BuzzerBeater Forums

Been thinking about this a bit with my Utopia team, DIV.
I can still sell out my bleachers, but my lower tier are bottomed out price-wise and not selling out anymore.
If I raise my bleacher prices, by say, a dollar, would that cause some fans to not buy bleacher seats and instead choose lower tier? Or do you think I'd lose them altogether?

If I remember the prevailing wisdom correctly, there's a pool of fans, each with a maximum price they are willing to pay to go to the game. The fan will buy the best ticket possible under that maximum price, if one exists.

Assuming the bleacher seats are not priced higher than the lower tier, then, any fan who is in the bleachers was either unwilling to pay the price for lower tier or those seats are sold out - which is not true for your example. Therefore, if you price them out of bleachers, they won't move up but instead will not buy a ticket at all.

I suppose I need to actually try to do better in Utopia so I can actually have somewhat useful data for my screwy arena build. ;)

Ah yes, that makes sense.
My reasoning was indeed a bit tenuous, but I thought I had read a thread a while back that suggested how cheaper bleachers could draw fans out of the lower tier.

[1] The thing with empty seats though is that it can easily be changed into filled seats by just changing your ticket prices.
I have always given the advice to build your arena for the next step first. While training players for example and when your ready to aim for promotion you will have good use of the extra seats in higher game income and you can field an as competitive team as possible.
[2] If you plan to buy all your players though you'll need to save a lot for it to work. But seeing the prices on the market that would be utterly stupid.
[3] If you add seats while trying to promote you won't be able to field as high team salary and will be in a worse situation for promotion.

[1] The money you spent for those seats is just as gone, while four seats at $12 versus two seats at $24 nets you no more than before. So lowering ticket prices just to try to fill an overbuilt arena still isn't a convincing argument for overbuilding the arena.
[2] Well, yes, I agree. "They" claim there are many ways to compete, but they have surely taken away that one by inflating the transfer list so badly ... dead as a dodo bird.
[3] Bingo! I agree again. You can be competitive OR you can build your arena. That is something I have said for a long time, this game puts winning basketball games behind a lot of other bells and whistles.

If you add salary to your team instead of seats the money truly is gone. Unless you buy trainees that you increase the value on by training them

If this was true, why did we even introduce taxes on sales? Daytrading should bankrupt just about anyone or put him at a disadvantage compared to those not daytrading and not buying players...

Ultimately buying players can also be seen as an investment. Let's just say that given how prices and the transfer list currently are, investing in player assets is just another way of investing in the game that may or may not be as profitable as building the arena.

Obviously the other thing is that paying higher salary usually helps winning games and winning games is the key driver to fill the arena. So it is a trade off and you're (usually) better off finding the right balance. However under current market conditions I'd say prioritising building is most definitely correct, because cheap reasonably skilled players are getting fewer and fewer as planned by the devs.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 8/22/2015 9:03:50 AM

Yes if you plan to stay at the lowest level all your BB career then their gone. But as fast as you start winning more or promote they instantly start to generate money.

Some of them, some of them.

They will also keep doing so for as long as your in this game.
If you add salary to your team instead of seats the money truly is gone.

That is true if you don't count something little like WINNING. (y) That's what players do for you. And as Lemonshire points out, that leads to increased revenue, too.

Unless you buy trainees that you increase the value on by training them.

And again, training is at the expense of competing your best to win games. The disregard for winning games that you show isn't just you. Don't get me wrong. It is how the game is built, a sports sim that isn't about winning.

So if you plan on promoting anytime in the next three or so season the money is well invested as it will help you stay at that higher level.

It is well invested in the season you promote. It didn't do anything for you before that, when the seats were empty and you didn't have the money available for better players or a better trainer. Again, don't get me wrong -- I understand a big arena is appealing when you promote -- but the losses in the new league will mount up and you won't stay up without the players. The balance can never go too far toward the arena or you don't have the players you need. That's my point -- there is a severe penalty for overbuilding the arena.

If you take a look at what teams that demote back down again the season after they promoted it is no big chock to see that it in a big majority of times it is the once that haven't prepared their arena.

Or more likely they followed the crowd and they had a big arena and didn't have the horses.

Unless you buy trainees that you increase the value on by training them.

And again, training is at the expense of competing your best to win games. The disregard for winning games that you show isn't just you. Don't get me wrong. It is how the game is built, a sports sim that isn't about winning.

You really have so much to learn about this game. What's amazing is the amount of guys in these forums trying to help you learn and you just keep resisting. My ENTIRE career I have relied on trainees as a core part of my team. I am not here to tout my own success, but considering I have been to the finals in 11 of 21 seasons playing this game, I can confidently state you can not only prioritize winning, but actually win while training players.

This past season I promoted from D2 while relying heavily on a $12K trainee, and a $7K trainee.

I am not here to tout my own success, but considering I have been to the finals in 11 of 21 seasons playing this game, I can confidently state you can not only prioritize winning, but actually win while training players.

I think it becomes too expensive to train out of position in D1, but I agree in general with this statement (I trained out of position 1 week out of 4 so far). The game allows for tactical arrangements so the impact can be minimised. For example, if you train out of position at PG, you may play 2 guards at SG and SF and set them to defend PG and SG; and you can avoid tactics heavily reliant on the skills your trainees lack, so for trainees without PA and JR, it might be wise to drop PTB and LI in favour of LP, Patient or Princeton. Coincidentally these last tactics should also reduce the probability of injuries and the chance the trainees are subbed out due to stamina reasons.

That said, I still maintain that investing in players may still be more profitable than the extra revenues coming from investing in the arena. The risk is higher for sure, but the way things are going on the TL it's definitely possible.

Say you have 500k available in the bank. You can build seats or buy a player, the right player which is undervalued right now. Say you get the pricing adjustment right and the expansion will net you 15k extra per week (being generous, I think it's reasonable to expect 10k-15k once you factor in the drop in seat pricing), over 10 weeks that's 150k. In the same amount of time if you can flip a 20k player you bought under market value for 500k and sell him for 1m after 10 weeks, you will make roughly 850k from the sale less the salary you've paid (20k*10=200k). So that's also a 150k profit in the simplest of terms, however presumably that 20k player (worth 1m) would have helped you achieve a better record and gain better gates+merchandising in the 10 weeks you owned him. Investing in players is risky because there is no guarantee you can resell for 1m, it's made less profitable by taxes and it only works if the salary of the player is reasonably low. However the market inflation is your friend here and it's fairly common to see older players selling for more than their previous transactions, while the skills are the same or worse than before.