Financial WHOAH!

[David_ExposGM]

Would anyone with knowledge of the financial engine in the game care to hazard a guess as to why this drop occurred?

Granted this seems extreme, but budgets go up and down all the time within the game (and for a variety of reasons it would seem). I'd be interested in the reason for this one before we go too far to correct this personally.

[Deleted]

In my old favorite league, we kept it simple...75 mil hard cap. Max cash of 10 mil, the only variable wad can interest. No worrying about random stuff such as this...

Obviously it's different with international FA and stuff, but we slid those into the amateur draft...the field was very level, no big and small market differences.

[COL_PBL]

I guess a part of this is what is the owner like?  economizer?  Meddling? Nuts?

As for budgets I always go by projected revenue.  My budgets are always higher than what my revenue would show, unless of course you make it to the playoffs, then you get some extra.

I think we also did set a precedence previously with the 15% max drop budget number.

[MetDaMeats]

Mar 20, 2017 11:59:28 GMT -5 COL_PBL said:

I think we also did set a precedence previously with the 15% max drop budget number.

My only problem with this is that by the pre-season that money is probably already spent. That's why I'd keep the original offseason drop limit at 15% and make the pre-season drop limit something like 5%. 5% would still suck, but not be crippling to the plans that were made during the offseason in the previous 3 months.

[COL_PBL]

Mar 20, 2017 12:12:19 GMT -5 MetDaMeats said:

Mar 20, 2017 11:59:28 GMT -5 COL_PBL said:

I think we also did set a precedence previously with the 15% max drop budget number.

My only problem with this is that by the pre-season that money is probably already spent. That's why I'd keep the original offseason drop limit at 15% and make the pre-season drop limit something like 5%. 5% would still suck, but not be crippling to the plans that were made during the offseason in the previous 3 months.

The problem with that is that final budgets are set just before spring training.  As Derek indicated he didn't get this notice until just now.

[MetDaMeats]

Really? That hasn't been my experience. I've always had an initial budget given out at the beginning of the off season (How could we do anything if they didn't?) then right before preseason they reevaluate. I'd be very surprised if this is the first he's heard about his budget. It's just the sudden schizophrenic reversal that's the problem, right?

[Tim_GiantsGM]

My thoughts to this point are:

Ticket Price: Since no one can change ticket prices until opening day, when season ticket sales end, it seems that the change in ticket price from $45 to $5 was due to some mysterious flaw in the game. Right now, ticket prices are fixed, so this appears to be an error that Derek should be allowed to correct. Not doing so could significantly alter season ticket sales and the revenue they generate.

• Suggestion: Return the Red Sox ticket price to $45.

Budget: I have seen and read of an owner making significant budget adjustments at this time of year (i.e., the beginning of the pre-season). It happens. It has happened to me with the Giants and with the team I GM in another league. The $42m reduction certainly is an extreme one, but I continue to submit that while budgets are important as a planning and management guide, the most important determinants of team performance are a) wins and losses; and b) profit or loss.

Regarding the Red Sox, I don't believe Derek should adjust his, or anyone else's, budget. It is what it is. I can only speculate why the owner implemented the change. But it is what it is. Regardless of the budget amount, the Red Sox appear to be in very good shape, financially speaking. 

• Suggestion: Do not manually alter budgets.

Here is my take on this.

Profit and Loss: The "projected balance" listed for each team on the financial page we all can view is not labeled correctly. It really is projected net profit considering the following: total revenue less total expenses less offered contracts. If no offered contracts are in play, the "projected balance" amount listed on the financial page equals the projected net profit derived on the team accounting page. With offered contracts waiting to be acted upon the "projected balance" amount equals the total revenue amount derived on the revenue display available on the team Finances page less the amount derived on the expenses display (which includes offered contracts) available on the same page.

Regarding the Red Sox, the -$80m "projected balance" displayed before this past sim suggests that Derek had offered what were several, high-dollar contracts that, if each was accepted, would have driven the Red Sox into the red by a substantial amount. Coincidentally, yesterday I noticed that the Red Sox and several other teams were projecting sizable losses and began thinking about this topic.

During the last sim, the owner cut the budget for the Red Sox, Thornton accepted the contract offer, and apparently other offers were declined or canceled. (Amounts allocated to development and scouting also could have impacted the amount; only Derek knows for certain.) The net result is that the Red Sox now project a $16m profit. Despite the budget cut, the Red Sox seem to be financially sound. Even without consideration of potential playoff revenue, projections indicate that they will generate a healthy profit. The change in the budget seems to be a non-issue. Derek seems to be managing his financial position well. The owner should be happy.

Changes in budget amounts do not impact team performance. Revenue and expenses do.

