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Costs..

Posted By Tim A.

Mike's questions are in bold.
My answers are in regular text

I would like input on the following:

---what should be the extent of the reward we offer founders? As a caveat be forwarned that there always will be some reward offered.


When I paid my fee several years ago to become a founder the ground rules were: All teams after the 3rd were free and all launch leagues were free. I feel that any substantial change in this philosophy is a slap in the face to those who have supported the game for a long time. I suppose that the price break has already paid for itself several times over; however, the principal that something that was free is now going to cost something is a concern. I also note that personal finances will not permit me to spend more than the (approximately) $30/month that I spend now. So in my case if the fee structure changes such that the extra teams have a (non-trivial) fee then I will be dropping from eight teams to three. I would think that some other people that own lots of teams may have similar constraints. I predict that if founders are forced to pay half price or more for the extra teams (beyond team number 3) that there will be a large increase in the number of unmanaged teams (as well as some annoyed founding members). If the goal of the change is to convert all of these teams into revenue producing teams by recruiting new owners then perhaps that is a reasonable way to go… assuming new owners can be recruited.

My preference is to keep the status quo for founders members. But if that is not practical financially then a reasonable alternative would be to charge founders 1/2 of the normal cost for their additional teams (beyond the 3rd). Founders should still receive launch leagues for free. Founders are providing a service when they take launch leagues to fill out a league. Without offering founders free launch league teams I predict launch leagues will fill up more slowly.

---what is a reasonable and marketable base monthly price for a franchise?

If the service was good then $9.95/month is a perfectly reasonable price. The fact is that in recent years the service has not been good. How to decrement the price for bad service is a tricky question. The only reason I am still here is because I have worked hard to get my teams to where they are. But the service and other things annoy me. So if you charge me $9.95 a month I'm going to be annoyed and if you charge me $4.95 a month I'm still going to be annoyed at the service.

I don't feel strongly about this but perhaps $7.95 per month would be a reasonable thing to do until some of the other "issues" get worked out.

---should we consider quarterly or annual billing and not offer monthly billing?

Annual billing would be tough in some cases because of
(1) budgeting of personal finances.
(2) it limits the practicality of picking up managerless teams in the middle of a season (in effect if a team has no owner on opening day it may go unmanaged for the rest of the season).

I think monthly billing is the best; however, quarterly billing should be acceptable.

---what should we charge for a LLeague?

1st launch league should be free -- goal is to get people interested in the game.

Each subsequent launch leagues should have a cost equivalent to the cost of owning a perpetual league for one month. (My logic is that the launch league is a 2.5 month product, but it is a less interesting product than a perpetual league).

Founders should get free launch leagues.