I'm not a huge fan of comparing BB (or any online game) to its real life counterpart. Although it might be loosely based on real life, aspects that make for an enjoyable game experience are often different from how things work in real life. There's too many things that are different to real life for any meaningful comparisons to be made, or to use the excuse 'that's how it works in real life, so it makes sense here.'
There's plenty of discussion about tanking and whether it's right or wrong. I think everyone knows I'm against it, for a number of reasons I've stated before. I respect those that have a different opinion, but I cannot accept the reasoning that 'NBA teams to it all the time'. It's another one of those real life comparisons that have no place in an online game.
With regards to the TV income, I fail to see the logic behind a system that results in me (and other teams) being $5k worse off this season, simply because a few teams decided to tank. It makes far more sense for the TV income to be a fixed amount each season and to be the same for every team in the division, regardless of the league they are in. Add to this the fact that the salary floor is calculated as a percentage of TV revenue, which again doesn't seem to make any sense. Essentially it means the salary floor is calculated with regards to the average team salaries, meaning teams with low salaries (i.e. tanking teams) will actually contribute to lowering the salary floor for their league. This only benefits tanking teams, as the salary floor is irrelevant for teams that are competing normally.
Thinking about the illogical TV revenue system has got me also thinking about how revenue is calculated in BB as a whole, and just how ridiculous some of it is. It really seems like a number of 'sounds great in theory' situations, that just don't work in the setting of an online game...
1. Rivals - these are randomly assigned each season are have a direct impact on your fan survey, which then impacts your attendance and ultimately on your income. If you get randomly assigned a difficult rival it can mess with your attendance in the following games, which can have a major impact on your overall revenue. A feature that sounds great in theory but is utterly stupid in practice.
2. TV games - almost identical to the point I made about the rivals. These are randomly assigned and have a direct influence over you revenue. Add to this that the timing of the games is also random, leading to the situation where unlucky (or maybe lucky) teams might have them in the last week (or first week) of the season, having a big impact on revenue.
3. Merchandise - there's too many different factors that seem to affect this, plus it can fluctuate quite wildly over the course of the season. Teams shouldn't be getting a financial rewards just for having a National Team player on their squad, nor should they get rewarded just because one of their players is #1 in rebounding in the country. Another 'good in theory' feature but poorly executed in terms of gameplay.
The most logical principle behind an enjoyable gameplay experience should be that everyone has the same opportunity to earn the same money, without it being unnecessarily impacted by totally random things (i.e. rivals, TV games, etc). Things that impact on revenue should be controllable by the user, not randomly assigned by the game engine. We should all be on a relatively even playing field, with our skills as a manager deciding who does better and promotes, etc.