Some considerations about finance at higher levels
Dear Top Eleven users I want to share with you some consideration about the financial aspect of this game just to prove with some real data what I stated in my previous posts: incomes at higher levels should undergo major revision by game developers!
Just a few preliminar statements:
1) you don´t need an MBA or a Master in business and finance to understand my following statements
2) My considerations applies only to higher level and all the data reported refers to my own case (level 21)
3) In most of the case values for incomes and expenses are averaged, it will be better clarified time by time
4) I am considering only the league and the cup not the champions
FACT NUMBER 1: is it worth spending money in upgrading the stadium?
At the beginning of the stadium my stadium had a capacity of 211.000 attendees, now being upgraded to its maximum capacity of 260.000
Construction costs (to upgrade from 211000 to 260000): 341 M
Number of extra attendees per match: 260k-211k= 49000
Assuming that we set ticket price to get maximum possible attendance in every match:
LEAGUE: 13 matches (full season), ticket price 45
CUP: 6 matches (if you reach semi-finals), ticket price 54
FRIENDLIES: 28 match (average one per day), ticket price 14
Overall seasonal income with 260.000 stadium capacity: 342 M
Overall seasonal income with 211.000 stadium capacity: 277 M
Difference after upgrade: 65 M per season
Cost of upgrade: 341 M
Final statement: it will take you 5 full seasons to balance the construction costs with the increased income!! From season 6 you will start earning money and therefore to benefit from the upgrade.
FACT NUMBER 2: is it worth investing time and resources in developing youngers?
Yes since they develop faster within a season (18-21 years-old players develop 3-4 average points per season, still less than the 5 needed to gain a star…
No if you train them to gain money. At level 21 cost of an 18 years old player is the same as a 32 years old one (maximum players value is 106 M no matter what). Only difference is that salaries will be a bit lower (1M per season…) and of course you can expect better selling conditions (more people will participate in an auction for a younger player than for an older one.
But is it really worth then going for bidding wars? I let you decide on that…
FACT NUMBER 3:
Let´s make some calculation about incomes and expenses in a full season at level 21:
INCOMES:
1) Stadium tickets (considering a stadium with 260000 attendees, maximum capacity in the game) and merchandise (merchandise income per match is about 33% of the one coming from stadium tickets sold)
a) League: 13 home matches, ticket price 46, full attendance: 207 M per season
b) Cup: 6 home matches, ticket price 54, full attendance: 112 M per season
c) Friendlies: assuming 1 match per day (28 in total), ticket price 14, full attendance: 136 M per season
Total: about 456M per season (tickets+merchandise)
2) Sponsor:
daily income=1,27 M
days in a seson=28
Total= 35,6 M
3) Competitions revenues:
a) league/match: 1,63 M = 45,6 M in a season
b) cup/match (it differs from one cup stage to the next one, here it is considered you reach at least the semifinals): 52,1 M in a season
c) league/placement: ranges from 93,5 if you get first position to 68 if you get to 7th position.
Average value: 80,8 M
d) cup/placement: 13 M if you win the cup, 10 M if you loose the final
Total: 204 M (best case, you win the cup and you finish 1st in your league)
SUMMARY OF INCOMES:
a) tickests: 456 per season (best case: always full attendance, and you play a friendly per day and you get to the cup semifinal at least)
b) sponsors: 35,6 M
c)competitions: 204 M ((best case, you win the cup and you finish 1st in your league)
Summing up, total seasons income (excluding selling players): 695 M, among which 65% is due to tickets and merchandise, 30% to the competitions and only 5% coming from the sponsor.
If you get two stars free players (I am not considering the ones you need to use tokens for) from your youth academy in a season, and you sell them, you will get an extra profit of about 150-160 M
EXPENSES
Here the calculation is a bit faster
1) Salaries: Average salary for a 5star player is 15M, for a 4 star is 13 M and for a 3 star is about 11M.
If we assume you want to play a friendly match per day and perform good in the cup as well then you need to have the maximum possible amount of players in your team:22
Assuming 11 are 5* and 11 are 4* (just an average), you will spend 308 M per season in salaries
2) Bonus: it is not very clear how much winning bonus are affecting your chances of victory. The maximum bonus you can set at level 21 is 15 M per match
In my case I set NO BONUS for friendlies, I set maximum bonus ONLY for cup final and ALWAYS for league matches.
Assuming you win 50% of your league matches AND you win the cup final you will spend 225 M in a season
3) Players retiring: no matter how good you are at selling your players, you will always have one or more players who are retiring at the end of the season. This will generate a loss in your team value. Assuming you have on average 2 players retiring at the end of season, and assuming their value is 100 M you will lose 200M.
4) Loss of players value: from one season to the other your players will get older loosing on average 3 M each in their market value. If you have 22 players, among which 2 retired, you will loose about 60M passing from one season to the other
SUMMARY OF EXPENSES:
a) Salaries: 308 M
b) winning bonus: 225 M
c) players retirement: 200 M
d) Loss in players values: 60M
Summing up overall expenses are almost 800 M per season! Of course you can decide to not use winning bonus, you can be very good at selling players so they don t retire, in that case your expenses will be about 500 M instead of 800.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Taking into account all the hypothesis and averaging as listed above for incomes and expenses we have following situation:
Incomes: 695 M + 2 youngsters from academy (155 M on average) : 850 M
Expenses (with winning bonus) : 800 M
Expenses (without winning bonus): 575M
Seasonal Gain: between 275 M (best case) to 50 M
I think from this numbers is pretty clear how much difficult is to make money at higher levels, even if you are the best manager ever and even if you perform really good in the league and in the cup. And with such a small gain of money how can you ever afford buying new players?? No money, no auctions, less tokens for Nordeus…I think they should be the first revising the financial aspect of the game if they want to increase their profits…
