5) Write 800 words or more on something that interests you. It could be related to statistics, to a league issue you take seriously, or a niche part of history that doesn’t fit neatly into either of the above categories. This must be directly related to the league, so don’t wax 800 words about your team’s Werewolf server. Be warned that freedom comes with risk, and this category will be judged especially stringently for anyone trying to spew complete nonsense.
So what I want to talk about under this Ultimus Week topic is something that has been discussed at length across this league at seemingly every opportunity: Contracts. Well, specifically, why nobody cares about them and only takes minimum deals. I’m going to present a few hypotheses and a couple options that I think would be helpful to increase the value and prestige of team contracts. Spoiler alert: I don’t think that making people poorer makes contracts more valuable.
First, I think one of the biggest issues with contracts is that they are not worth enough. Right now, I have not really seen anyone take a contract over six million dollars a season, and those are extremely rare. The problem is, what can you do with six million? I guess you can pay for less than half of tier six training? Or You can pay for each weekly training, which is already pretty close to covered by twitter payouts? It is not a lot of money. And by the time you have enough TPE to really make yourself competitive for a huge salary from a negotiating perspective, you have to already have made a ton of money in order to pay for all of the trainings and equipment to get you there. Six million is just not a lot of money to established league veterans. You can get it easily through a handful of media pieces or graphics. The only people who are really going to jump out of their seats for a six million dollar contract are newbies, but of course they do not have enough TPE to demand it. I think if we raised salaries up to like 13.5 million (the cost of T6 equipment) at the top and one million at the bottom, that would make the contracts a lot more valuable. I’m assuming we would have to juice the salary cap to make this happen, which is not really a problem if everything is proportional. Who would have guessed: making contracts more valuable makes them more valuable.
However, that brings us to the next issue: The people who can command high value contracts generally already have a lot of money, so why would they want more? Some people try to answer this question by suggesting taxes, which I am pretty against (the league is built for fun, taking money for nothing is not fun). The better solution, and one that is already taking forma cross the league, is generating more opportunities for players to spend money. Dotts is great, and the casino is great. Let’s keep it going with more great ideas! Maybe visual add ons to your moving dot? Maybe some sort of opportunity to buy your way into a rules summit vote? Maybe purchasing PT passes (obviously at a very high value)? Maybe separating purchases you can make with contracts from purchases you can make with media/gfx money? I’m not sure, but this should be heavily brainstormed further.
Additionally, I have no idea how the salary cap works! And I do not think I am alone in this! And I think that if I and other players had a better idea of the shape of the cap we would be in a better position to understand contract values and what teams are actually able to do. I have no idea what the actual cap number is, I have no idea what my team’s total payroll is, and I have no idea what the consequences of going over the cap or benefits of staying under it are. As a result, I use my basic sports knowledge to fill the gap: If I take a minimum that puts my team in a better position to win free agents. But is that true? I don’t think that players are enticed to jump ship based on money in this league, largely because contracts are the least efficient way to make money due to their low financial value and also because in a league based on fun and friendships players want to stay with the teams that drafted them rather than say goodbye to their buddies and move on. I think if there was some resource on the site that was more transparent both on how the cap works and also what each teams cap situation is (like it is insane that I don’t know which team has the most expensive payroll and which team has the cheapest payroll for example), it would place players in a position to actually understand what their contract is worth and if minimum contracts actually help their team. Additionally, maybe we need to add a rule that 50% of a FA’s salary does not go to the cap? That way teams could actually effectively entice free agents and we could see some more exciting player movement if a team pays a top tier free agent ten million dollars a season but is only dinged for five million dollars a season on the cap. Show me the cap!
834 words
So what I want to talk about under this Ultimus Week topic is something that has been discussed at length across this league at seemingly every opportunity: Contracts. Well, specifically, why nobody cares about them and only takes minimum deals. I’m going to present a few hypotheses and a couple options that I think would be helpful to increase the value and prestige of team contracts. Spoiler alert: I don’t think that making people poorer makes contracts more valuable.
First, I think one of the biggest issues with contracts is that they are not worth enough. Right now, I have not really seen anyone take a contract over six million dollars a season, and those are extremely rare. The problem is, what can you do with six million? I guess you can pay for less than half of tier six training? Or You can pay for each weekly training, which is already pretty close to covered by twitter payouts? It is not a lot of money. And by the time you have enough TPE to really make yourself competitive for a huge salary from a negotiating perspective, you have to already have made a ton of money in order to pay for all of the trainings and equipment to get you there. Six million is just not a lot of money to established league veterans. You can get it easily through a handful of media pieces or graphics. The only people who are really going to jump out of their seats for a six million dollar contract are newbies, but of course they do not have enough TPE to demand it. I think if we raised salaries up to like 13.5 million (the cost of T6 equipment) at the top and one million at the bottom, that would make the contracts a lot more valuable. I’m assuming we would have to juice the salary cap to make this happen, which is not really a problem if everything is proportional. Who would have guessed: making contracts more valuable makes them more valuable.
However, that brings us to the next issue: The people who can command high value contracts generally already have a lot of money, so why would they want more? Some people try to answer this question by suggesting taxes, which I am pretty against (the league is built for fun, taking money for nothing is not fun). The better solution, and one that is already taking forma cross the league, is generating more opportunities for players to spend money. Dotts is great, and the casino is great. Let’s keep it going with more great ideas! Maybe visual add ons to your moving dot? Maybe some sort of opportunity to buy your way into a rules summit vote? Maybe purchasing PT passes (obviously at a very high value)? Maybe separating purchases you can make with contracts from purchases you can make with media/gfx money? I’m not sure, but this should be heavily brainstormed further.
Additionally, I have no idea how the salary cap works! And I do not think I am alone in this! And I think that if I and other players had a better idea of the shape of the cap we would be in a better position to understand contract values and what teams are actually able to do. I have no idea what the actual cap number is, I have no idea what my team’s total payroll is, and I have no idea what the consequences of going over the cap or benefits of staying under it are. As a result, I use my basic sports knowledge to fill the gap: If I take a minimum that puts my team in a better position to win free agents. But is that true? I don’t think that players are enticed to jump ship based on money in this league, largely because contracts are the least efficient way to make money due to their low financial value and also because in a league based on fun and friendships players want to stay with the teams that drafted them rather than say goodbye to their buddies and move on. I think if there was some resource on the site that was more transparent both on how the cap works and also what each teams cap situation is (like it is insane that I don’t know which team has the most expensive payroll and which team has the cheapest payroll for example), it would place players in a position to actually understand what their contract is worth and if minimum contracts actually help their team. Additionally, maybe we need to add a rule that 50% of a FA’s salary does not go to the cap? That way teams could actually effectively entice free agents and we could see some more exciting player movement if a team pays a top tier free agent ten million dollars a season but is only dinged for five million dollars a season on the cap. Show me the cap!
834 words
![[Image: pMr1aCO.png]](https://i.imgur.com/pMr1aCO.png)
![[Image: BI1xgO7.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/BI1xgO7.jpg)
