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I've moved Timop's post into some new topic, not to surcharge our season 17 topic.
Text below is a copy of Timop post

On Joe's requests I also post my new press release on the BBBL forum: I'm interested to see if some of you have the same thoughts?

New start... or final end?

A season in Division II did not gave the relief that a team who was consistenly fighting against relegation would expect. Because of lower arena revenues & the crashed player marktet. it isn't worthwile to stay and adapt the team to get competitive again for BBBL.

That's why we fought hard to get back to BBBL very quickly. But, as expected, the same team as before wasn't capable to fight against the rest. Fortunately, we managed to save some money because of the cutbacks we had to make in Division II and when relegation came... Obira decided to go down and gave us an easy relegation (thanks for that!).

This suprise saved our franchise... for now. The final couple of weeks, the Antwerp Giants manager could not bring up enough enthousiasm to play the game like it should. There were no line-up changes, no training orders and no scouting. The fun has left the game, because a couple of reasons:
- The transfer market is destroyed with too much free agents. The teams who bought high skilled players a couple of years ago (like me), can't afford selling their old players now, because nobody wants to pay a decent price.
- Scouting young talents for years haven't brought me one young star worthwhile the money. Again, it is better to save you money and spend it on the tons of free agents entering the market.
- Training has slowed down and doesn't invite to invest in young talent. Assumption: If you finally saved the money to buy a young hopefull player (+- 2000k €), if you take the time to train him properly (+- 5-6 years), than you have 2 disadvantages: firstly you had for 6 years long a player in your team who has not the best skills possible, but secondly, and even worse, once he is up to skill-level, he is old and if you are lucky, you will get your 2000k € back from the market.
- And finally, the salaries are still to high... or the arena revenues are to low. I fought 3 years in BBBL to stay in, but during those years, I wasn't capable of saving some money to invest in my team.

Maybe you can see this as extra and interesting challenges to lift up the game. But (in my opinion) when all above features aren't in balance any more, there is no more fun in THE GAME.

Maybe you can see this as an opportunity to newcomers, who are playing in Division II of III to take some places of BBBL teams. But they have the same problems, only on a lower level! Last year was a very easy year for me... so for them it is also frustrating to get a former BBBL team in their division.

To conclude: with the saved money, I've bought some cheaper & older players in the free agent market, who can play for another 5-7 years. Maybe to market can recover in the meantime or I get finally lucky with the draft. But if it doesn't change soon, I will have a team of elderly people and the ship will go down.

Good luck next season to all of you!

I've come out of II, with a few strong trainee's.

I've Trained SF Ottevaere ( who's currently one of the few real SF's that our NT has. Mees is probably the second player who can play SF regardless of the opposing tactic) in II. I'm comming to the BBBL with a 77K SF, and his training still isn't over yet.

I've trained a french SG ( Leroy) in II, and he should be able to cause alot of damage here in the BBBL. And i'm still training Corman ( who might be in the BBBL one season to early to be really effective) Never the less, I'm comming up with some young players. I overpaid Leroy big time, i won't deny that. I probably would have been able tog et him for 1.6 or 1.7M. But he was a much better investment than my former guard Malek Jouaidy (or whatever his name was).

II is the best place to retool your team. Sell of some old guy's, take in some 20/21y old players, and devote the season to training 100% Don't mind about the cup or league. Cause in the end, If you can keep 4 or 5 players from your BBBL squad, and add 3 players who you've trained 100%, then you should have the strongest team available. HCA helps you get thier, but my team could have won the PO's without HCA.

And as for the low TL prizes:

They are great for smaller teams. It gives smaller teams a way to get stronger pretty fast, and it forces the stronger teams to be keep being on the edge. If you aren't constantly trying to improve your team, then you'll end up losing your edge...

your current team has the 6th highest pay-roll from the BBBL. Having a high pay-roll is nice, but the results have to be good too. If you can't produce results, then you might want to look into your team, sell of some players, and get players that boost your teams tactic while asking less salary to pay... The DR skill for instance, is one that is really nice, yet, it hardly adds alot of salary to your player.

your youngest decent player is 24. You should start looking for some new prospect.

And when it comes to the TL, don't be button happy. Wait wait wait untill you get a good offer. If you wait long enough, the player you want will come by. I've waited 9 weeks for a C to come by... But it was well worth the wait.

Revo

As I said, I have several advises:

- The transfer market is destroyed with too much free agents. The teams who bought high skilled players a couple of years ago (like me), can't afford selling their old players now, because nobody wants to pay a decent price.

It's a false problem. For example, I'm also in the same situation; Seatle too. Sonics had bought Hortobaggy for more than 8M (the Belgium record I think). He was sold for less than 4M. Was it a real problem for Seatle? No because you forget that you can also pay less expensive your new players (in his case, Hupez and Verelst for example). So this is not a problem.

- Scouting young talents for years haven't brought me one young star worthwhile the money. Again, it is better to save you money and spend it on the tons of free agents entering the market.

That's true. The last time I put money in draft was in season 8! Spending money in the draft has no utility except if you finish the regular season in the last 2 places. Draft is only interesting in division 3 and 4, or if you finish in the very last positions.

Training has slowed down and doesn't invite to invest in young talent. Assumption: If you finally saved the money to buy a young hopefull player (+- 2000k €), if you take the time to train him properly (+- 5-6 years), than you have 2 disadvantages: firstly you had for 6 years long a player in your team who has not the best skills possible, but secondly, and even worse, once he is up to skill-level, he is old and if you are lucky, you will get your 2000k € back from the market.

Training hasn't slowed down, but it's true that training is not the best way to make money yet. In fact it's still possible but you have to make the right choices. The best way is to train young players not to sell them but to reach the requirements of your team. "Special" players are very expensive and so the best way to get them is to train them. Training is a very important part of the game and many teams (even in BBBL) don't understand that. In fact many managers think that they train well but in reality it's not good. Next season Ventola will be one of the favourite team in the first conference. Why? Because his train is optimized. He wasn't stronger than you 2-3 seasons ago. But now yes, he's much stronger.

And finally, the salaries are still to high... or the arena revenues are to low. I fought 3 years in BBBL to stay in, but during those years, I wasn't capable of saving some money to invest in my team.

I had higher salaries than you but I have a positive balance every weeks. So it's possible to stay (and win) in BBBL, and save money. Stronger players involve better results which involve more money which involve stronger players,... How to enter in this vertuous cycle? By training and patience ;)

true on all replies. I have been in the BBL for a long time, and had positive balances for about 250k and more each week, up to the time where I deliberatly exitted.

I also like to add a very important point here.
It's no use to compare BB to any other management game, like hattrick for instance. In hattrick the highest investments often pay back best. In BB that's not true, and that's why it's such a good game. It would be too easy for everyone to just choose the highest investment on each item, and get optimal results. Here you realy need to look out which investment is the best. And if someone discovrs some investment is not rewarding, he should decide to stop the investment, rather then blame the game for not giving their expected results.

at one time it even was optimal for my team to fire my trainer, and train 1 season with the lowest cost trainer, getting my teams' FT up a bit... most managers still think the higher level trainer they can afford, the better it is for their team: NO. Also, I never invested 40k on scoputing. Mostly 5k, somethimes 10k. But that money should only be spend if you have plenty. If you have hard t

damn, it seems a large part is lost...

I just don't recall right what it all was, and don't feel like trying to recall and retyping it...

the last sentence of this part must have been something like: if you have a hard time keeping up with economy, you are doing something wrong. each team, even in the lower divisions should be able to have a weekly positive economy. arena expansion before getting to higher divisions is important. don't go to fast...