Finances

[laskey 16]

What are the plans with regards to finances and the way you can manage your budget, etc?
I know in some sports management games you can set ticket and merchandise prices, and of course in EHM if you signed a high profile player you benefitted from extra jersey sales, just wondering if any of these or similar features would be involved in DHM?
One feature I would like to see would be the ability to translate on-ice success to off-ice success. In EHM, you couldn't really influence the financial strength of your club as the GM. But say you take your team (I'm particularly thinking of lower league and European teams here) to an on-ice dynasty, winning lots of championships etc, it would be nice if suddenly your attendances rose and your club started raking in money, maybe even with the ability (not sure if it would be possible) to move into a higher profile league.
Also maybe takeovers could become a bigger part of the game, with teams that have consistent money problems (eg most British clubs!) perhaps programmed into the db to be likely to be sold/bought out from time to time.


Additionally I think it would be nice and realistic if new rinks and arenas started replacing old ones after a set number of years - maybe only for clubs with less high profile arenas, they could keep expanding/refurbishing them. Would be really cool, too, if you could rename your club's arena, or maybe even sell off naming rights or board/ice adverts for extra cash (obviously there'd be licensing issues here, but the news report could just be ambiguous as to the company involved)

Just ideas, no idea if they could work, but no good keeping them to myself I guess!

[YZG]

Good ideas laskey

On a partially related note, I'd really like that financially vulnerable teams are more prone to being sold to new owners as suggested, but also to folding and relocations. A folding team would leave the league with one less team for a while, then a new team might arise as soon as the next year, or a few years later. A league might even disappear altogether if not financially viable. Expansions might also occur in succesful leagues. Now that's unprecedented realism

- YZG

[Nightmare]

Do you think that you could implement a system in which, before the team sets it's salary budget and transfer budget(which should be tied to each other), it would make a mathematical approximation of the income and expenditure over the season and set the budgets accordingly(season tickets, gate receipts, sponsor income, TV income etc.)?

[dabo]

This is one of the areas I am the least familiar with; at this point I have no idea how detailed it will be. But keep making suggestions please.

[dave1927p]

http://www.forbes.com/business/sportsmoney/
Forbes "sportsmoney" section may be helpful with some of the finances...

I think it would be great to have dynamic rankings of the teams somewhat similar to the rankings on that site. And then have sortable lists of revenue, attendance etc. One thing that alot of sims don't do is what was mentioned above to build a dying club (financially) into a powerhouse. A team losing millions to just making abit of profit...that can be alot of fun...in the end it still comes down to making the playoffs but adds that extra layer .

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/31/hoc ... _land.html

[Ogilthorpe]

Is this of any use?

http://www.nhl.com/nhlhq/cba/archive/le ... report.pdf

[dave1927p]

Good ideas laskey

On a partially related note, I'd really like that financially vulnerable teams are more prone to being sold to new owners as suggested, but also to folding and relocations. A folding team would leave the league with one less team for a while, then a new team might arise as soon as the next year, or a few years later. A league might even disappear altogether if not financially viable. Expansions might also occur in succesful leagues. Now that's unprecedented realism

- YZG

i really love that dynamic league evolution idea. That's something that ootp just added and it's great; it took them 12 versions to get to it.... but they always allowed the user to do this in game manually - that would be an awesome first step.

I had a ton of fun with ootp expanding the league and moving teams (and tieing into my post on the other thread) going through the team alumni and team leaderboards for that defunct team...

[YZG]

Good ideas laskey

On a partially related note, I'd really like that financially vulnerable teams are more prone to being sold to new owners as suggested, but also to folding and relocations. A folding team would leave the league with one less team for a while, then a new team might arise as soon as the next year, or a few years later. A league might even disappear altogether if not financially viable. Expansions might also occur in succesful leagues. Now that's unprecedented realism

- YZG

i really love that dynamic league evolution idea. That's something that ootp just added and it's great; it took them 12 versions to get to it.... but they always allowed the user to do this in game manually - that would be an awesome first step.

I had a ton of fun with ootp expanding the league and moving teams (and tieing into my post on the other thread) going through the team alumni and team leaderboards for that defunct team...