So, once again it seems to me that spending time and energy discussing budget changes is fruitless. The bottom line, other than building a team that wins games, is to generate a profit, whether controlling a big market or a small market team.

Ticket Price Revisited: Speaking of generating profits, over the past several months I have noticed, when reviewing box scores, that attendance at Giants away games sometimes is extremely low. Earlier this morning I reviewed total attendance history for all teams. Some teams are drawing slightly more than a million fans to their games. One or two teams are not even breaking the one million mark. That suggests to me that some GMs are not paying attention to ticket price. Or perhaps they do not understand how ticket price works into the financial equation. To increase attendance, a GM may need to lower the ticket price. Even with a lower ticket price, the increased attendance that should result could increase revenue and, therefore, improve profitability.

With my Giants, I set my ticket price at a level that I think will promote, and hopefully increase, season ticket sales. Then, during the season and depending upon conditions (i.e., playing well or poorly), I sometimes adjust the price by a small amount in order to generate and maintain solid gate sales. A GM in my other league says that to generate optimum revenue a GM should strive for 85% capacity (the "sweet spot"), but I like to strive for a level closer to capacity. Food for thought...

[Deleted]

This league would be a phenom with running convos on flock or slack.

[sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers]

There are two options:

1)  This is the financial system behaving normally, if extremely.

2)  This is a bug.  

If it's option 2 we clearly reset/ignore it.  It's a bug.

If it's option 1 then we need to honor it.  Plenty of people get their budget cuts, sometimes by a lot.  I know that when Colorado missed the playoffs that one year the owner dropped Ben's budget by 30 mill or so.  As Sean points out, owners can be unreasonable sometimes.  We need to honor it to maintain the integrity of the system because it's not about what we'd prefer, it's about playing this game by the rules.  

But that's if it's option 1.

I just don't see the argument.  I don't understand any way in which the budget algorithm looks at that data and drops the budget by that much; it's unprecedented in more ways than one.  There is only one way that makes sense; that the ticket price was bugged to $5 somehow, the owner looked at the projected revenue stream and cut the budget to match.  And let's face it, if the owner thought that the team was going to lose $80 million, a budget drop of that size is completely appropriate.  

Given the bizarre $5 ticket price bug (because it has to be a bug) the owner's behavior makes sense.  There's no other way I can see that it makes sense.  And if the AI made a decision based on a bug, then, frankly, I say we just ignore the whole damned budget adjustment completely.  

This simply looks much less like a dickish owner and more like a bug.  It is highly unlikely that the $5 ticket prices popping up at this time are just a coincidence.

[Tim_GiantsGM]

Good points, John, but I would argue that since the Sox are projected to earn a net profit of $16m even with the buggy $5 ticket price entered into the system the change in ticket price has not yet impacted projections. If the ticket price is adjusted back to $45, all should be well, even with the new budget remaining in place.

The ticket price change has to be due to some bizarre bug that needs to be fixed.

But budget changes often do occur. This one is a big one, but they do occur. To me, it doesn't appear to be due to a bug.

[David_ExposGM]

If it's a bug, then I might also suggest that this be filed through the OOTP bug report, with a copy of the game file so they can possibly have a look and prevent it from happening in the future (or at the very least determine what went wrong).

Not so much to find a definitive answer - not sure they actually would send that back to you - but more to contribute to the well-being of the game.

Derek...Pretty sure you would have to do that as you have the main file. And even better if the ticket price is still locked at $5 and the budget still at the ridiculously low level.

[Luc_AZdbacks]

I think that Tim has things right here.  The timing sucks, but I wouldn't think that it is a bug.

Regarding the 15% drop cap, when did that get set?  Not trying to complain, but I've attached a picture of my budget drop after my 2040 season, which pretty much forced me into a full on rebuild.  Did I miss out on getting some of that budget back?

Regardless, if the ticket prices get changed back, all should be back to normal in terms of projected revenue shouldn't it?

Attachments:

[Derek _ Red Sox]

As Commissioner, I have the ability to change ticket prices still. the projected profit/loss you see was based on $50 tickets. When I adjusted the tickets to $41 (which was my price last season) as Tim suggested, we see an increased profit/loss:



And to show what John said most likely happened, I changed ticket prices BACK to the $5 that the game defaulted me to and this would be my projections:



So John is right that the owner's actions based on those numbers make sense.

Just wanted to show those numbers.

[COL_PBL]

Sorry but I got to ask....did you by chance mean to raise prices to 45 and maybe left off the 4???

[Derek _ Red Sox]

Mar 20, 2017 17:26:25 GMT -5 COL_PBL said:

Sorry but I got to ask....did you by chance mean to raise prices to 45 and maybe left off the 4???

Fair question but can say with complete certainty that I did not touch it. I honestly suck at remembering to change ticket prices.