Today we are going to talk about team finance management.
If tactics is the key to victory in short term, finance management is the base to survival in long term.
Many teams, especially teams lead by newbie managers, often running into bankruptcy crisis due to bad finance management.
The one and only concept to keep healthy finance is to live within your means.
In other words, control the spending of your teams based on the incomes.
In the following, we will briefly review the major sources of incomes and expenses as well as some tips to increase the income or to cut off the expenses.
### Incomes
1. The largest income comes from the sponsors.
There are two types of sponsors, one is the same for all teams in the same league and the other for each team individually.
The league sponsor gives the same amount of money for all teams.
The team sponsors depend on the team popularity.
However, it has a random range.
Selecting sponsors with higher value increase your income.
The rule of thumb is that the total amount of the best team sponsors will be roughly equal to the league sponsor.
Normally speaking, around 85% would be the lowest acceptable price.
For example, WL 2 sponsor gives 80K each week, then the highest team sponsors for every 1% court space would be roughly 800.
A bottom team like me, 700 could be acceptable while I simply ignore something like 600 for 3 seasons.
2. Match tickets
You will have 14 home matches in the first six weeks
During playoff, the number of home matches depends on the ranking and match results with the minimum of 3.
Remember to rent court based on the predicted interest of audience.
With a longer renting term, there is a higher discount for the renting price.
Therefore, instead of renting every 1 or 2 matches, renting for the half (7+7+3) or the whole (17) season could increase the net ticket income.
In addition, if your team is tight in budget, selling ticket at higher price could increase the income.
3. Others unpredictable sources
Besides the two main regular income, there are also some unpredictable income sources, such as daily surprise or festival events.
You would also receive a small gift on your birthday.
Don’t count these in the finance plan, while you may reward yourself with these extra incomes.
For example, send a 10k scout instead of a free one and get 99 more draft points.
4. Credits
You may also buy money using credits at very expensive rate.
It should be the last means for emergency.
DO NOT rely on this as regular income.
Think twice you act.
In most of the time, go bankruptcy and reconstruct you team will be a much better idea.
### Expenses
1. Salary
Players and coaches’ salary is the major spending.
Teams should plan budget for the salary before signing them from the market.
I would suggest to plan player salary based on the sponsor income.
For example, league sponsor for WL 6 is 13K.
I would estimate the total sponsor be 26K, 200% of the league sponsor.
Then 10 players share this budget.
Each player should take around 2.6K salary in average.
If you have some players with lower salary, you may spend more the rest.
To reduce players’ salary, there are three ways.
The first is renting a cheap player from teams on higher league.
You pay only 70% of the salary for the rented player.
The second is draft, draft players usually have decent skills with 30%~50% off in salary for two years contract.
A team could have two draft players with discounted salary.
(You may get more by trading with other teams.)
The third is improvement jump.
Jumping don’t reduce the salary of the jumping player, but it greatly improves the player’s skills without increasing his salary.
Therefore, you can get a stronger player with a lower salary signed before jumping.
2. Scout
Spending on the scouts increase the chances of getting high potential players.
You should only consider spending on scouts when having free budget.
Reserve budget from salary if you plan to spend on scouts.
3. Sectors
The image sector is the most important one.
According to the manual, it may heavily affect if you win a bidding.
At least invest the amount that retain the current level.
You could invest more with extra free budget.
Popularity is mostly affected by the team’s performance in the world league.
The sector doesn’t need too much budget and could be more flexible.
Also be aware that firing good players may greatly reduce the popularity.
Personnel is mostly affected by the players’ opinions and the sector have little influence.
You may safely cutoff the budget of this sector to save money.
4. Firing Compensations
The firing compensations depends on the total value of their remaining contracts.
That is, weekly salary times the contract length.
Avoid firing too many players, especially those with long contract.
To achieve this, avoid signing too many players than needed.
In addition, DO NOT directly give long contrast to players you don’t know their skills.
It would also be a good idea to trade good players with long contract to other managers instead of firing them.
For those not-so-good players, avoid giving them long contract.
The firing compensations will also increase during weekdays.
Cheapest on Monday while most expensive on Sunday.
If you inevitably need to fire players on Sunday, remember to fire them before paying salary.
