First, I would like to introduce to everyone. I'm manager of the first Czech B3 semifinalist (second is bik_76).
I would like to say some of my feelings of new changes. But my feelings can be changed in few weeks, those are feeling after playing only one week with this changes.
1) I'm still little bit scared of new attendance formula, I will monitor it very precisely. But I'm little bit worry that one season of possibility of decreasing the stadium shouldn't be enough. Maybe possibility to decrease and get 50% of costs back starting from next season should satisfy me. Or let the possibility of immediate effect of changing ticket price for whole season or at least one month later. 3 league home match are not enough for experiments, balancing the prices and deciding for decrease the capacity.
2) I don't want to compare team from smaller and big countries but team in one country. I'm not sure how many effect already influence first new merchandise incomes but it look like you give advantage to some manager strategies. I know some points you mentioned first time 2 season ago (start of season 8), but it looks like managers which trained your drafted players starting from season 5 (first players with higher potential) now are the happiest one. (Many managers of Czech D1 gave me his numbers for this week.)
One factor is whether you have a winning team. - it looks like having very small influence in merchandise.
Other factors include how many domestic players you have on your team - it looks like having quite high influence
and also how many were drafted by your own team, as fans like supporting local players more than imported talent. - it looks like having extremely high influence. And also it looks like working not for drafted players but for players involved to BB by creating team. So I have one question. In Czech NT is player which was drafted by my team, I trained him for almost 5 seasons and than sold them. If I buy him back for merchandise formula he would be drafted or imported player? (My hypothesis is that in code you count it when the owner is the only owner of player.)
It's really hard to draft good player which should stay in my team, when I picks usually as number 15 or 16 and in whole pool of 48 are 1 or 2 good players.
So, if in a given week your player played in a national team game, fans from around the country will buy their jersey - Does the scrimmage count? Or only competitive matches?
As a former Czech U21 manager and probably future Czech NT manager I can be happy for this changes. Also because I have in roster many top Czech players I can be happy. But I'm not happy because it threw teams which was on the same level each to different level. I think for me it will be much easier to win double in Czech rep. for next few seasons, because now I have really bug advantage against the only team which can beat me (5 seasons in row league finals Hostivar - Frydek, 5 season in row no other winner of tournament, only Hostivar or Frydek).
Finally, fans from around the league tend to notice the league leaders, particularly in important categories such as points, rebounds, and assists but to some extent in all categories. - Was it already involved after two games? If yes, it looks like having small effect. But this formula is for teams with many good players disadvantage, because points etc. are devided into them. Also training out of position is less effective for merchandise.