10.09 Attendance and ticket prices [Fixed 10.10]

[shawnmckee]

opening ticket window to set opening day ticket prices causes processer to lock up . CPU will not accept interupts . had to do a power-on reset . error occured 4-1-86 , before any games were played .
SM

[ohms_law]

This didn't occur to me. Can you provide more details at all? Can you recreate the issue again in some way?

[ohms_law]

I haven't gone forward far enough yet to completely test this, but I know that in 1901 and 1903 at least, inflation seems to be messing up the AI in that it refuses to set ticket prices above $0.

[FRENCHREDSOX]

Yep same here simmed starting 01 & on wards upto 09 & still the same - maybe I will jump decades to find out when it starts (bit like the Dave Bug started in 2000)

[boomboom]

I started in 1921, then played mutliple seasons..till 1946. Still not working.

[JohnnyD]

It seems like the only way to get anyone to the games is by setting ticket prices to $0, which makes it tough to make $$.

[FRENCHREDSOX]

I started in 1921, then played mutliple seasons..till 1946. Still not working.

DID 19 /29/39/49 start years not working maybe I get lucky with 59 or 69!

[NDF15]

I just downloaded the beta version and played a whole season as the Chicago White Sox. The stats for home attendance, concessions and broadcast money never updated for me or for the other teams. I am now in the second season and have -57.5 Million dollars. There will be a lot of free agents since no one has positive cash flow.

[ohms_law]

Merged

[ragecage]

I started playing the 1901 season, and no fans are buying tickets for any club. No way to generate any income.

[Clay Dreslough]

I have fixed a problem for 9.62 that was leading to little or no ticket sales occuring in historical seasons (the farther back you went into the 1900s, the less revenue).

[JohnnyD]

I started in the 2007 season and couldn't get any attendance until my ticket prices were $0

[ohms_law]

Historic years are blatent with this. No one can get attendance when they charge anything... It does still happen occasionally in modern seasons as well though. I've seen that too. The difference is that it only happens for a couple of teams, over the course of a couple of years at a time, and then they slowly recover somehow and are able to charge for admission again. It's strange, but hopefully whatever Clay did will fix most of the problem. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

[Cthon]

As of 9.62, I still get no attendance in 1906 when ticket prices are set above $0.

[ohms_law]

humm... I've been running a multi year simulation from 1901 (up to 1918 now) and it seems OK. I think.

I kind of see what your saying, now. There's attendance in the early 1900's, it's just too low after the first season. Theere should be slightly more fans, on average, in each city. 4-8k average attendance seems more correct. The first year that is simulated seems about correct (although still slightly low, I think), but after that attendance falls into the 300-1000 range for everyone.

The ticket prices are more "fixed" than they were before, but there's still a problem with them. $0.02 seems to be what the AI adjusts the price level too. It should be more in the $1-$5 range, I would think.
I don't know about all of that for sure though. I'll have to do some digging on historic ticket price and attendance figures.

Note the year in this screen shot; 1931:
6957
Note the concessions prices as well. According to the revenue from concessions that is shown, and the average attendance, I figure each fan is spending more then $173 on concessions per game.

OK, I created an encyclopedia for the league that I've been running through tonight. Note the strange attendance progression for the (three year world champion) Washington Senators in the series pictured here:
6964
6965
6966

[Mickademus]

I simmed the 2007 season with the Tigers and had an average attendance of 0. And they won 100 games!

[IndianaFan]

Verify that home attendance does not show in the latest version .62

[ohms_law]

Still a problem in 9.63


Washington Senators at Cleveland Naps
April 6, 1907
...

Temperature: 51F
Wind: 9 MPH (out to center)
Attendance: 0
Time: 2:47



Boston Pilgrims at Washington Senators
April 13, 1907
...

Temperature: 54F
Wind: 4 MPH (out to center)
Attendance: 4,800
Time: 2:41



Cleveland Naps at Washington Senators
April 10, 1907

...

Temperature: 59F
Wind: 2 MPH (in from center)
Attendance: 4,800
Time: 2:21

[Cthon]

Still a problem in 9.63 for me. No attendence in home games in 1901 when ticket prices are above $0.

[thurm12]

In the playoffs, if you raise prices you can sell out and make about $5 million per game in ticket sales. However, the team only makes about $100,000 for each game. Something I'm missing or is it a glitch?

[Mickademus]

I copied a 2007 game to 2008 and finished the season with attendance being normal, 45-50,000. Started the next season and I'm getting attendances in the 3-4000 range. They do seem to be alright using games I started in 2008. I just noticed that it is only my team's attendance that is messed up, when on the road it seems to be fine.

[Myrthynn]

One thing I have noticed, playing in 1913-14, is if you attempt to alter ticket prices in anyway, if you set the price to anything less than .25, the actual ticket price will reset to .00 once you close the "tickets" window. I'm selling out every game, because I'm letting them in free.:rolleyes:

And if you charge .25 a ticket in 1914, your attendance drops to 0.

[PDog]

I report this on the 6.3 patch and it still haven't been fix. So I was just reminded Clay.

