BuzzerBeater Forums

Allstar talent makes for a nice homegrown guy

Is this an adequate place to whine? I always feel like I'm at such a disadvantage with merch.

My merch was below average last season with ~$700k salary and 3 senior NT players, including 2 Canadians. Our league does consist of many Canadian-heavy teams, but it's a poor league overall. No one uses more than a moderately high payroll (mine was one of the highest) and only 1-3 teams actively try to win.

My merch plummets every week and currently sits at $40k. I didn't even know it could get that low in D.I. I'm doing absolutely nothing to help alleviate it aside from being over the the salary floor, but last season is reason enough for me to believe it's lose-lose.

I just don't get merch.

seems like total bullshit. i used to have 54k merch in div 3 and i have nearly AS MUCH AS YOU HAVE in div 4.

You've sold 2 players for significant money this season
both are Canadian
The game seems to frown on that sort of thing vis-a-vis merch
but that doesn't explain last season
Canadians are good but...
ones you have drafted and trained seem to be worth a lot more

A post I made in my league forum yesterday seems relevant to this thread...

In my opinion merch income is one of the most overrated things in the game. My team should be about as bad as it gets, low salary, high turnover, in a relegation fight, and only one American (who is a recent purchase). I've been making a bit over 40k/week. Ignoring the Cat's NT bonus (I'll get back to it), he's making about 25k per week more than me. Let's say roughly half that is due to him having a great record and more than double my salary. That leaves only a ~13k bonus for having an American roster with multiple self drafted players. This is pennies in D2, and not nearly enough to make up for ignoring 90% of the transfer market.

The NT bonus is one of the few times when the merch bonus can be worth it, but this is only available to a small number of owners, is not that good for NT bench players, and is almost never worth it in D3 or lower due to having half your salary/value tied up in one player. Even in D2 most NT starters are too expensive to make up for the merch bonus.

@Manon: Well, I've sold all of my "stars" as categorized by BB. But like I said, I had 3 senior NT players (2 Canadian) and had slightly below average merch last season. I figure my fan survey and PR-guy are pretty average.

@Atlas: 'tis.

@justututukas: http://oi48.tinypic.com/anngo3.jpg

@HTG: Yeah, it doesn't explain last season.

@w alloy: I see 4 reasons why the cats' merch isn't higher, and potentially much higher. Merch is very mysterious and it can be especially insane when pertaining to own nationality and NT. My friend had something absurd like $360k weekly merch with a one-man, $5k roster. I've seen users in other nations with ~$250k merch and wouldn't be surprised if a few teams in my league have hovered around $200k. That's not overrated spread over the course of 14 weeks and x amount of seasons.

I see 4 reasons why the cats' merch isn't higher, and potentially much higher. Merch is very mysterious and it can be especially insane when pertaining to own nationality and NT. My friend had something absurd like $360k weekly merch with a one-man, $5k roster. I've seen users in other nations with ~$250k merch and wouldn't be surprised if a few teams in my league have hovered around $200k. That's not overrated spread over the course of 14 weeks and x amount of seasons.

Interesting, would love to hear more about these ultra high merch teams. If one could predictably attain this I would readily admit I am wrong about merch income.

40K seems very low for a D2 team. I make 40K with my 3 home drafted guys and a number of other Americans. I've heard of all/mostlyl American teams in D2 making 75-90K in merch.

Also, the promotion bonus affects merchandise too. When I promoted to D3, I was making 45-49K in merch (even with lowish salary home draftees). Seeing as you've promoted every season, you're getting decent merch even with mostly transient, foreign players. Once the promotion bonus wears off, you'll likely be making a fair amount less.

Now, merch is not likely to ever be a make or break thing. But at some point, most teams earn about the same revenue, so the extra 10-20K means a good depth player, or some scouting, or just extra 140K over a season.