league financials page.