BuzzerBeater Forums

Why people should think not beyond cash coming in every week? If you want to build the most competitive DI team possible you need at least a 20k arena. The more cash coming in every week, the more salary you can afford, and the better team you can have.

Can you compete with less than 20k, sure. But you can't build the best team possible.

Last edited by Phyr at 9/12/2015 1:29:26 PM

Surely that's a huge concern for people in D4 who need to win at least 3 promotions before even setting foot in D1...

The arguments in favour of building are as follows:
- by lowering prices you can always fill more seats up to 20k-20.5k in total. This means that the combination of more seats and lower prices always yields higher returns. It implies that the attendance is modelled in such a way that lowering prices by x% increases the attendance by more than x%. I would like to see proof that it works at any level (D4 for example) and given any circumstance (tanking teams v leading teams), but without this assumption we would not even have this conversation
- if and only if the previous point is correct, by investing 100k in arena you can make more money (from the higher revenues) than, say buy a trainee or an undervalued player or a cheaper staff for 100k. Now you need to consider if over one season making extra from the arena is more or less than the price you can receive for the players or the money saved by the staff
- finally to win at the top level you need the largest arena you can fill at that level. Well this is not true, since it's clear that the highest payroll teams don't always win even in the BBB. Let's just say that at the very least you would make more money while also being still able to win the title, but this is not really a big concern for most of the managers.

Again would it be better to have invested and accumulated assets worth millions (read: trainees) or having spent the money on expanding the arena immediately? This does not have a clear answer, it depends. However if you put 1 million in trainees and they are worth 7 millions 4 seasons later, are you really sure that by expanding the arena with that million you would make more than 6 millions in extra revenues? Tough isn't it? As it happens, if you have the trainees worth 7 millions you would have had fun seeing them grow and when you sell them you can spend 6 millions on the arena and buy new ones with the remaining money. And at that point in time, you will have no fewer seats than the guy who invested only in the arena and died of boredom from having no perspective whatsoever other than having a hige arena after 4 seasons.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 9/12/2015 2:41:45 PM

Why shouldn't it be? Everyone plays this game for different reasons but you are going to spend a couple real life years getting yourself up to DI, you should also put yourself in the best place to compete when you get there. You don't need a 20k arena before you promote from DIV to DIII but going from DIII to DII that 20k arena definitely helps you. This means most of the building before you get up to DII/DI occurs in DIII/DIV.

Your analysis is also colored from your experience in the English leagues. You guys about 200 active teams in England where the USA has nearly 1400. A little under half of your active teams are in DI/DII where as only 5% of all active Americans teams are in DI/DII. Those numbers are significant because if you assume the same proportions of elite, good, average, and terrible managers in both USA and England, its easy to see that the competition is going to be much fiercer in the upper divisions of USA than it is in England. This also means that the margin between relegating, making the playoffs, and competing for a title are much smaller in bigger countries. If you don't have your team, and arena optimized and ready to go by the time you wind up in DI/DII, you are putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage that most team won't survive.

I don't understand why you can't invest in trainees and look to build your arena as much as possible. Most of the arena building advocate are not saying you shouldn't train.

Look: I think top teams can make 230k in D3. I've seen it, so it's nothing new. But $ 206k with better record and roster still compares very unfavourably to $ 191k from a 12k arena, because it means that the marginal gain from building those extra 8k seats in D3 is very low (and therefore making back the money spent on are will take quite a while).

Edit: Trainerman makes 230k with a less than 17k arena in D3 in Utopia so I suppose the max could be between 240k-250k

They totally can surpass $230K. My highest non-playoff income in DIII was $259K with 16,988 seats (12600/3850/500/38)
I averaged $251K my final season in DIII, and $235K in my second to last season there. The primary difference between seasons was that I built more seats, which required me to at times lower prices to fill those seats, but pricing elasticity is such that when you lower prices (so long as you have more seats to sell), your increase in tickets sold will make up for your decreased average ticket price, thus increasing revenue.

Well then. Can investing in players be more profitable than expanding the arena?

I don't understand why they have to be separated. Anyone who is arena building should be training as well (I think everyone should be training all the time period unless you need to GS train your way to a title or B3). Your arena building period is the best time to train because match outcomes matter less, so you can play weaker trainees in league game and out of position in lower division very easily.

Your analysis is also colored from your experience in the English leagues. You guys about 200 active teams in England where the USA has nearly 1400.

By this brilliant thinking:
a) Italian managers should have the most authority and the most difficult leagues overall
b) All your arguments about large arenas only apply to 5% of American managers
c) Poland and Serbia and Canada winning all those BBB titles while the mighty US and Italy have zero sure is some kind of miracle
d) last time I argued about the length it takes to build the arena, I had to agree with hrudey that the majority of NBBA teams didn't have, in fact, 20k arenas
e) in fact NBBA is so tough and impossible to win with such a big competitive disadvantage that just last season it was won by Golden Horde who had slightly less than 18k seats if I remember correctly. That hasn't happened in England since I started playing this game.

you are putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage that most team won't survive.

And some other teams won't bat an eyelid. True it looks like "only" twice every 6 seasons you have teams with small-ish arenas (certainly lower or much lower than 20k) winning the top league in that great 1400 team country of yours...I'm sorry, I will have to believe you now.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 9/12/2015 3:44:10 PM

I agree.
I can't think of a season where I wasn't training anyone.
I've also always invested in my arena heavily every season until S31, as I needed to start socking away some funds to replace some aging players.

Looking back, I wish I would have not fielded as good of a team when I demoted from DIV to DV at the end of my first partial season. I ended up in a bot league and crushed everyone by huge scores. I could have instead only had a couple good players (relative to DV) and invested that salary money into my arena and still advanced back to DIV with no problem.

They have to be separated because people say you should build as a priority, which is the predominant opinion being tossed around lately. So clearly we're comparing options...

Here you have:
a) the fellas saying you should build as a priority (and only focus on the cash you make per week, with no regard for the value of players or the advantages of being in higher leagues)
b) the fellas saying you should adopt a more balanced approach

Most of your fellow Americans fall under a), except Mike Franks who is clearly b). I'm for b) too, both because I think there can be more profitable ways to invest money than adding seats and because it's better for young teams in order to learn the game to put a bit more money in their team (instead of the arena) while remaining healthily profitable.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 9/12/2015 4:16:42 PM

I averaged $251K my final season in DIII, and $235K in my second to last season there.

yeah I had already changed the post, but I still doubt you can make more than 250k without promotion bonus. I welcome anyone who can show otherwise. Trainerman made 230k in one game this season in D3 with a 16.5k arena, but he does have the promotion bonus (and a winning record).

I make 189k despite my prices were set for an expansion and have a puny 10k arena (without promotion bonus). My 1 million+ investment in trainees however...

I agree.
I can't think of a season where I wasn't training anyone.

Are you saying you did something unprofitable or buying those trainees, staff and training them was the smarter choice compared to using that money to expand the arena even further?

Last edited by Lemonshine at 9/12/2015 4:16:20 PM