mpleague wrote:The online league I run has everything go through a forum. GMs don’t make trades in the program, they post their trades on to the forum and the commissioner enters it into the game.
As for spending, we use our own luxury tax/hard cap system. At a certain $$$ amount spent, we strip draft picks, free agent exceptions (like the MLE or LLE), etc.
See, to me, that kind of kills it for me. There's all this great interaction experience built into this sim. Players relate to other players and GMs to owners but the GM to owner interaction has no meaning if firing is turned off and, in an online league, the commissioner is required to manually monitor teams' expenditures and arbitrarily enforce them. Everything else is so streamlined.
I want it to be a system whereby the owners set expectations to the GMand the GMs strive to, in whatever way they see fit, deliver on those expectations. In a multiplayer league, odds are that GM firing is turned off so the only mechanism is to have the commissioner of the league set some arbitrary budget and then enforce it in the effort to create verisimilitude? Even the antiquated JSB and even the slightly less antiquated FBB3 had a financial system and an increase/decrease mechanism as a result of season performance so it seems odd that a sim this complex in other areas is so thin in this one.
I would think that would be easily implemented in DDSPB, so I'll do a thought exercise below:
1.) Stadium data
# General/Club/Stadium Seats
General/Club/Stadium Seat Prices
Stadium Age - Age in years since stadium was built
Stadium Upkeep - Annual cost of maintenance. Presumed to increase as facility ages. Would also show the cost when building.
Stadium Location - Establishes market for ticket purchase (see below).
RATIONALE: Number of seats X cost per seat = ticket revenue. If you wanted, add in merchandise revenue (winning + player ability being the factors)... media revenue (presuming TV/Radio coverage based on winning and market media factor)... it can get as simple or as complicated as a GM wanted.
2.) Market data examples
Loyalty - fast fans react to changes at a financial level (ex. ticket price or winning).
Interest - a ratio of the number of fans in a market per population
Competition - factor to draw fans away from a ticket.
Economy - show the price point for the population (ex. Medium means 50% of the population can afford a GA ticket; 40% a club seat; 10% a club seat... or whatever)
Population - Number of people in the city.
Media - how much media exposure is associated to the market.
Size - sets a range for the starting budget of a created team.
RATIONALE: Some markets are large, some small. Some large markets like Phoenix are not the media powerhouses that LA or New York might be. Some huge cities have a ton of other things to do while, in others, the team is the biggest thing in town. Some markets might have a massive population but not have any interest in the team as happened in LA with the Clippers for the longest time during the Lakers' prominence.
3.) Owner Attributes
Patience - How much tolerance they have for a GM success/failure reflected in the magnitude of budget increase/decrease.
Greed - How much money the owner expects the team to make.
Pride - How far the owner expects the team to progress in the season.
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With these three points, you've established finances and it can be as robust as the other options in this sim. Demand is set by the number of possible fans in a city, desirability of a ticket, and what they are willing to pay for a ticket, and supply is set by how many of those tickets are available at what price. It'll be up to the GM to ensure their stadium is the appropriate size and price for their demand.
Owner expectations already seem to be a part of the sim based on how pleased/displeased they are at the off season call so just expand a bit on that system of owner expectations for GM performance. At season end, the GM has "the call" with the owner and the owner evaluates them. Now, if the GM can't be fired, what's the ramification? Budget. Owners hand down the increased/decreased budget. GM's say whether they are going to spend close to the cap or over... you have a prediction how far the GM thinks they will go... each of these can impact the owner's patience. GMs who want a more consistent owner experience should focus on making reasonable predictions... however, an owner's pride/greed might not reflect in the budget computations with that. Heck, you could add in complexity for some kind of plead for patience option in the call that will stay a decrease in budget but erodes patience for future season's review. There are lots of simple options for that interaction.
Most of this review is already baked into the sim so it'd be a matter of just establishing the supply/demand factors and then it's just straight math. From there, all that's needed is to layout a page in the application and a check box in the Commissioner options page to use this kind of finances or not.