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The NFL readily publishes their ticket receipts for every game, so it's VERY easy to look that up. It's also *perfectly* applicable, just a slightly different paradigm. Any team that isn't playoff ready in the NFL is equivalent to a team in relegation standing in this game. The fan reaction to a team failing to make the playoffs shows the same reaction to a team that just can't cut the mustard here. They just don't come to games until the team has shown that they can compete again.

Which is pretty much true anyway when you think about it logically.
Looking at II.2 vs NBBA the TV Contract is 113,698 vs 196,317. 80K more a week there. If you promoted to the NBBA, you've got a roster worth more than 196K anyway. I'm in one of the middling D.III leagues and our average salary is more than that. So that's money in the bank.

If you just promoted, you're going to be filling out your Arena to the brim (assuming you're not overbuilt for the new league already), meaning you can either build out or raise prices. That's more incoming money, even if you raise your prices a very conservative 10%. Even if you try to tank it, assuming you take advantage of the higher league while you're in it, you'll more than make up the loss in fans on demotion by the amount you pocketed in additional TV cash and attendance gates from raised prices.

Over a season:
Raise in TV Contract: +1.12M
Raise in prices by 10% at a conservative 200K Arena income: +280K

Are you telling me that by tanking and gaining 1.4M, you're doing *worse* than if you had not promoted? I have a hard time believing that the fans lost by demotion are anywhere near worth the equivalent of a half a season's worth of home games completely lost. I'll be honest, I have no numbers to back up an NBBA->D.II demotion, but I can't imagine that it's *that* harsh.

As it stands, it makes financial sense for an upstart II team to intentionally lose in the league finals instead of trying for promotion. This should NEVER be the case.

I'm not sure I understand this point. If you look at revenue gained over a 2 season period, you would want to be the team that promotes 10 times out of 10. First, Stajan got a $1 million bonus for promotion. Secondly, profits are larger (even with a smaller arena) than in div.2, even if his player costs are higher. Third, if he tanks, he'll get a high draft pick. The only downside is the season he goes back into div. 2, he has a lower fan survey for 1 of the questions.
Am I missing something?

Yes. You're missing that it's still financially beneficial for him to tank (just barely scraping by the salary floor) than it is to try and field a competitive team, even if the effort is futile. Using a CT here and there, etc. Just trying to take some wins back with him.

In the EPL structure, the notion of a newly promoted Championship team doing this is rightly ridiculous. But that's because that team won't lose its fan support if it relegates from the EPL, yet Stajan will, whether he tries to win or not.

You're missing that it's still financially beneficial for him to tank.

So you want it to be less financially beneficial if he tanks? It seems to me like your concern is just fan survey and not the player salaries floor at all, but I may be wrong here.

Last edited by Fresh24 at 4/25/2011 11:55:01 PM

Yes.

Last edited by RiseandFire at 4/26/2011 12:00:18 AM

As well, you can also look at the opportunity cost to stay in the league, since that's probably going to be lower than demoting if you can pull it off. Looking at Naismith and the NBBA, teams sitting in 6th-7th don't have too incredibly high of records. Heck, depending on the conference, it wouldn't be hard to make 5th or even 4th with a losing season.

It's far more trouble than it's worth to try and rebuild those teams and compare salaries from last season, but how much on average would it take to build your roster a little to be able to come in 6th or 7th instead of 8th? If you can build just enough to survive relegation then you don't have to worry about angry fans the next season and you can keep on moving in your league bringing down that extra TV contract the next year.

The team that had demoted from Div. 1 to 2 last year rebuilt their fan base after about half the season as they won almost all of their games. I think there is no question that you are better off promoting even if you demote the year after.