Well either way I can't even actually afford to fire a staff member (literally) at the moment because of the way timing worked out. Until I play another home game and go back into the positive balances, firing puts me more in debt xP
You literally can fire a staff member if you're in debt. You can not bid on a new one, but you absolutely can fire one and have a minimum level staffer with the base 2k salary replace him. That does, naturally, add more debt immediately, but then replacing that weekly salary plus 2% increases weekly with a 2000 salary plus 2% increases of that means you come out ahead within two weeks.
It's also really bad fortune that my schedule this season is wonky and I have multiple weeks where I have no home game, thus make no profit those weeks.
That's true. The thing that many people don't realize is that the regular season is 22 games over 12 weeks, which means that your financial calculations have to include the fact that you pay salary for 12 weeks and only receive 11 games worth of attendance revenue.
I guess I would have been in a better financial situation if I hadn't upgraded my stadium this season. It could take a full season of games for the difference in income to make up for the expenses to expand, so maybe wasn't the best move on my part.
The floor may not be the end all, but it does ruin one's plans when they're riding the line like I was. If I knew it was coming sooner and the effect of it, I would have re-done my staff ahead of time, I think. But I spent more on them because I could afford to and could use the benefits (at least in the Trainer's case... the other two are questionable)
The thing is, I think investing in the arena was almost certainly a wise choice. The way you think about it is correct - the more income you have, the more salary and expense you can support, and you're trading an upfront amount of cash for a future revenue stream. (Or whatever the correct terminology will be, I am not an economist nor have I played one on TV). I think, however, as long as you're focusing on the floor as the cause of your problems, you may well continue to suffer from the same problems. The salary floor is costing you, what, $14k above your player salaries (based on your statement about profit going from 16 to 2 k, at least). I glanced at your roster and I come up with roughly 56k in salary (again, estimated, so I may be off a couple thousand, or more if I doublecounted someone or missed someone).
So, let's say that of your weekly expenses, fifteen thousand are because of the floor. You'd be paying a total of roughly 165k total (spitballed 56k salary + 14k floor difference + 93k and rising staff). The penalty of the salary floor is less than one tenth of your weekly expenses, so it's not what's weighing you down. If you shave the doctor and PR down and keep your trainer, that's probably at least 40k saved per week - by itself nearly three times the added cost the floor is causing you.
Look at it this way, maybe: you are talking about the lack of a home game being a significant drain - but if you sell out your arena as it *currently* stands, you pull in 98.5k. You're spending almost that much each week just on staff, which leaves TV revenue to balance out the salary floor (exactly, since the floor is 100% of TV revenue in IV). Merchandising gives you some cushion, though, unless you spend that money on scouting. That math can't work out for you in the long term, so the question is if you're going to just keep bleeding money until you've got no alternative or if you can cut down somewhat so that you can accumulate some cash to use for other things.