Anyway, I understand that this is more of a problem in higher divisions. But wouldn't giving each team a certain amount of money depending where they finish solve this? Because 5th place will lose a lot of income normally, but this cash bonus for coming 5th would help reduce this.
not if the first placed team get more money, in this case it get even more extrem in this case it won't 1,3 Mio difference it would be +X more.
What about my offered solution of managers not having to pay player and staff salaries for the playoffs/offseason?
personally my favorite, that teams don't have to pay salaries, at the moment they have no games anymore, and this isn't that unrealisitc - my favorite basketball team said that season for example that they loose money during the PO when they don't make it to their second home game(you need three win to suceed), because of the bonusses they had to pay and they announce that in a pretty general like it is the same for the other teams.