If you change your ticket prices as you are changing them it will ajust your Payroll Budget as you are doing it only if you are in the finances screen.

(To see what I am talking about first, go to the finances screen then go and change your ticket prices and see how the payroll budget on the right changes? Now go to any other screen and try it. It won't change your payroll budget as you are changing the ticket prices.) I hope I explane it good for it to be fixed.

[Cthon]

Still not working properly in historical years in 9.70. Playing in 1921, increasing ticket prices above $0 eliminates attendance, as before. Verified by starting a new game and trying again.

[ohms_law]

Who else Finds That!

Please don't start threads like this. This post is completely uninformative, and unhelpful.


Still not working properly in historical years in 9.70. Playing in 1921, increasing ticket prices above $0 eliminates attendance, as before. Verified by starting a new game and trying again.
I've updated to thread title to reflect this. Thank you.


I report this on the 6.3 patch and it still haven't been fix. So I was just reminded Clay.

If you change your ticket prices as you are changing them it will ajust your Payroll Budget as you are doing it only if you are in the finances screen.

(To see what I am talking about first, go to the finances screen then go and change your ticket prices and see how the payroll budget on the right changes? Now go to any other screen and try it. It won't change your payroll budget as you are changing the ticket prices.) I hope I explane it good for it to be fixed.

Thank you for posting this as well. This looks to be fixed in 9.70, however.
:)

[carload]

"If the fans don't come out to the ball park, you can't stop them." - Yogi Berra ;)

[hoosiergoody]

I Started This Game in 9.70 and Continued it in 9.72 and No One Is Coming To The Stadium. Even With Fan loyalty and Fan Base at A+ and 20+.

Why - Here A Pic:

It looks early in the season yet--- have you had any home games to generate fans/revenue? Not trying to be mean with my question- just know that the scheduler sometimes has one's team on the road for 20 games in a row...

[ohms_law]

This comes down to an issue with the implementation of inflation, I think. The prices of things are simply falling too much, way more then inflation could account for. The effects of inflation on price points (not salary!) needs to be reduced by 50-100%, or even more.

The other issue here is that the way that the Ticket and concessions prices are set in the dialogs, they increment in .25 intervals. You can set them manually now, by clicking on the text box at least. The interval should scale with need though, so that it's .25 in the modern era, but .10 from 1940-1980, and a penny before 1940 (or something like that).


It looks early in the season yet--- have you had any home games to generate fans/revenue? Not trying to be mean with my question- just know that the scheduler sometimes has one's team on the road for 20 games in a row...

More likely, he's got his ticket prices messed up. I thought that maybe he hadn't had a home game at first as well, but everyone else has, and it just looks like he's a month or more into the season (knowing dave, he seems to play a month at a time anyway).

[Cthon]

This is still a problem in 10.0. Setting ticket prices to anything above zero nulls attendence in historical years (tested in 1910 and 1926). On a related note, while you can type in any value that you like in the ticket price field (say, $.01 or $.1 instead of fixed increments of $.25), those values aren't saved. The ability to type in whatever ticket price you like would be nice. I'm also unable to make money from concessions.

[ohms_law]

On a related note, while you can type in any value that you like in the ticket price field (say, $.01 or $.1 instead of fixed increments of $.25), those values aren't saved.
Humm, I'll have to do some more testing on that then. It seems like it did save and use the values, when I tried it.

[Cthon]

Still a problem, as described above, in 10.02.

[ohms_law]

Some of this was fixed (the crash bug, mostly), but the majority of it is still a problem.

Still an issue in 10.03


This is still a problem in 10.0. Setting ticket prices to anything above zero nulls attendence in historical years (tested in 1910 and 1926). On a related note, while you can type in any value that you like in the ticket price field (say, $.01 or $.1 instead of fixed increments of $.25), those values aren't saved. The ability to type in whatever ticket price you like would be nice. I'm also unable to make money from concessions.


Humm, I'll have to do some more testing on that then. It seems like it did save and use the values, when I tried it.

Setting the price directly definitely doesn't work.

[dolfanar]

Currently in Historical seasons it's impossible to set a Ticket Price between 0.00 and 0.25 as the minimum increment is 0.25. This is a problem as 0.25 is actually too expensive for early years.

Suggestion:
Between $0.00-0.25 increments should be $0.01
Between $0.26-0.50 increments should be $0.05
Between $0.51-1.00 increments should be $0.10
$1.00+ increments should be $0.25

[ohms_law]

Currently in Historical seasons it's impossible to set a Ticket Price between 0.00 and 0.25 as the minimum increment is 0.25. This is a problem as 0.25 is actually too expensive for early years.

Suggestion:
Between $0.00-0.25 increments should be $0.01
Between $0.26-0.50 increments should be $0.05
Between $0.51-1.00 increments should be $0.10
$1.00+ increments should be $0.25
I definately agree that there's a problem.

However, I don't agree with the solution. Here's what I said earlier:

This comes down to an issue with the implementation of inflation, I think. The prices of things are simply falling too much, way more then inflation could account for. The effects of inflation on price points (not salary!) needs to be reduced by 50-100%, or even more.