They did?? Wow! It's just sad that the game is all about baseball and that I'm not a fan of it. I downloaded the now free OOTP 8 some time ago and was deeply impressed by the whole thing. The design, details and customization potentials are just incredible, but I couldn't play for for very long stretches because I quickly lost interest in the whole thing, because it's not a sport I like and because of the horrible quality of non-North American namesets (North American namesets are on the other hands exceptionally good). I had been pretty turned off because I had taken much time building leagues worldwide covering about every country just to see players named something like Bradley McLaughlin or Cristian Ogando coming from Lithuania, the Netherlands or Turkmenistan. That's a thing I swear won't happen in DHM

Plus, I was often feeling like my presence as GM was facultative, that I could as well spend all my time browsing leagues without caring about my team the slightest bit - it would just require me to do something if I ended up with too many players on my roster.


- YZG

[dabo]

That's a thing I swear won't happen in DHM

Don't underestimate the power of bugs.

[dave1927p]

Good ideas laskey

On a partially related note, I'd really like that financially vulnerable teams are more prone to being sold to new owners as suggested, but also to folding and relocations. A folding team would leave the league with one less team for a while, then a new team might arise as soon as the next year, or a few years later. A league might even disappear altogether if not financially viable. Expansions might also occur in succesful leagues. Now that's unprecedented realism

- YZG

i really love that dynamic league evolution idea. That's something that ootp just added and it's great; it took them 12 versions to get to it.... but they always allowed the user to do this in game manually - that would be an awesome first step.

I had a ton of fun with ootp expanding the league and moving teams (and tieing into my post on the other thread) going through the team alumni and team leaderboards for that defunct team...

They did?? Wow! It's just sad that the game is all about baseball and that I'm not a fan of it. I downloaded the now free OOTP 8 some time ago and was deeply impressed by the whole thing. The design, details and customization potentials are just incredible....

lol i changed my teams to big hockey towns and ALWAYS make all seasons in the pro league 82 games long....guess why That's the closest i can get to a hockey sim....

yes i felt more of a "connection" with my players on my EHM league then i did on ootp...even with the cool (but now kinda outdated) facegen. I feel the same way...still, i love watching a league evolve.

[Nathan]

As a somewhat-related idea...

I'm running a game right now with the (unaffiliated) Columbia Inferno of the ECHL and am continually frustrated by the fact that I scour the globe for talent to sign while all the opposing teams benefit from top NHL prospects. What about something like "owner mode", which would encompass a little bit of the following?
- Affiliations. If you're running a minor league team, you have the option of extending an existing partnership, shopping around for a new parent team, or simply going independent. At the same time, if you run an NHL team, you have the option of shopping around for a new farm team, working out flexible affiliation agreements, and having more or less input into the AHL team's operations.
- Merchandise. A good number of NHL teams actually sub-contract their retail operations to a different company entirely. Maybe have the option of either running retail operations as a direct team function (knowing that a poor season will hurt the bottom line) or lease it to a different company (guaranteeing a certain amount even in the worst retail season, but substantially limiting how much you can make in a great year).
- Concessions. Same as merchandise.
- Location and relocation. For a minor league team especially, this is much more of a reality than it is at the NHL level.
- Changing leagues. Not the most common thing, but it would add an interesting wrinkle to see an AHL team drop down or an ECHL team rise up with new ownership, a new bottom line, or new conditions being met.

[Alessandro]

:O No thanks

[dabo]

As a somewhat-related idea...

I'm running a game right now with the (unaffiliated) Columbia Inferno of the ECHL and am continually frustrated by the fact that I scour the globe for talent to sign while all the opposing teams benefit from top NHL prospects. What about something like "owner mode", which would encompass a little bit of the following?
- Affiliations. If you're running a minor league team, you have the option of extending an existing partnership, shopping around for a new parent team, or simply going independent. At the same time, if you run an NHL team, you have the option of shopping around for a new farm team, working out flexible affiliation agreements, and having more or less input into the AHL team's operations.
- Merchandise. A good number of NHL teams actually sub-contract their retail operations to a different company entirely. Maybe have the option of either running retail operations as a direct team function (knowing that a poor season will hurt the bottom line) or lease it to a different company (guaranteeing a certain amount even in the worst retail season, but substantially limiting how much you can make in a great year).
- Concessions. Same as merchandise.
- Location and relocation. For a minor league team especially, this is much more of a reality than it is at the NHL level.
- Changing leagues. Not the most common thing, but it would add an interesting wrinkle to see an AHL team drop down or an ECHL team rise up with new ownership, a new bottom line, or new conditions being met.

Interesting points, I guess some are more likely to be realized than others, for example the affiliation part.

