Stadiums (or the mistaken belief in investing in stadiums)

After a gruelling period where my financial projection has resembled a cliff, the first of my two stands has now been completed and the first elements (a paltry 3 advertising boards) have been completed. Within the next week and a bit, I should have most of my stadium built, which should see my income sizeably increase.

I’ve so far managed to pay off around 8.5m of my stadium, with the final 2m due out over the next 6 weeks or so. With my projection (hopefully) going to look more than healthy after my seats are finally built, I decided to have a look at upgrading one of the other basic stands in favour of a 2-Tier Stand with corporate and advertising provision.

After some playing around, the shortest period of time I could make any investment break even over was 100 days. That’s 100 days + build time, meaning that any investment wouldn’t even break even for another 4 seasons, give or take a week. Admittedly, if you’re playing a long term game over 10 or 20 seasons, that investment seems a good bit of business. But considering that my new daily income will be touching on 290k (not including media money or minimum prize money), is it really worth investing that amount of money for such a poor overall payoff? This brought me round to thinking about other ways of making/investing your money within the game.

Competitions – an easy one – entering competitions, especially DYM competitions, can result in an easy profit. But with new rules considering the balance of prize money and minimum time for competitions to run, this is a game and time-heavy option. Yes, teams can quickly turn £50,000 into £100,000 using DYM competitions, but this isn’t an answer to making huge amounts of money due to the competition prize money tax imposed at the end of every season. A small amount of money can be gained through these means, but given the amount going out in wages every season, it’s negligible after the first couple of seasons.

Stadiums – As discussed above, provide an increase to your daily income. Unfortunately, it takes at least 3 seasons for any investment I could make to break even, so this option is seemingly aimed solely at those playing a very long term game.

Players – pre-stadiums and taxes, money simply wasn’t worth having. It was far better to invest this in players as quickly as you physically could, because, put simply, inflation was so rampant as to leave your money comparatively worthless within a week, if not a few days. All of a sudden, with stadiums coming in, everyone wanted money and people sold players until no-one wanted players anymore. However, this situation won’t remain indefinately – money will flow back into the game eventually, especially as peoples stadiums are completed. In my personal case, I’m expecting a 3-4m increase in my projected balance, a whopping figure some of which I’ll have to spend in order to avoid tax.

Therefore, is buying players such a bad option? Case in point – I spent £68,000, £3,000 a day and £30,000 signing on fee for a player. He was never going to be good enough for my first team and I loaned him out to a fellow AEFA side lower down the divisions. Here he starts every game and has seen his value rocket. I have paid half his wages, but this could be considered to be doubled as I am (just) over the £250,000 a day threshold for wage tax. Over 28 days (the period of time required for the automatic sell on percentage to reach 0), my investment could therefore be considered to have cost £182,000. If I sell him for half market value, a good deal for both parties for considering how well he is playing and something the other party has indicated he is interested in doing, I stand to make £348,000 profit on an initial investment of £182,000. In effect, I will have roughly doubled my money within a season – as opposed to the 6-8 seasons this would take by investing in stadiums. Moreover, by investing in youth at £10,000 initial cost, £200 wages and £2,000 signing on fee the margins are dramatically increased as well as having the bonus of having them locked for the foreseeable future. Of course, this depends on selling players, but over the next 3 or 4 seasons, this, in my humble opinion, is guaranteed.

It seems odd to advocate the buying of players at a time when the market is dead and everyone else is selling, but if you take a medium term view and invest wisely (no OAPs, no huge wages and no tat) it could be the best way to increase your bank balance.