Projecting Year-By-By Contract Values

[tdawg3782]

Quote: Originally Posted by Billy4NY

The one part that I enjoy about my CFM is managing the cap and making smart decisions about contracts. I have created spreadsheets to help me project what my total team salary will be in the upcoming seasons, but trying to understand the cap hit from new contracts can be difficult. Contracts are back-loaded so it is important to understand how the calculations work. Each year Madden's contract equations change a bit so I wanted to take some time to see what Madden 19 had in place for contract calculations. Take Aways From This Post 1. Understanding year-to-year percentages for Madden 19 CFM contracts. 2. Cap hit calculator included. Test Procedures: In order to calculate the below percentages I went through the process of signing players to contracts from 2 years to 7 years (I skipped 1-year contracts as those are pretty straight forward to calculate). I signed these players to contracts that did not include any bonuses as bonuses are applied 100% each year on top of the contract value. For example, a bonus of $500k will simply add $500k to each year of the player's contract. I did this process 5 times and varied the yearly salary amounts from $950,000 to $20,000,000 (max value), see the Google Doc image link below for the details. Results: 1. There is not an exact % for each year of a contract based on the length. The contract value will cause the yearly allocation to change, but only by 1% or 2% at most. 2. The values you enter when offering a contract are not always 100% of what will be paid to player. See the Image Link below. Some contracts added up to be a few percentage points below the expected value and some were over. This is probably because when you see "$5.0MM" in the contract offer screen the system is probably offering a number that is not exactly $5,000,000. Why? I don't know. The below values are the highest percentages for each year of a contract I saw across my 5 test scenarios. Also see the Image Link below for more details. I hope this helps some CFM Owners manage their cap space a little better going forward. I look forward to feedback, comments, and any other thoughts you guys have on this topic. 2-year Contracts: Year 1 - 43.5% Year 2 - 56.8% 3-year Contracts: Year 1 - 25.0% Year 2 - 32.5% Year 3 - 42.8% 4-year Contracts: Year 1 - 16.1% Year 2 - 21.0% Year 3 - 27.4% Year 4 - 36.0% 5-year Contracts: Year 1 - 11.1% Year 2 - 14.4% Year 3 - 18.7% Year 4 - 24.3% Year 5 - 32.0% 6-year Contracts: Year 1 - 7.8% Year 2 - 10.2% Year 3 - 13.3% Year 4 - 17.3% Year 5 - 22.4% Year 6 - 29.5% 7-year Contracts: Year 1 - 5.7% Year 2 - 7.4% Year 3 - 9.6% Year 4 - 12.5% Year 5 - 16.2% Year 6 - 21.0% Year 7 - 27.8% Cap Hit Calculator: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1peI...ew?usp=sharing Image:https://drive.google.com/file/d/10IP...ew?usp=sharing

Good info. Looks like I was pretty close on the 3 year contract at least.

[RufusInPhilly]

I know this is an old thread, but for M20 at least, it looks like all bonus are only divided up to 5 years even if the contracts are for longer. Has anyone noticed that as well? Is there an updated spread sheet, btw?

[tg88forHOF]

Quote: Originally Posted by RufusInPhilly

I know this is an old thread, but for M20 at least, it looks like all bonus are only divided up to 5 years even if the contracts are for longer. Has anyone noticed that as well? Is there an updated spread sheet, btw?

It's been like that forever, because that's how it works in the NFL as well.

Under the CBA, contract prorates for money paid upfront (which for Madden purposes means the signing bonus) are limited to a maximum of 5 years.

Pretend you have a contract that's $70m salary, $30m bonus (for a total of $100m) over 7 years. The $30m bonus will be prorated over the first 5 years of the contract, for a $6m cap hit each year. Years 6 and 7 will have a cap hit of just the contracted salary.

Now let's pretend that salary was evenly distributed each year...no front- or back-loading, just an even $10m per year. That'd give you a cap hit of $16m for years 1-5 ($10m salary + $6 prorated bonus), $10m for years 6 and 7 (just the salary).

The NFL has had that 5-year maximum on prorates in place since at least the 2011 CBA, and it was carried forward into the new 2020 CBA.

[RufusInPhilly]

Quote: Originally Posted by tg88forHOF

Under the CBA, contract prorates for money paid upfront (which for Madden purposes means the signing bonus) are limited to a maximum of 5 years. ... The NFL has had that 5-year maximum on prorates in place since at least the 2011 CBA, and it was carried forward into the new 2020 CBA.

Right. Thanks for the clarification. I knew there was something not straightforward about the way they disproportionately paid out over the length of the contract.

In the spreadsheet tool, however, it looks like the bonus is paid out evenly through each of the 7 years despite what I suspected was the 5-year limit rule. I thought maybe Madden did things differently in the 2019 version, but I just checked and it looks like it's the same in M29 & M21. So I guess maybe the spreadsheet was wrong? 🤷*♂️

[tg88forHOF]

Quote: Originally Posted by RufusInPhilly

In the spreadsheet tool, however, it looks like the bonus is paid out evenly through each of the 7 years despite what I suspected was the 5-year limit rule. I thought maybe Madden did things differently in the 2019 version, but I just checked and it looks like it's the same in M29 & M21. So I guess maybe the spreadsheet was wrong? ��*♂️

It's mostly a function of how Madden displays bonuses as the yearly amount rather than the total...that, and the spreadsheet might have a minor error in how it displays the total contract amount.

That total contract should be $240m, not $280 million. I've never paid attention to whether Madden incorrectly counts the $20m bonus over 7 years, or whether the spreadsheet author just forgot the 5-year rule when calculating the total.

Either way, I do know the way Madden's display shows the bonus as a yearly amount rather than a total is weird...it doesn't match how real-world contracts are described in the media, and it's confused people before when trying to figure out what the hell they're signing somebody to.

But to your point, it's pretty clear the game does honor the 5-year rule in practice even though the display is wonky. If you go into the Salary screen in CFM, years 6 and 7 on 7-year contracts clearly show a drop in cap hit from the bonus no longer being applied.

[RufusInPhilly]

Quote: Originally Posted by tg88forHOF

Either way, I do know the way Madden's display shows the bonus as a yearly amount rather than a total is weird...it doesn't match how real-world contracts are described in the media, and it's confused people before when trying to figure out what the hell they're signing somebody to.

Yeah, the way Madden display this info is (pardon the pun) maddening. I haven't played M20 or any version for more than a couple months ago, but considering I've logged a good number of hours, I probably should know this by now. The point is the game UI makes this pretty confusing. Anyhow thanks for the help!