[RomaGoth]

As a somewhat-related idea...

I'm running a game right now with the (unaffiliated) Columbia Inferno of the ECHL and am continually frustrated by the fact that I scour the globe for talent to sign while all the opposing teams benefit from top NHL prospects. What about something like "owner mode", which would encompass a little bit of the following?
- Affiliations. If you're running a minor league team, you have the option of extending an existing partnership, shopping around for a new parent team, or simply going independent. At the same time, if you run an NHL team, you have the option of shopping around for a new farm team, working out flexible affiliation agreements, and having more or less input into the AHL team's operations.
- Merchandise. A good number of NHL teams actually sub-contract their retail operations to a different company entirely. Maybe have the option of either running retail operations as a direct team function (knowing that a poor season will hurt the bottom line) or lease it to a different company (guaranteeing a certain amount even in the worst retail season, but substantially limiting how much you can make in a great year).
- Concessions. Same as merchandise.
- Location and relocation. For a minor league team especially, this is much more of a reality than it is at the NHL level.
- Changing leagues. Not the most common thing, but it would add an interesting wrinkle to see an AHL team drop down or an ECHL team rise up with new ownership, a new bottom line, or new conditions being met.

So many times do I wish we could add/drop/change affiliations as an NHL GM. I would love to see a feature like that in the new game!!!

[Saapas]

I was just wondering if you could make the AI better in finances than on EHM... AI teams usually sign guys with HUGE salaries (European leagues) and after a couple of years they get new owners who pay their debts and give them whole lot of cash to spend on players and salaries... That Bryzgalovs me off 'cause I always try to keep my salaries slightly beneath the maximum allowed salaries

[Alessandro]

Well, also the Russian salaries should be tuned much better than in EHM

[dave1927p]

i imagine the RSL finances were somewhat similar to EHM but with time it's become more outdated....that's why i wish the "Average Salary" per leagues would be customizable.


Will there be expansion and an expansion draft of some sort in this game? It would be cool if you could set it up similar to ootp where in commish mode you say how many players teams can protect and how many rounds. And how much it costs the teams to buy into the league (where the money gets split up into the other teams------i've been reading The Great Expansion book from Alan Bass...so my minds all Expansion. I think if we could have expansion similar to ootp in a hockey dream i'd thrilled. That's one big thing i really wish ehm had (amoung other things )

[Alessandro]

i imagine the RSL finances were somewhat similar to EHM but with time it's become more outdated....that's why i wish the "Average Salary" per leagues would be customizable.

No, they were very low already. And now they are even more, of course.

[dave1927p]

well, my created moscow club in turning a profit so yea, not realistic

[Alessandro]

well, my created moscow club in turning a profit so yea, not realistic

Whats your point? There is no such a thing in European hockey as a "profit team". If this was a cheap shot to Russia, well, it missed the target.

[dave1927p]

seems like i hit a sore spot...it was a joke. Maybe a bad one, but merely a joke. And no, I don't think it missed the target -_-

You're saying no team in europe is making money? I find that very hard to believe.

[YZG]

seems like i hit a sore spot...it was a joke. Maybe a bad one, but merely a joke. And no, I don't think it missed the target -_-

You're saying no team in europe is making money? I find that very hard to believe.

The biggest clubs do. As evidenced here (http://forums.internationalhockey.net/s ... t=finances), in 2007-08 (yes it dates, but still), all but two Elitserien clubs made profits, be it only a small one. Similar numbers should be expected in the SM-Liiga and National League A. But I think that what Alessandro says is more that European clubs aren't organizations focusing on profits the way NHL teams do - which is correct. The reality and culture in Europe is different than in NA. However, if they create the Nordic League they are planning, this may mark a change.

- YZG

[dave1927p]

But I think that what Alessandro says is more that European clubs aren't organizations focusing on profits the way NHL teams do

...

i really don't think i implied otherwise... he kinda made a statement based on an inaccurate assumption in reference to a joke i said.

Thanks for that site though. Very interesting to see.

[Alessandro]

I just wanted to say that thanks god in Europe sport (football a part and basketball to some point) is more of a social thing rather than just businessmen looking for easy whealth.

[dave1927p]

oh i see...

Still seems odd to me. Well, unless the owner is a billionaire and has more money then he can dream of doing with. Maybe we should get them to "invest" in a new EHM ...or into Dabos game so he can go Full time