Midcarders want main event money

[chessarmy]

In my WWE game, Tyson Kidd...yes, TYSON KIDD wants me to pay him something like 40K per month for his new written deal. He can go away, I don't need him and I refuse to pay these idiot jobbers money they don't deserve.

 

However, this is an ongoing problem I'm having with my RW game, these guys that don't draw at all are demanding so much money. I get the stupid "other people on the roster on my level have this much, so I want that much" message when I offer them a reasonable contract, I went back to look at my salaries and all of them are in the 5-10K range for my midcarders and below.

 

Do you guys ever run into this problem? If so, how do you go about fixing it? My current plan is to not re-sign anyone that doesn't draw, and gives me that message (like Jobberson Kidd)

[Bigpapa42]

He's going to demand based on his popularity, not his push. If he's at B+/A popularity, he's going to want that kind of money. It only makes sense.

 

Assuming that is what is causing it, you need to make sure to manage overness. That's probably the greatest challenge when running a big global promotion - keeping track of contract end dates and bringing down a worker's overness nearing that date, so they can be resigned easier.

[Blake Trask]

Aside from the issue a little, although Bigpapa is exactly right, I really dislike when I get the message about other people on the roster having a similar amount... especially if it's a new signing. Isn't that my private finances? How the heck are these guys privy to everyone else's contract details?

 

There's also probably that as WWE, you're global, and so it's likely Kidd is initially quite underpaid, and hence wants a raise.

[chessarmy]

His popularity is in the basement, I think its the stupid "omg that guy has more money than I do" thing during the contract negotiations.

 

I do agree its stupid to have in the game, these guys shouldn't know what everyone's salary is.

[Bigpapa42]

So what is his popularity? What was it when you initiated contract extension discussion?

[Nobby_McDonald]

I do agree its stupid to have in the game, these guys shouldn't know what everyone's salary is.

 

People talk. Imagine your real life locker room, those friendly with Kidd would be reasonably open regarding their contracts.

[eayragt]

I think there's someone else around his poplarity level that's being paid $40k a month. Even if that other guy has a higher push, as they're similar popularity he thinks he should be getting the same money.

 

Stops cheating by pushing your higher paid stars as Main Eventers before contract negotiations.

[Derek B]

The real issue is that workers start out relatively underpaid. When the game starts, assuming there are no preset contract values, everyone is set to the first pay grade above the exact value they are worth. That's often lower than people can actually sign people for, especially since I don't think extras like working house shows (that would add more to the salary) are factored in at that stage either.

 

This leads to all new signings getting a slight pay bump, which leads to all contract renewals wanting a bump too in order to be in line. It's not unrealistic for workers to talk about money or have a rough idea of what others are making... only the really naive (Big Show many year back) end up making mistakes like that, and some of the biggest stars would almost certainly have someone in their corner to help in money matters.

 

Anywho... the "Pay Parity" feature brings in other associated complications too. If you job someone down the card, you then end up with someone being massively overpaid which is why you end up with lower carders wanting more money too, since they see Former-Midcarder-Turned-Opener (based on popularity, obviously) is making lots of money, so New Opener wants Midcard money too because of FMTO making Midcard money.

 

Another thing that happens for most of us is a general growth in overness throughout the roster, not just in your home area. The higher the overness around the world the more money people will want too, which is why so many people used to complain about the pay scale when playing the WWE... so many guys had epic global popularity that it caused problems, because everything above stacked up to push wages through the roof and keep them there... but the main point is, as people get more popular they are worth more. Which means people SHOULD be expecting more at contract renewal time, assuming you are doing your job right.

 

The bottom line.. if you are a National+ promotion you should be making so much money that you don't need to worry about wages. Everyone is going to want more as they get more popular, and everyone is going to want paid in line with people at the same level, at the very least. Which is another reason why overpaying greedy people/people you want can be bad. It's the kind of financial mismanagement that caused WCW to lose a lot of money... like signing too many people and not being able to use them, another problem a lot of people end up with.

