Numpty >> piektdiena oktobris 25 - 00:24, Labots piektdiena oktobris 25 - 00:26

I would appreciate some opinions - especially from long term managers -  on the pros and cons of Fan shop level 10. 

Does the benefit outweigh the long term cost?

The additional cost of upgrading from level 9 seems significant at c. 315k RSD per (in-game) week, amounting to roughly 16 million RSD per season. This cost continues indefinitely even when popularity growth is no longer necessary. 

(The cost is offset slightly by a small increase in fan shop income.) 

The benefit is that popularity increases at a higher rate than level 9, as follows:

• 50 extra per day
• 260/200/25 extra per home win/draw/loss
• 205/210/225 extra per away win/draw/loss
• 20% increase in fan conversion rate

As a rough estimate this amounts to a popularity increase of around 50,000 extra per season compared to level 9. 

Is the increased popularity growth worth the 16 million per season going forward? 

Awful >> piektdiena oktobris 25 - 15:05

  im not allowed to upgrate my catering from 9to10 , not sure why ..

Numpty >> piektdiena oktobris 25 - 17:39, Labots piektdiena oktobris 25 - 18:00

Thanks for your comments Don, it's appreciated. You are confirming some of my thoughts.

Please can you explain why "you just have to ...". Opinions are useful but are more valuable if they are based on sound reasoning and some facts and figures. 

I have now done an approximation of what might be likely going forward. But it's impossible to be accurate as there are so many variables. 

Here are my rough predictions after upgrading to Fanshop 10

(All figures in RSD)  

• During the first season the increased maintenance costs will give an effective loss of around 15 million. This will reduce gradually during subsequent seasons, making a smaller loss each time until the break even point is reached.
• It will take around 5-6 seasons before the income from increased attendances, from Fanshop 10, matches the additional maintenance cost. This is essentially the break even point. 
• After these 5 or 6 seasons the cumulative losses - including the construction costs - will be around 70 million. 
• It will take another 6 seasons or so for the increased income, from Fanshop 10 attendances, to pay back the cumulative losses. So the true break even point is not reached until around 10 or 12 seasons after the upgrade. 
• Fanshop 10 is now in profit and will remain so for many seasons. How many seasons is very difficult to say. (Perhaps 20 or 30, but the cumulative profit will last much longer).  How much extra profit directly attributable to Fanshop 10 is also difficult to estimate. But for many seasons it will be significant. 
• This all assumes that you never fill Stadium 10 and upgrade to Stadium 11 as soon as possible. If not, then the losses are greater and the profits will be smaller than predicted. 
• As popularity increases Satdium 11 will often be full in any event and at some point the profit element, from Fanshop 10, reduces.  
• After (say) 25 seasons of making a profit the club will reach c. 9 million popularity, which would also eventually be achieved more slowly with Fanshop 9, at which point you get 200,000 attendances even against bot teams.
• The club now makes a permanent loss of around 12 million per season since the Fan shop no longer provides any direct benefit. 

* Note this is just an estimate and there are too many variables to be precise about any of it. 

So, in summary, I predict 10-12 seasons of operating at a cumulative loss followed by a few seasons of a small profit, and then maybe 20 seasons of a very good profit. Based on extra attendances directly attributable to upgrading the Fan shop. 

But ultimately this will all be followed by a permanent loss of 12 million per season. (Costs less Fan shop income at 200,000 attendance.) 

Stephen >> piektdiena oktobris 25 - 19:39

I think your thinking here is so long term @numpty, that many managers will never be affected by it. A lot of players have come and gone because what you’re talking about is actually playing over a number of years.

I now have 9,000,000 million and I like to think I carefully nurtured this, through raising fan shop levels, always selling tickets, being active in continental competition as much as possible since about season 20, and trying to get popular players when they became a thing. It’s been a while since I had a popular player playing for me (though I have often looked about for one) so I could have done more. Despite this, I still failed to sell out my recent home match against Strood United. I am not exactly sure what popularity I would need to always guarantee a sellout, but it’s obviously more than I have now. Then, on top of that, there’s Cup matches and European matches, especially EL games which have reduced attendances. (As my team is not one of the continent superpowers and still feels miles away from being there, we often end up in the second tier of competition.) I have no clue what popularity I would need to fill the ground for those matches, though I have a sneaking suspicion that you are about to tell me...

This is season 48 and I have been playing since the transfer window between season 4 and 5. It still feels worth it to me, though the starters’ bonus might mean you get into a position where you have 9 million popularity faster than I did.

12 million RSD a season isn’t very much though. I’d hope to make that from one of my many transfer dealings. I don’t really have much choice in the matter now either!

Numpty >> piektdiena oktobris 25 - 21:35, Labots piektdiena oktobris 25 - 22:35

@ Stephen

Thanks for your thoughts.

Yes, you're absolutely right about it being long term planning. However, Fan shop 10 is a very long term investment whether people realise it or not. If you consider my projections above then it takes around 10-12 seasons - which is at least 18 months in real time - to even start making a profit from the increased attendances. So it seems to me that it's a long term plan either way. 

Regarding the 9 million popularity figure. That's just a useful guideline.

The attendance calculator shows that with level 10 staff, 9 million popularity and the 20% live attendance bonus the mean attendance for a visiting bot team (or any visitor with 0-40% popularity) is around 200,000. The deviation from the mean seems to vary according to the mixture of fan types but is usually less than 3-4%. So as long you have level 10 staff and live attendance then you are pretty much guaranteed 200,000 with around 9.3 million popularity. 

I notice that you didn't attend the Strood match live and I assume that you have 17% bonus for VIP 3, in which case you would have got around 204,000 if you'd had the live bonus instead. That's in the right ball park. 

