Surviving the jump to Cult

[edenborn]

I took APW from Small to Cult in 2½ years, burning my cash down to $40,000 in the process. My hope was that the increased sponsor money at Cult would put me on easy street, but things didn't go the way I'd planned. My sponsorship went from about $36,000 per month up to $104,000 per month, but my expenses shot up even higher. Marketing jumped from $5,000 to $75,000, production jumped from $1,600 to $120,000 and Misc. jumped from $1,500 to $86,500. All in all, I'm now suddenly $130,000 in debt. Desperately, I've tried to get myself a PPV deal, but at approximately $8,000 in PPV revenue per PPV, I don't see that making enough of a difference to bail me out. The game tells me: "At your current size (Cult), running 1 TV show and with a pay-per-view agreement, the production department is costing you $192,000 a month." That's a lot of scratch. Two questions... First, what did I do wrong? Did I overestimate the sponsorship money I'd get from a product setting that "will make getting sponsorship quite tough?" Should I have tried to change the product setting to something more favorable right as I made the jump to Cult? Should I have delayed going Cult until I had built up more money in the bank? Should I have made sure my TV show expired before it became ridiculously expensive at Cult? (The only show I could get at Regional was a Late Night slot with The Bloke Channel with me picking up 100% of the costs and them getting 100% of the revenue.) Is it a combination of all these things and/or is there another mistake I've yet to realize? Second, is there any quick way to get out of this much debt and avoid getting fired?

[TheBrockLock]

once your in that deep it is pretty damn hard to get out, the way to avoid it not happenng is being patient and not getting the t.v. show untill you can get some money out of it and maybe even waiting untill you can get a PPV, so the thing to do for you now is to get out of your TV show asap and do just monthly events untill you can get a tv show with some revenue and a PPV deal.

[FINisher]

Did you keep the production department untouched? You know, Music usage etc.. :O Just concentrate and keep your shows in that one place where you are most popular. And keep the worker usage very low. A jump from a grade to another can always turn things around, as you get more people to your shows and ticket prizes are high. Did you remember to raise your ticket prices right from the start? You know, that +4 dollars. :) (A* is default at 45, you can change it to 49, the +4 applies to all grades)

[edenborn]

[QUOTE=TheBrockLock;486501]once your in that deep it is pretty damn hard to get out, the way to avoid it not happenng is being patient and not getting the t.v. show untill you can get some money out of it and maybe even waiting untill you can get a PPV, so the thing to do for you now is to get out of your TV show asap and do just monthly events untill you can get a tv show with some revenue and a PPV deal.[/QUOTE]Good advice. I don't know I can get out of my TV show contract, but I'll give it a shot. [QUOTE=FINisher]Did you keep the production department untouched? You know, Music usage etc.. :O Just concentrate and keep your shows in that one place where you are most popular. And keep the worker usage very low. A jump from a grade to another can always turn things around, as you get more people to your shows and ticket prizes are high. Did you remember to raise your ticket prices right from the start? You know, that +4 dollars. (A* is default at 45, you can change it to 49, the +4 applies to all grades)[/quote]Very sensible. As it turns out, I didn't touch the production department--that's something I don't generally bother with unless I'm National or above--I did raise prices by +4 and I tend to only book shows where I'm popular. Worker usage has been a problem for me though (too many tag team bouts), plus I've been booking two monthly events along with a TV show--collectively, that's how I dropped down to $40,000, but that was over years, and was manageable, as opposed to the sudden financial nightmare I'm experiencing now.

[Hyde Hill]

Just cancel the tv contract you should stil be able to get it back next negotiation round. And hopefully with a reduction in cost and or ad revenue. In the meantime jsut run 1 monthly event 2 hour ppv if you can get one with at least some income and possibly a cost reduction. Keep your tv deal a short show and short ppv's in order to keep costs low. Stop tagging so much till you can give written contracts. Spam your main stars and let the others job when they complain they haven't been on tv for so long. Good luck getting out of the hole and getting to national.

[shamelessposer]

Ideally, you should try and spend some time at Regional. It's much, much easier to earn money at Regional than Cult, as it seems that a Cult-level promotion has its expenses go up at a faster rate than its income. Of course, it doesn't do you any good to hear this [i]now[/i], but maybe it'll do you some good next time around.

[mike b]

Wow im glad i read this thread. I just started a new promotion and hit cult level but really only populare in the west(d+ in hawaii,south n northwest)think ill hold off on tv deal then at least fr awhile.