BuzzerBeater Forums

Hey All,
I have a question on team development for those that dont mind giving advice. I am not sure where to begin with developing my team in DIII.

Economically I am below the average and trying to sort the Arena prices. Specifically I have a small arena in comparison to other teams and my team merchandise is significantly below average.

Roster wise I have a decently young, but not stout team. However, I can't afford a huge salary cap hit, more of an incremental upgrade in a position.

Are there opinions on whether its better to increase arena capacity, spend the 500k on merchandising upgrade to increase cash flow, or sink it in a player that will upgrade the team and hopefully help me stick around for more seasons in DIII?

I'm kind of leaning towards the Merch upgrade to increase cash flow, then build the arena more to further increase profits. Eventually sinking it in a new player.

Thoughts?

Last edited by Robwesben at 9/27/2024 2:37:10 PM

Merchandise store provides the most losing streak and relegation resistant source of income, but has a very long pay back period for the cash (over 7 seasons).

Arena upgrades, focusing on the areas where you're currently selling out and doing small incremental upgrades, generally have a 2-3 season payback period. But arena attendance (and the prices you can charge) is fairly dependent on your team's results.

You've got the safety net of a bot below you in the conference to prevent auto-relegation, and at least at the moment there are two teams in the other conference near the salary floor, so you might be able to trim a little salary and still win a relegation series if push comes to shove. If you're resource constrained for upgrading the team to compete for the playoffs, there may be some value in trimming the salaries and trying to play limbo with staying up.

The biggest long term economic benefit for your team is going to be a solid training plan and the right balance of staff & infrastructure to support that. And controlling staff salaries as a whole is pretty important -- for newer teams (or really most teams that aren't training farms for a national team) you probably should have a moderately low cost level 4 trainer and maybe a level 2 PR trainer (if you want the specialty, not really that necessary if you're not contending in a close league) and a level 2-4 doctor (massage specialty seems nice to me though the size of the effect isn't clear and BB-Justin posted on Discord recently that it doesn't actually allow your players to play more minutes, just reduces the impact of the GS drop when they play too many). Myself, I'm also running a sports psychologist since I'm trying to contend this season and have a potential U21 player -- but even then, I'm under $20k/wk staff salaries.

What I did, which is not necessarily the best method I would assume, is focused on building up my arena bit by bit like Azariah suggested. My path to success in Div III took a couple attempts because I just wasn't ready long-term financially. My first venture up from Div IV lasted four seasons (I actually made the semi-finals in my second season - but that was due to a weaker conference). I relegated back down and came back the next season and found my groove. Because of salary increases due to training and not having the economic base to sustain it, I did have to weather two below par seasons before I was able to build up into a Div II team.

The merch store is great - but I think it's better if you get a solid arena receipt built up first so you can really capitalize on it. Having said that - your team is currently (salary wise) much better off than my first III team was. Three of my starters were 12k or less (two trainees swapping out as rookies that year - one of them now my boy Kurt Brown). You're pretty far above the floor. If I were you, I'd let the first part of the season play out to see where you seem to be heading and make a decision to cut salaries and play the relegation roulette or push for playoffs and a first round exit. But I'm also known to take the scenic route to get to where I should be headed so...take it as you will.