 

EDIT: Forgot the other thing I meant to say... due to the first point and some others, most of the time you are significantly underpaying people. Low starts + any popularity improvements = underpaying until contract renewal time, which is often followed by overpaying as we can't get people to sign deals as low as the game starts them at, which is almost underpaying to begin with. Knew I'd forgotten an important point.

[MJStark]

I got royally screwed by this by going all out to steal Texas Pete off TCW, ended up paying $25,000/month for him. He was a Main Eventer, but sucks in the ring so I used him to leech pop to my other main eventers and upper-mid guys, making him a midcarder in the process. Tried to hire a run-of-the-mill guy to replace someone who died (kenny stlye) and bam, he's demanding $10,000 minimum, PPV bonuses, merch deals and no house shows when it says he should take $3000 easy

[Remianen]

I got royally screwed by this by going all out to steal Texas Pete off TCW, ended up paying $25,000/month for him. He was a Main Eventer, but sucks in the ring so I used him to leech pop to my other main eventers and upper-mid guys, making him a midcarder in the process. Tried to hire a run-of-the-mill guy to replace someone who died (kenny stlye) and bam, he's demanding $10,000 minimum, PPV bonuses, merch deals and no house shows when it says he should take $3000 easy

 

As derek alluded to, personality can factor in (sometimes majorly) as well. If that run of the mill guy is egotistical, selfish, and/or mercenary, he's going to want more money over a shorter period of time. The Pete deal just adds fuel to that particular fire.

 

As for people not knowing what their co-workers make, what world do you guys live in? I know how much every one of my co-workers makes and I've never asked a single one of them (and I don't do any of their taxes). Might be an American thing but it's more the rule than the exception that people will know how much their colleagues make. This is especially true when it comes to the entertainment and sports fields (which wrestling qualifies in both categories) but also legal (associates will know how much other associates and partners make), any field where a union is involved, and science and education (via endowments and grants). If a person makes what they think is a lot of money, they're likely to talk about it. If they think they're underpaid, they're likely to whine about it. Either way, you know the deal whether you want to or not.

[chessarmy]

I'm about to enter a bidding war with TNA for Kurt Angle and I'm ready to overpay by a mile, now all my other main eventers are gonna want that type of money, but they would have anyway because most of them have A's across the board in popularity in the U.S.

 

As for Tyson Kidd, I don't remember his exact popularity but I think it was decent at one point, he's a former WWE Tag Champion with DH Smith, after losing the belts I jobbed them out for a while so I believe his popularity went down, but I'll go check later today to make sure.

 

Either way, he's gone at the end of the month, LOLson Kidd, yea, not happening.

[LoganRodzen]

Worrying about money as a GLOBAL promotion? That's unheard of in my book. Sometimes you have to up the pay standard for your roster. The highest paid person in my game is American Patriot (200k/mo) and he's a Global Icon. When your running a massive promotion (my CVerse WCW game or a real world WWE game) the income you receive is ridiculous. I pay for my workers every month simply by using the ticket sales from ONE brand (keep in mind I have three).

 

Tickets sales (around 17 million a month) will (pretty much) pay my promotions entire expenses for the month. That leaves me with merchandise sales, sponsorship money, and PPV buys as profit. Not bad, eh?

[Bigpapa42]

Worrying about money as a GLOBAL promotion? That's unheard of in my book. Sometimes you have to up the pay standard for your roster. The highest paid person in my game is American Patriot (200k/mo) and he's a Global Icon. When your running a massive promotion (my CVerse WCW game or a real world WWE game) the income you receive is ridiculous. I pay for my workers every month simply by using the ticket sales from ONE brand (keep in mind I have three).

 

Tickets sales (around 17 million a month) will (pretty much) pay my promotions entire expenses for the month. That leaves me with merchandise sales, sponsorship money, and PPV buys as profit. Not bad, eh?

 

Yeah, I find that the money pours in at the highest levels. Even at National, I find it easy to turn a profit with almost any promotion I've tried.

[chessarmy]

No money problems, I'm just being cheap

[LoganRodzen]

Yeah, I find that the money pours in at the highest levels. Even at National, I find it easy to turn a profit with almost any promotion I've tried.

