Finances

[christoph]

I would be grateful if someone could explain to me how team budgets work. An explanation for the following example (TB in Beta 1) would be instructive

Payroll: 771
Budget: 440
Limit: 440

2003 projected revenue: 465
2003 projected expenses: 760
Cash on hand: - 324

What does the limit do? and what is its relationship to the team budget?

How is the budget and limit established?

While I recognize that overspending must be curbed, as it goes in real sports, even teams that lose money should be able to spend money on player development, scouts, and trainers.

Also, I think teams who draft and develop players ought to be able to resign these players at a comparative discount than teams who simply try to pluck them from the free agent market. Small market teams -- like Montreal in reality -- should not simply be "farm" teams for those teams which can carry big payrolls.

[hwt1313]

The Budget is the computer's prediction of what revenue you will have this season minus expenses.

The Limit is the Budget plus 1/4 of your available cash.

I agree that forcing all of your expenses to 0 when cash goes negative is drastic, but teams were exploiting these expenses. Owners would set all 3 to 999, and live with the extreme negative cashflow. This would insure great rookies every year.

I hope this helped.

[Slugger222]

The 'Payroll' entry shows the total (in points) of current player salaries. To lower your Payroll you can go to the Contracts screen and release players. However, because you will have to buy out the remainder of their contracts, the best way to maintain a low Payroll is show restraint when signing Free Agents or trading for expensive players.

The 'Budget' entry is an estimate of a budget that is sustainable for the team, given current expenses. This number has no effect on gameplay, but is a useful guideline.

The 'Limit' entry equals the payroll 'Budget' plus 25% of available cash (if any). If a team's payroll exceeds it's Payroll Limit, it will be unable to sign Free Agents until the payroll is brought below the limit. You can reduce your Payroll Limit immediately by lowering your other expenses on the Expenses Page. In the long term, you should seriously consider lowering your team payroll to a more manageable level.

[hwt1313]

By the way, if you go to the Tickets screen and change the ticket prices, the computer will recalculate the budget. This is a good trick to optimize the ticket prices.

[Slugger222]

If you are just starting out, find a team that has some cash.

You will find climbing out of a hole very frustrating, if you are new to this game.

A team in debt (with less than 0 points of cash) cannot do any of the following:

Sign contract extensions for their current players
Sign free agents
Offer or accept a trade that increases their payroll
Commit any points to their Farm System, Scouting or Medical Staff

-300 points is not a good place to start. If you really want to play this team, try to find a "Rich" team to give you a break, and give you alot of money......