BuzzerBeater Forums

I'd many times thought about what the financial statements of BB looked like, but then again I'm a finance dork, so I thought I was the only one... but my thoughts:

Supporter Revenue: 39.99 x 31,000 users x an estimate that 10% of them are supporters = $124,000 per year.

Advertising Revenue: Facebook's annual advertising revenue per monthly user is estimated at $5.70 in 2013. In 2008 it was $2.68. While I know BB isn't Facebook, it has some similarities of users logging on frequently and spending time on multiple pages with each login. FB bombards users with ads though, and advertisers on FB know they're getting much more exposure than 31,000 users. So, let's estimate that BB's ad revenue is less than FB, but we'll give BB an optimistic guess of $2.00 per year per user. 31,000 users x $2.00 = $62,000 per year.

That's quite a difference. $39.99 of revenue for Supporters. Maybe only $2.00 of revenue for non-supporters.

Ad revenue reference:
(http://www.trefis.com/stock/fb/articles/216618/maryhow-fa...)

$186k of revenue per year is not much to run a business with. I don't think it's polite to speculate what Marin makes, and I have no idea the cost of servers in an inexpensive market, nor do I know any of the other misc operating expenses. But to me it's been clear that at 31,000 users, it's a business model that might be self-sufficient, but is hardly making anyone rich.

Now, increase users, and increase the % of supporters, and the business could start making some more money, and be a nice supplemental income for the owners. Which is why I think it's the BEST BUSINESS IDEA AROUND for the BBs to allow Supporters to have a 2nd team. Others have already addressed how to design it to prevent cheating. I think you easily double or triple the amount of users purchasing Supporter if you can start a 2nd team.

$186k of revenue per year is not much to run a business with. I don't think it's polite to speculate what Marin makes, and I have no idea the cost of servers in an inexpensive market, nor do I know any of the other misc operating expenses. But to me it's been clear that at 31,000 users, it's a business model that might be self-sufficient, but is hardly making anyone rich

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I believe with an app, a couple of minor tweaks to the game and a couple of clever promotional or publicity activities, that the number of active members could easily and quickly go past 100K

186k is more than sufficient for a one man business, at least here in Austria. Plus you were calculating with 31k users. There were 20k more of us, not that long ago, so if the income is good enough to keep the game alive, this site must have been a goldmine in the past.

Im a supporter, but I would not be if it gave me an advantage. I would not play. I cant stand that.

I also think the userbase could grow significantly with the tweaks that you mentioned. And with additional users and supporters comes the additional revenue, some of which can be reinvested into the game. I think Marin does an amazing job for just being one person. If the revenue grows enough, maybe it justifies an additional hire to support the game and new features, etc, etc. It's a snowball effect.

In addition to promotion/publicity/renewed advertising, I think some Search Engine Optimization would really benefit BB. BB doesn't come up first in a search for "Basketball Manager" (third when I search on Google behind two other basketball managers). But, according to my very informal survey, finding BB via a search engine is the top method that people discovered this game. See below:

(http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thr...)

How about make training a player to be a decent IV League star take less time? I mean it takes a full year to train a player from a 18 year old rookie to something somewhat special. I just think that it takes to long to see any results and that is why people leave the game. Same reason people stop going to the gym. I understand the game is close to reality but c'mon...

Make the season four games per week instead of only 3 (if you count a scrimmage.) Training would be quicker that way.

Other than that BB is great. I've mentioned this suggestion already but it's simple and I want other people to see it.

The cup just makes the game harder for new managers and creates bigger economic gap between top and not div teams. It's like nba running a cup with the d league. I would personally enjoy 3 actual game weeks and keep the season the same length but longer playoff formats to award the winning teams better. We will finish the regular season faster, and the teams can play best of 3, then best of 5 for finals. This fixes the tanking issue, Bc u get more income from playoffs and make the experience more enjoyable.

Ad revenue reference:
(http://www.trefis.com/stock/fb/articles/216618/maryhow-fa...)

$186k of revenue per year is not much to run a business with. I don't think it's polite to speculate what Marin makes, and I have no idea the cost of servers in an inexpensive market, nor do I know any of the other misc operating expenses. But to me it's been clear that at 31,000 users, it's a business model that might be self-sufficient, but is hardly making anyone rich.

I'd be REALLY surprised if they were making anywhere near that much in ad revenue...

Totally agreed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they're making less than the $62k in ad revenue I optimistically speculated. That's the point though, right? Supporters are likely so much more valuable than non-supporters. $39.99/yr vs maybe less than $2/yr. 20 times more valuable. So they should consider anything to increase Supporters (without giving a game advantage to Supporters). And I think allowing supporters to have double the fun by having two teams makes a lot of sense.

just a quick question what would happen to a 2nd team if user doesnt extend his supporter?

Perhaps the same thing as it is in Hattrick. When you don't extend your Supporter, one more week you can have it, but you are not able to log in. If the time runs out and you don't extend your Supporter, you lose your second team. Personally, I like the idea to give supporters a second team, this way BB would attract more users and.. Well, you said it all. Great idea.