Subject: I.1

P.S. thanks for the heads up on Garry Bow . He looks like he'll be a pretty good pivot if he lands on the right team. I've been bidding up the price a little bit in an effort to keep the "riff raff" out of the bidding.

Hey,

Thanks for that. Yeah, I know foreigners are expensive, problem is there are no Americans out there. I picked up a couple but it's rare to find them and get them at an affordable price. I'm always on the lookout (when I have money). I am gutting the team to get the salary down, currently about 2.5MM a day.

As for sponsorship, yeah. Sadly enough when I dropped, I only lost about 10-15% total sponsorship money, so it hurt but nothing that is causing me to become stuck where I am. It's mainly the huge salary of players.

I think what's hurting us (or US) is the fact there are no teams. Seems Trump coming in has drove all the coaches away. I mean you lost 3 in D.I, down in my division there are only 4 other teams or so. I've watched 1/2 my division drop this season. So no developing good players, no new talent being brought in, etc. I tried to keep my US talent, but I can't develop them with my facilities as low as they are. That's why I'm hoping to gut the cost and sell what talent I got.

Thanks for the advice man, appreciated.

I mean... in all honesty, your facilities aren't "bad" by any means. you could definitely develop your guys internally (and do very well) IF... you were okay with camping out in division II for a few seasons.

i've found that the most important factor in terms of finances in this game is to be the best (or at the minimum, top 3) at whatever level you're at. If you can't be top 3 in division I.1, you can probably get better money being top 3 in division II. If you can't manage to be top 3 in division II, then be top 3 in division III. Only advance when you can compete meaningfully at the next level. And in the meantime, focus on developing your good younger players and building up your infrastructure.

There's not a doubt in my mind, that if you were to trade away all the foreigners, and commit to playing just the Americans on your roster (including a few younger guys who would be staples on your team in the future) that you'd be a dynasty in a few seasons.

Let's use my team as an example. Sure, I have a few awesome "pillars" that I've achored my team around (namely, Ted Keenan , Rolland Benedict , and Lloyd Russ ), but I've been leaning HARD on my younger guys in the last several seasons.

I've been able to do this because the competition in division II isn't so difficult that you have to choose between playing some younger guys or winning games. You can do BOTH. And doing both can actually allow you to make MORE money than many of the teams in division I.1

I've personally employed this strategy largely because I find that developing younger players for the national teams actually adds more depth to the game than just the (dwindling) league competition... but it really just goes to show that there's more than one way to skin a cat. It all depends on what your aim is and how you wanna play the game.

I don't know if you want to take that route (it's complicated by the fact that you're currently selling a few really decent U.S. players) but I Firmly believe that it's a winning strategy over the long term if you have the patience and the vision to commit to it.

Regardless, what you decide to do... do your best not to bounce back and forth between divisions II and I.1. That's the absolute worst thing you can do in terms of making money.

Hey,

Thanks. In hockey, that was my strategy just because I could never compete with buying what I needed, so I built and developed. It's what I want to do here also, been trying to save money to develop facilities now that arena is at 20K. I figured once I got the training and physio at 14, then I would be good enough to start developing young players and rotating them in the line-up.

I know Handball and mechanics are different to hockey as I've had helpers tell me that when discussing players and why they cost so much. I don't need this much talent at D.II level but being in D.I it seems I didn't have enough.

I'm changing my strategy of attempting to field an offence and defence, cut it down to about 15 players, then I'll be able to get some young talent to develop. I just would like to not pay $5MM/day for everything I have and only get $20MM/wk to apply towards it. I know they're knocking the player's salaries down but it seems that it's fairly screwy that my sponsorships/media/VIP only covers about 4-5 days of maintenance. Anyways, cutting it back (again, probably my 3rd time doing this) so hopefully I can get around $3MM/day (Facilities is already $1.25MM).

Thanks for the advice man. It makes sense and ideally I probably should stick in D.II a little longer but at the same time I can't. I'm not being arrogant but I've been playing very low and predictable all season. Maybe 1 team that can beat in my division but relegation looks like I'll be getting a no-coach team so I might be up there anyways.

yep... that's my dilemma. I'm thinking that next year might be the season that I end up in I.1. Not because i particularly want that, I don't (mainly because it's better for the national teams if we spread the teams with good facilities around to make the most of the drafts)... but because I might not have any other choice.

We'll see. Either way, i was thinking about advancing anyways at the end of next season, so it probably won't hurt too too much if it happens a season "early."

Good luck with the managerial decisions though. Handball definitely isn't a walk in the park as some of the other sports seem to be when it comes to money.

So do we want to push in international to get us back up to 4 teams?

I mean I would always want us to push for 4 teams... but maybe that's just me.

I feel like the only reason we don't have 4 teams is because the U.S. representatives in the CWC and CL keep going dead and giving away matches for free to the competition.

But 4 is always better than 2 imo.

LMAO... I just noticed that Lloyd Russ 's new contract will be $281,122 / day. I laugh because he's currently making $340,274 / day (someone's agent is getting the axe... )

I know that PPM changed the salaries for players a little while back, but Lloyd Russ is the first guy I've had who's contract actually went DOWN. That savings of ~$59,000 / day ($6.625 million next season) will be awfully nice... especially as he transitions into more of a support role (making way for John Field )

Ok guys i would like to announce that i will be retiring. Not only from Handball but PPM in general. Lack of development of other sports pushed me to do this. It's obvious that priority of developers are mini games. I don't see future for PPM. The game become very boring and i lost interest. I will list all my good players for sale in Hockey, Soccer, Handball and Basketball. Good luck to everyone!

well i'd say that this development was a refresh of sorts (allowing new blood to come in and start raking in sponsorship money), but honestly...? I was looking through all the division 2 teams, and there really isn't much "new blood" (in handball at least).

There's painfully few relevant teams left. As long as we have national teams to support, I'll likely still have interest in these managers, but the community interaction has definitely suffered a huge blow as a result of developers essentially giving up on the ppm games.

When are you thinking of listing your guys for sale?

Is there anyway we can have like a month (or so) to save up funds? I'm not quite scraping the barrel right now, but sitting at $20 million won't get me very far with the talent you're gonna be throwing onto the market.

We should ask PPM to merge Canada i.1, USA i.1 and Mexico i.1 into one league (North America). Would generate more interest in league play

Anyone else get a huge raise in sponsorship???

Small bumps for me:

General Sponsor:
Contract worth: 350,782,816
Weekly donation: 21,923,926
Bonus for league ranking: 14,615,951

Media Sponsor:
Contract worth: 404,809,824
Weekly donation: 25,300,614

I got about 5,000,000 more per week.


It seems that there are only 3, soon to be 2 U.S. teams with players on the senior team.

Hopefully the players from the Mojo Express go to good teams. I likely won't be making any serious bids. Maybe I'll bid on one relatively intermediate player if I save a little more or if there is a bargain to be found.

It will be interesting to see how next season plays out. There are a handful of teams that could take first, possibly competing for it until the end of the season.. I look forward to seeing my team with all the players I picked up this season compete with better energy and chemistry next season.

The United States is likely going to finally lose Division III next season.