Prices in the ~$1-$5 range, until after World War II (1945), and then a steady rise in average price points, would be much more appropriate. (I think)

[dolfanar]

$5... no way! Holy smokes... Deppression era prices like those would have a hard time drawing flies. Even in the 70's-80's you could *atleast* get bleacher seats for the prices you are talking about. Inflation is set up fine the way it is. The salaries are looking good. It's just a question of scaling down the price adjustment bars. the average ticket prices the AI sets (in the $.10 range for pre WWII) are working for the AI... the ONLY problem is that WE can't do the same.

[ohms_law]

Yea, except we're not talking about separate prices for bleacher seats and box seats behind home plate. We're talking about average ticket prices. if there's 10,000 bleacher seats at $0.10, and 10,000 box seats at $1.00, and 2000 premium seats at $5.00, the teams average ticket price would be... Just under a dollar average. $0.95. That's not unrealistic, even during the great depression.

[dolfanar]

The average ticket price in 1950 was around $1.50... and that was during one of the most prosperous eras in American history.

http://roadsidephotos.sabr.org/baseball/data.htm

Check out this site for some details.

[ohms_law]

Notice how even the prices are from 1950-1960? From what I've read, ticket prices were always basically the same for years, hovering right around a $2 average MLB wide. Ticket prices only started to change in the mid-1980's. More wealthy rich people drove entertainment demand, which in turn increased demand for baseball (really, all sports) and since there's no way to really increase the supply of baseball aside from expansion, increased demand lead to increases in the price of baseball tickets.

The other thing is, the demographic of the ticket buying baseball fan apparently changed in the late 80's - early 90's. Up until that point, it was apparently always upper-middle class workers who went to games, and there was about an even amount of demand year to year. Therefore, ticket prices remained basically steady at around $1-$3 average. This is entertainment remember, not the price of bread, and the supply of and demand for baseball was generally steady through the years. That's why the effects of inflation in the game are messing up the price points for tickets.

Currently, the implementation effects the value of cash for everything. The fact is, there wasn't less supply or demand for baseball through most of history. Therefore, in the same way that player salaries don't have any meaningful effect on ticket prices, inflation didn't have any real effect on ticket prices either.

Regardless, I've had this game going all day log now. Started in 1901. Notice how many teams are still changing $0.04 average ticket prices?

[ohms_law]

Note the sudden increase in attendance to 5,000,000+ per season (!)
I think that the AI probably dropped it's ticket prices to 0 for those seasons...

[Konnan511]

So Ohms, are we going to be able to set the prices to lower than 25 cents but higher than zero in the historical leagues? And by setting I mean clicking the arrows to increase or decrease the value of the ticket, wouldn't that fix the problem of in 1901 not being able to set prices bellow a quarter?

In Hoc

[ohms_law]

*shrug*
Ask Clay or Ian... I imagine that you will be able to, though.

FYI, I'm finding these sorts of references all over the place:

For the 1908-09 season of the California Winter League, Hawley Park had a new grandstand and bleachers. The expansion was financed with a general admission of 25 cents, 10 cents extra for the grandstand (to which ladies were admitted free).

25-50 cents seems to be the norm for admission until after World War I.

No change in 10.09

[Clay Dreslough]

So Ohms, are we going to be able to set the prices to lower than 25 cents but higher than zero in the historical leagues? And by setting I mean clicking the arrows to increase or decrease the value of the ticket, wouldn't that fix the problem of in 1901 not being able to set prices bellow a quarter?

In Hoc

You should now be able to set prices to the nearest penny in pre-WWII years. I can do it in my current build.

As for the overall ticket prices, I'm more worried about there being a balance between ticket prices and salaries, even if tickets end up too cheap compared to real-life WWII. Basically, the owners were keeping most of the money before Curt Flood, and Mogul doesn't yet reflect that. Until it does, really low salaries is going to also mean really low ticket prices.

And right now I'm fixing the point about computer teams forgetting to adjust their ticket prices as time passes...

Clay

[ohms_law]

:cool:
I can live with that. Anyway, Fixed in 10.10, so start a new thread to discuss new issues about this.

[nbay]

I just bought baseball mogul 2008. I'm trying to play the year 1901 and the ticket price is changing itself to 0.00 once I start playing games. Using the up/down buttons the lowest price available is 0.25, when I try to enter the ticket price manually and hit "ok" the dialog closes. I open it back up to find the ticket price still at 0.00 not the price I entered.
I tried the year 1947 and the same thing happend.
I tried checking for new version and it said I have the newest version.

[ohms_law]

You need to update, but the updater in the retail version is broken right now. Grab the file from the Unofficial Patch: Version 10.16 (http://forum.sportsmogul.com/showthread.php?t=139600) thread, which is stickied above.

[shepster]

I notice ave .03/.04 (1901).,when selecting price only moves in amounts of .25 when type other amount it zero's at the time make money on concesions but free tickets as time weres on could get costly

[ohms_law]

Update to 10.21. This was fixed several versions ago.

[shepster]

I believe the 10:18 patch fixed the pricing in my (bad) 10:04 post