End of season payout thoughts

[The_herd]

This is a large problem, mostly in the lower divisions though. At the end of a season I've seen several instances of people dropping matches in order to ensure a qualifier in order to get the extra home match. Although I can't really bring myself to losing a match on purpose, I can't blame them one bit. The main reason is the extra income from that isn't even close to the money paid out at the end of the season for most, add to that the extra training you get. There is a blatant advantage to finishing #5 or #6 as opposed to #4 if you have a strong team.

I admit, until now I hadn't looked at the payout for teams above DV and I was quite surprised that winning our top series pays so little. The payout for finishing #1 overall in your country should be 2-3 times what it is now and should decrease accordingly. A #1 finish in D1 should pay out $1 million work its way down from there.

Throwing matches to finish lower in your series not only damages the integrity of the game, but isn't very realistic as well. I know pumping more money (especially as large of an amount as that would be) is dangerous, but there needs to be steps taken to ensure that a team finishing in the top 4 in its series gets at least as much as the average team in its division brings in for a home match.

We can complain this simply means the rich get richer, but unfortunately, that's reality.

[DataKing]

I concur, this is an issue. I have seen this happen in series IV.49 many times, with teams practically "fighting" for the 5th and 6th spots in order to secure more money from an extra match which will presumably sell out and an extra week of full training (more important IMHO), and it does damage the integrity of the game.

However, those that do this do occasionally run a risk of being knocked off during their qualifier. One of the teams in my series lost their qualifier, rather unexpectedly I might add, though in their defense they did not purposely drop to 6th place.

But the risk of losing to a team from the lower division, especially if you've been PICing your last few matches, is minor in comparison to the advantages of finishing 5th or 6th.

Possible solutions?

1. Higher payouts for finishing 1st through 4th.
2. Lower attendance at qualifying matches.
3. ??? (I can't come up with anything else at the moment).

[Poli]

Good solutions, DK. I'd personally like to see a little of both. We should make the qualifying match a little less shiny.

[Alf]

people might still do it anyway as if only for the extra week of training

[Poli]

Let 'em. Do it for the training and the 5 people that show up to watch the lousy game. :)

[Raven Hawk]

I did try this one season, but I'm so bad at HT that I came in 4th anyway. ;)

Anywho, what I found while making this attempt is that your fans desert you, games that you need to sell out (like cup games) don't. Your team suffers self-confidence issues. Finally, you do face the problem of possible relegation.

I think that the monetary situation sorts itself out in lost revenue over the season for fielding a losing team. But the training is the thing that I think is the biggerst reason for finishing in 5th or 6th.

This can simply be solved by allowing all non-qualifier teams to schedule a friendly that week.

[The_herd]

They could also allow friendlies for that Sunday.

I really think there needs to be a much better reward system in place for finishing 1-4. You shouldn't lose out on training and potential income by finishing in the top 4.

[Rich1033]

I think allowing friendlies on that sunday would be the best solution by far.

[One_to7]

Just play qualifiers when everyone else is playing friendlies.

Allowing non-qualifying teams to play friendlies that sunday would defeat the purpose of an 'off' season. Making it so teams in qualifiers don't get an extra week of training would preserve a 2 week offseason and eliminate the extra training they get.

[cheetum]

I think, especially with the rising economy of hattrick, an increase in prize money for top series positions is long overdue. One sellout crowd in my stadium (which was the smallest in my series last season) is more then double what I recieved for finishing 2nd. Economically its not only better to finish 5th/6th then 4th, but its better then finishing 3rd or 2nd too. The training alone from the qualifier would be worth more to me then the crappy prize money.