 

I didn't even worry about money issues when I was MAW and Cult. The reason being is because I've found a Traditional product that works excellent for me (which gives loads of sponsorship cash) and I've never had an issue hiring cheap talent to fill gaps in my roster. I remember being INSANELY worried when I made the jump to Cult with a smidgen of money over a million. I thought I was going to lose money left, right, and center. That wasn't the case at all and now we're Global with over 93 million in the bank. My spending attitude has changed quite a bit with such a large amount of wiggle room.

 

No money problems, I'm just being cheap

 

Been there, done that (at Cult and below). Once you reach National you might as well spend your money on what you want. Go crazy is my motto.

[Bigpapa42]

No money problems, I'm just being cheap

 

There's nothing wrong with that.

 

I've found that on games where there aren't a lot of challenges within running the promotion, maintaining some type of financial restrictions - whether owner-imposed or self-imposed - is not necessarily a bad thing. The resulting roster turnover can be renewal.

[Remianen]

Yeah, I find that the money pours in at the highest levels. Even at National, I find it easy to turn a profit with almost any promotion I've tried.

 

I have difficulty at times. Then again, I like to create custom venues....A LOT. I consider them like naming rights deals (which are, or were, HUGE here in the States). Sometimes I simulate it in exact fashion (build the arena and name it after some brand then refund the money it cost to build it as the naming rights fee) but most times, I just eat the cost and keep it movin'.

[DreamGoddessLindsey]

Just a caveat you should be warning people about: you're only gonna have money "pouring in" if you have two or three brands and running as many house shows a week as you can only in areas you have high popularity in. If you try to run a Global promotion with a single brand, you're gonna go bankrupt from production costs and miscellaneous expenses alone. More TV shows and more house shows and more worldwide PPV deals are MANDATORY to make money at International or Global.

[MitchHedberg]

This is quite off-topic, but I found it amusing because I just started pushing Kidd as a member of the Smackdown Nexus. So in time, I'd expect for me to possibly pay him this much money, assuming he gets over.

[LoganRodzen]

Just a caveat you should be warning people about: you're only gonna have money "pouring in" if you have two or three brands and running as many house shows a week as you can only in areas you have high popularity in. If you try to run a Global promotion with a single brand, you're gonna go bankrupt from production costs and miscellaneous expenses alone. More TV shows and more house shows and more worldwide PPV deals are MANDATORY to make money at International or Global.

 

Absolutely... but what would be the point of having a Global promotion and not using it to the fullest? You might as well stay at Cult or National (intentionally stopping yourself with a few poor shows) and run one show (brand). I run three house shows a week per brand and I run them everywhere. You don't need to have a bunch of PPVs like I do with WCW, but you do need to have two brands with great TV exposure and a sponsorship-friendly product.

[Phantom Stranger]

If you try to run a Global promotion with a single brand, you're gonna go bankrupt from production costs and miscellaneous expenses alone.

 

No, not if you...

 

More TV shows and more house shows and more worldwide PPV deals are MANDATORY to make money at International or Global.

 

...well, yeah, I've got two A shows, one B show, worldwide PPV, and my house show circuit alternates between popular regions and the countries I'm adding footholds in, meaning my 4-5 days a week of house show alternate between about £100K and $12K.

 

But I can't imagine hitting Global without starting to get PPV deals in place everywhere - they are, after all, profit, end of story, and Very Smalls can be obtained with just a bit of spillover.

 

But Global with one brand, and thus only one house show loop? $3-4 million profit per month, despite a large dev list (three feds' worth), an outsize roster, all of whom are now on way more money than they started on, and average world Economy being around a C-, with my biggest nations at lower levels.

 

Or, to put it another way, single brand profit is entirely doable. I do manage overness when it comes time to re-up main eventers - I can generally get them to sign on at the moment for in the $50,000-65,000 a month range - but that's habit from National. With $4mill profit per month, rudimentary maths shows that having, say, my 10 biggest names all jump to $200,000 from $50,000 (the lower end of what I pay) - a $1.5million/month increase in spending - still leaves me in profit.