So for Season 6 I'm thinking of introducing both multi-season contracts and a salary cap. This is the way I envision they'll work, if you lot are keen: Multi-season Contracts - maximum signing period of three (3) seasons if re-signing with your current team, maximum of two (2) if signing elsewhere - by signing a multi-season contract your salary automatically increases by 5% every season - signing a multi-season deal increases your activity rating by 5% each season (so you'll still need to be active for it to mean anything, keeping in mind that activity is used IN CONJUNCTION with production. Being active allows you to take full advantage of the ratings increase your production should allow you) Salary cap - each player's salary would be determined by the view of a panel of 5, essentially setting your 'market value' - the cap would be large enough for every team to re-sign their current team right now - players who have played at their current club for 3 seasons or more can be re-signed over the cap by clubs invoking their 'Bird rights', however the club must be under the cap before signing this player (ie you cannot sign all your current players with Bird rights after hitting the cap) - new players will all be worth the minimum and any team over the cap can sign these players anyway So essentially clubs would have to plan their signings more (I'll help with this with FA lists, salaries and cap space, etc), but can sign their players to multi-season deals to ensure they stay with their team. Players can sign longer contracts for the minor benefit of having an increased ability to improve from their production. Vote and share your thoughts!
I like the ideas and I think it breaks away from the standard sim style in the forum a bit. Innovative stuff.
On a serious note, I'm not sure how much I like the activity increase for long term contracts. Why do we need to have that incentive for people to stay on the same team? Club movement is interesting and the absolute key players will mostly stick to the same team unless they pull a LeBron.
Eds tried a Salary Cap in Seasonal Rugby S2 - values were determined by the club and had an impact on stamina - as I recall. What I like about this idea is that the player salaries will be determined independent of club hierarchy so it will avoid some of the players who are already committed to one club from understating their salary in order to make things better for their club.
It's certainly going to shake things up. One thing I'm a bit miffed by is that no Parrots players have Bird rights - ironically enough - but only due to the club existing for two seasons.
I'm sure in the cases of Parrots/Sabres/Mustangs it'd just be a 'for their whole existence' ruling until they've been around for 3 seasons.