Good point about the Cup and Continental matches. This was on my radar but it only makes it even more complicated and my one brain cell already hurts ... :) As to the required popularity - I don't know but I guess it can't be too difficult to find out. 

Yes, you're probably right that I have a better potential for making faster popularity progress. Besides the starters bonus that you mentioned there are now staff which (I think) weren't available at the start of the game. I have also double-staffed my Fanshop which I believe is likely to be as effective - if not better - than upgrading to level 10 with 1 staff.   The double staff can be cancelled, but with Fan shop 10 you're stuck with it. On the downside I'm not going to get the chance for continental matches any time soon. 

As a rough estimate I'm predicting a popularity increase of around 270-280,000 for this season (with level 9 and 2 staff). This should increase slightly with staff improvement. If that progress rate continued then it would take a further 25 seasons to reach 9 million (at which point I will have been playing for 32), although it will likely go down a bit when we try and start climbing the levels. 

You're right that 12 million is fairly small change for a big club, but it's not insignificant if you could make that amount extra every season. That's one extra player that you can make a profit on.

Just to be clear, I really don't have a clue about what is best here, which is why I started the thread... seems like an interesting discussion though. 

@ Don

My best estimate is that it will probably take another 5 seasons to reach 9 million with Fan shop 9 and 2 staff, than with Fanshop 10 and 2 staff. I might be wildly out though. 

That's a good point, because it seems to me that if you can reach  200,000 attendance with FS level 9 without taking too much longer than with level 10 then the amount of potential 'lost profit' is much smaller than if you took a long time. What makes this possible is double-staffing the Fan shop, which probably wasn't available to most of the big clubs. 

Edit - update for Stephen

I've just checked with the attendance calculator. The Cup matches and 2nd tier Continental matches both have an attendance of roughly 65% of the league attendances, so against a low popularity opponent you would need a popularity of nearly 14 million to get 200,000 attendance. At 9 miilion your likely attendances would be 130,000.

However, I wonder if this is a moot point? Being in level 1 you are unlikely to get many home matches in the Cup. Similarly, do you play many low popularity opponents in the European League? I would guess not. 

Joddit >> svētdiena oktobris 27 - 08:44

Interesting topic and view. I suppose I'm one of those people who would have blindly upgraded to level 10, because "popularity good, click button!" (read in a caveman voice)... Now I'm not so sure...

On a different but maybe related note. The mantra of this game is to increase your stadium size whenever possible. I might (and that is a big "might") be able to increase to level 10 tonight (or start the works, that is) with only 1.7 million popularity. Does the mantra still work for me?

Numpty >> svētdiena oktobris 27 - 09:04, Labots svētdiena oktobris 27 - 09:11

@ Joddit

I think the correct mantra is that it's best to always build your Fan shop as soon as possible because that drives your popularity. (This is true at least up until Fan shop 9 and the main reason that I started the thread). The stadium is, therefore, a necessary upgrade before you can do that. 

If you're definitely going for Fan shop 10 then I would do the Stadium. If not, then it's a purely financial decision and you need to crunch the numbers based on your likely attendances going forward. There may not be much in it. 

Congrats by the way on being in a position to be able to do the upgrade. 

Joddit >> svētdiena oktobris 27 - 14:14, Labots svētdiena oktobris 27 - 18:29

Edit: Best not put too much confidence in the calculations below. I made too many mistakes to make them in any way reliable for future reference. 

According to my (slightly rough) calculations it would cost me an extra EUR 15.4 million per season and add an extra EUR 17.4 million in revenue. This does take relative club-size into account, but obviously only current relative club-size. It doesn't take popularity growth over the next three months into account

Edit: Taking the loss in income from interest into account will be a bit of a bugger, but since most of the money invested doesn't attract interest at the moment anyway and that loss is projected to be short-term, I shall not be bothered by that too much.

Edit 2: I just realised that technically I would have to take the full potential lost interest into account as opportunity costs, even if it doesn't attract interest at the moment anyway.... Oh dear... I don't think my pupils would forgive me if I didn't. That would skew the results, though...

Taavi >> svētdiena oktobris 27 - 15:15

@Awful , guess you've had enough cake

Joddit >> svētdiena oktobris 27 - 18:26

I have to correct my earlier attempt at a calculation once more. I didn't take the (slight) increase in extra sales (fanshop and catering) into account for currently sold out matches.

It's probably best not to have too much confidence in those calculations. 

Kalle >> pirmdiena oktobris 28 - 08:01

@Numpty, maybe i didn't read good enough, but i can't seem to find anything in your calculations about the merchandise profits of eur 11,93 for every visitor at a home game.

Maybe i looked over it in your long post.

Numpty >> pirmdiena oktobris 28 - 09:11, Labots pirmdiena oktobris 28 - 09:31

@ Kalle

I don't have the Euro conversion rate but I'm assuming 11.93 is the rate for Fan shop 10. 

No you haven't missed it, as such, because it's not obvious. But I have taken it into account. It's where I've mentioned Fan shop income. [If I'd included all my rough workings out the post would probably have been 3-4 times as long and not very readable.]

What actually matters is the difference in merchandise income between Fan shop 9 and Fan shop 10. 

I mention the additional seasonal cost as being roughly 16 million (it's a little more than that) and the effective loss during the first season as being 15 million, which takes into account the increased merchandise. 

Similarly, the effective loss when you could potentially have reached 200,000 attendances (with Fan shop 9) would be 12 million as the increased merchandise income is now around 4 million (perhaps nearer to 5 million), but depends on the number of matches played. 

Figures in RSD.

Kalle >> pirmdiena oktobris 28 - 09:55

Okay, thanks for the extra info!