I've never even realized, the difference in merchandising could be so big.
That can indeed make a sizeable difference to your finances.
I guess I will start to look out more for Belgian players too in the future :P
it's a trade off that u have to consider. multiple managers are looking for Belgian talent (Ventola, Esterellas Absurdas, Cowboys, Spartans, Amenra, Tienen, Angels, Obira, Boes and Stonestars -- tho not sure what his intentions are now). considering that we have got 5 to 6 generations that were horribly mistrained/not trained or whatever other excuse u want to use, it remains a fact that Belgian players are very rare (atleast, decent ones that aren't 33+ in ages). Hence, whenever a player does come on the TL, u have to fight multiple teams who want the same thing: a Belgian player.
So yes, it might be worth it in the long run for merchandise, but there are a few if's:
1) u will have to pay more than just the normal price, since the teams mentioned above will be likely to bid for the player aswell. Hence, overpaying a player begs the question if he's worth it in merchandise in the long haul
2) merchandise will only be worth it if that player is a starter or gets significant minutes. Merchandise will also be boosted if he is amongst the top rebounders/assist/point leaders of the league
3) merchandise will only really be boosted if he's in the NT/U21. those salaries often require secundairies that aren't salary friendly ( rebound on guards, PA on bigs), not to mention the high amount of primairies needed. this means that u need more salary on 1 position, making u weaker at another.
4) that merchandise increase will only be given if your NT player plays significant minutes in the NT. ==> if he's just comming off the bench, it ain't worth so much (when using empty lines up, they all get 20-30 minutes, making it more interesting for all the 12 players selected ofc)
5) the merchandise on Nt players goes up if u win games (especially against higher ranked teams), but goes down if u lose em (especially if it's a loss against a lower ranked team). Futhermore, in the scrimmages, the merchandise also goes down.
Hence, there are very few teams for whom this actually is worth it and for who it makes a significant impact. We all know that for Joe, it gives him something like 100k advantage in merchandise (maybe more, since he's also got foreign NT players). But Joe has has near 3 to 5 NT players for several seasons now ( Thys, Gilmont, Mees, Vercaigne, Canipel, Backaert, Breeusaert).
The only other teams who managed to get 3 of them were Stonestars (Abu Hassan, Gallagher, De Neef & Waelput) & Ventola (Waelput, De Piano & Lahure). No other team has managed to get even close to that amount.
futhermore, Joe always has had the better players, thus they nearly always started, giving him more revenue than anyone else. That has given Joe an edge for several seasons.
Dartreb does have a futur 3 ( Marichal, J-A Claeys & Vaes) but other than Marichal, he doesn't have other starters (yet).
And the fact that Joe had to buy an Albanian Guard only proves my point that we got a gap for a couple of generations in Belgian players. Had there been any players that were near the lvl of that Albanian player ( or slightely below it) Joe would have attempted to recrute them. (or maybe there are such players, but he knows all too well that they aren't for sale, that is a possibility too)
So to sum things up: Joe has had a 100k advantage (on average) per week in merchandising for the past 12 seasons or so.
considering a season is 14 weeks long, let's assume that he only had that advantage for 10 weeks per season, due to GS forcing one of his players out of the line up. that still gives him 12*10*100k = 12M advantage on 75% of the BBBL managers. maybe now u understand why he's been near unbeatable the past couple of seasons.
to be clear, that is 12M without the bonus of winning cups/titles/B3 income!