If tactics is the key to victory in short term, finance management is the base to survival in long term.
Many teams, especially teams lead by newbie managers, often running into bankruptcy crisis due to bad finance management.
The one and only concept to keep healthy finance is to live within your means.
In other words, control the spending of your teams based on the incomes.
In the following, we will briefly review the major sources of incomes and expenses as well as some tips to increase the income or to cut off the expenses.
### Incomes
1. The largest income comes from the sponsors.
There are two types of sponsors, one is the same for all teams in the same league and the other for each team individually.
The league sponsor gives the same amount of money for all teams.
The team sponsors depend on the team popularity.
However, it has a random range.
Selecting sponsors with higher value increase your income.
The rule of thumb is that the total amount of the best team sponsors will be roughly equal to the league sponsor.
Normally speaking, around 85% would be the lowest acceptable price.
For example, WL 2 sponsor gives 80K each week, then the highest team sponsors for every 1% court space would be roughly 800.
A bottom team like me, 700 could be acceptable while I simply ignore something like 600 for 3 seasons.
2. Match tickets
You will have 14 home matches in the first six weeks
During playoff, the number of home matches depends on the ranking and match results with the minimum of 3.
Remember to rent court based on the predicted interest of audience.
With a longer renting term, there is a higher discount for the renting price.
Therefore, instead of renting every 1 or 2 matches, renting for the half (7+7+3) or the whole (17) season could increase the net ticket income.
In addition, if your team is tight in budget, selling ticket at higher price could increase the income.
3. Others unpredictable sources
Besides the two main regular income, there are also some unpredictable income sources, such as daily surprise or festival events.
You would also receive a small gift on your birthday.
Don’t count these in the finance plan, while you may reward yourself with these extra incomes.
For example, send a 10k scout instead of a free one and get 99 more draft points.
4. Credits
You may also buy money using credits at very expensive rate.
It should be the last means for emergency.
DO NOT rely on this as regular income.
Think twice you act.
In most of the time, go bankruptcy and reconstruct you team will be a much better idea.
### Expenses
1. Salary
Players and coaches’ salary is the major spending.
Teams should plan budget for the salary before signing them from the market.
I would suggest to plan player salary based on the sponsor income.
For example, league sponsor for WL 6 is 13K.
I would estimate the total sponsor be 26K, 200% of the league sponsor.
Then 10 players share this budget.
Each player should take around 2.6K salary in average.
If you have some players with lower salary, you may spend more the rest.
To reduce players’ salary, there are three ways.
The first is renting a cheap player from teams on higher league.
You pay only 70% of the salary for the rented player.
The second is draft, draft players usually have decent skills with 30%~50% off in salary for two years contract.
A team could have two draft players with discounted salary.
(You may get more by trading with other teams.)
The third is improvement jump.
Jumping don’t reduce the salary of the jumping player, but it greatly improves the player’s skills without increasing his salary.
Therefore, you can get a stronger player with a lower salary signed before jumping.
2. Scout
Spending on the scouts increase the chances of getting high potential players.
You should only consider spending on scouts when having free budget.
Reserve budget from salary if you plan to spend on scouts.
3. Sectors
The image sector is the most important one.
According to the manual, it may heavily affect if you win a bidding.
At least invest the amount that retain the current level.
You could invest more with extra free budget.
Popularity is mostly affected by the team’s performance in the world league.
The sector doesn’t need too much budget and could be more flexible.
Also be aware that firing good players may greatly reduce the popularity.
Personnel is mostly affected by the players’ opinions and the sector have little influence.
You may safely cutoff the budget of this sector to save money.
4. Firing Compensations
The firing compensations depends on the total value of their remaining contracts.
That is, weekly salary times the contract length.
Avoid firing too many players, especially those with long contract.
To achieve this, avoid signing too many players than needed.
In addition, DO NOT directly give long contrast to players you don’t know their skills.
It would also be a good idea to trade good players with long contract to other managers instead of firing them.
For those not-so-good players, avoid giving them long contract.
The firing compensations will also increase during weekdays.
Cheapest on Monday while most expensive on Sunday.
If you inevitably need to fire players on Sunday, remember to fire them before paying salary.
