Here's an alternative way to think of these players in terms of total value:

The minimum amount of CP that you can invest in any player in order to create your own BRB is 39 CP.  That assumes you have fully developed a Sby through a year and then fully developed as an Apprentice as well to come in as an Age I SL 10 player.  Then you let him sit for two years, becoming an Age III, SL 5 player.  You add on 3 PU to get to III, 8, which becomes an Age IV, SL 4.  Three more PU gets you to IV, 7 - which then becomes your BRB after aging to age V, SL 2.  Any less and the player will auto-retire and cannot become a BRB.  It is not likely that 39 CP is going to be sunk into a C-level star just to keep him around for two seasons.

It is far more likely that the player would have those 6 needed CP invested early on as an age I or II player, which raises the total cost to between 63 and 75 depending on when you allocate the points before allowing aging to slowly overcome the star player.  In both cases though, this assumes that 29 matches were invested in the player as a Youth prior to CP even coming into the picture.

So consider what you would pay to not have to bring up an Sby/App through 29 matches of gameplay (or Youth Coach slots), and then sink an additional 6 PU costing between 39 and 75 at a minimum into a player in order to be able to make your own Brb.  300k to avoid all that and get my Age I BRB?  That's a steal.  Heck, I'd pay 300k just to get an extra 39 CP, let alone a higher total in addition to not having a Sby in the lineup every session.

Admittedly, while investing all of this into a player you also get the benefit of actually getting to play the player and hopefully win some matches along the way.  An auction buy does not get that.  I would still advocate that the current auction prices (250 age II, 300 for age I) are very low.  Bump them up at least 50k or 100k, especially the age I BRB's.

Or here is a completely different way of looking at it.  Let's say that 600k is a good starting value for an Age 1 BRB in the Off-Season.  (I would add that BRB's in last season's auctions did go for very near to this, including over 600k for one, so we know that the league does value them this highly for an Age I early in the season).  For every session that passes, that value drops by 5% (because the BRB is only good for 20 sessions and then they go away).  So an Age 1 BRB in Session 3 would be worth 15% less than 600k, or 510k.  An age II BRB starts at 300k, or half the starting value since they will be around half as long.  By the last auction in Session 7, BRB's would cost 120k for an Age II because they will be used for only 3 sessions and shouldn't cost the same as one that has been around all season.  It's not like this is a player you can use CP to improve or keep around next year to make into a BRB like Age III or IV players are.  Perhaps because the value is drastically different depending on age and when the auction falls, the minimum bids should be too?

Initially, I didn't follow Kevin's math, but I was thinking in MSWL terms of CP & SL gains... With that line of thinking, 39 seemed outrageous!

After running the math myself, I have shaved off 6 whole CP... to do so, you must have a Coach. So, in order to create a BB from scratch in the cheapest manner possible, you need to already have one... interesting!

What seems more realistic is to train up a Youth player from scratch to get a powerful player for a few seasons, letting him coast once you max him out.

Age	Start SL	Youth RSD	SL RSD	CP (w/Coach)	Pre-Aging SL	Aging Loss	End-Season SL
SBY	2	3			5	0	5
APP	5	5			10	0	10
I	10		5	65 (60)	15	2	13
II	13		1	14 (13)	14	3	11
III	11				11	4	7
IV	7				7	5	2
V	2

In this manner, you use a lot more CP... 79 without a coach, or 73 with a coach, but you have a player that is a stud for 2 seasons, a regular starter for a 3rd, and a solid backup for a 4th before becoming a BB.

 When Renee and I made our deal last season, we were essentially trying to set the initial market value for a Youth Coach, which we were hoping would become either the standard, or floor level for what the value of that specific BB would be. Together, the two of us set the initial value at between 800-900k for a Youth Coach. Since there hasn't been any further trading, we can't say whether we set the bar or not. 

In theory, I agree with Kevin's off-beat proposal, where a BB loses 5% of his value with each passing session. However, I think it's an important question to ask whether or not we value all BBs the same? Is a Groundsman worth as much as a Coach? Is a Physio worth as much as a Youth Coach? I think we could all guess and speculate (I say the ranking goes YC, Coach, Physio, Groundsman... but that's just my opinion - I would pay a lot more for a Youth Coach than I would for a Groundsman...).

If we use Kevin's devaluation method, we could simply use the existing base of BBs to justify valuing one BB type over another. If there are 4 times the number of Physios than Youth Coaches, then Physios should cost more to purchase because they are "in demand". We could start off with a seemingly random value... say 500k or 600k and use that as the baseline. The BB 'type' that is most prevalent in the league would be assigned that highest value, and the rest would be proportionally valued according to their ratio to the most prevalent BB type. This would suit the "in demand" theory. The whole thing could be flip-flopped if we wanted to say that the most prevalent type has "saturated" the market, and therefore has devalued its type. In this case, the type that is least prevalent would be assigned the high value, and the others would be inversely proportioned.

My example seems complex (they always do!), but it doesn't seem to be that difficult to put into place (yes, I am saying that I would help out if needed), and it would add some real-world financial marketing into the game. 

Isn't the key  statement in all of the above "I would add that BRB's in last season's auctions did go for very near to this, including over 600k for one, so we know that the league does value them this highly for an Age I early in the season".  In other words, market forces work and the selling price is likely to be higher than the minimum, provided the market is not flooded with Backroom Boys.

I'd also argue that the market will automatically add in the diminshing minimum price that Kevin suggests, precisely because they are worth less as the season goes on.  Indeed. is an Age II BRB actually worth the minimum bid in the final auction of a season?

I got an Age I Groundsman for 411k in the close season auction, which Kevin believes is too low a price.  In that same auction Lewes FC bought an Age V L10 DF for 264k.  Given that he can be turned into any Age I BRB immediately, presumably we'll have to increase the minimum bids for Age V players at the same time as increasing the minimums for BRBs?  :-)

Backroom boys were worth more last season as we each only started with 1 .

This season many managers will have their full quota of 5 as that is how the expansion teams were set up.I thus expect the value of BRB to decline markedly over the next 1 or 2 seasons

It is true that the best barometer of the value of a BRB is the amounts being paid in auctions but not in an unusual season like the inaugural season where the amount of BRB available to everyone is so skewed.

I suspect season 2 and 3 will be equally skewed from the norm but in the opposite direction.

Working out the value of a BRB from the cost it takes to create them is not really a valid choice either as most of the CP are put into the player for their value as a player and not because of the fact that they will ultimately be a BRB.

I suspect in 3 or so seasons when teams normalise and the effects of our starting rosters have worked through a backroom boy will be worth the same or slightly more than a 4/7 player  He is worth at least as much as a 4/7  as the player is more usefull once he becomes an age 5 and can be converted to a BRB. He cannot be worth much more than a 4/7 however as else one should just buy a 4/7 the season before one needs the backroom boy.

I accept a small premium to the 4/7 as a BRB purchased is available immidiately and often a 4/7 wont be available and an age 4 higher SL player would need to be purchased.

So in summary I believe BRB will eventually be worth about the same as a 4/9 player with their value halving when they become age 2.

I think that you're right, Alon.  When I said "provided the market is not flooded with Backroom Boys", I hadn't realised just hwo many there are already in the game.  There are only 35 needed for everyone to have a full compliment of 5, with another ten to be sold by auction this season.  I don't know about anybody else, but I already have enough old players on my roster to take care of BB vacancies next season, and could easily have enough for the season after that, too.

Perhaps there should only be one BB available each auction?  Or to be more radical, have a full complement of five in each close-season auction and none at all during the season.

I have to agree that the price of back room boys will remain in my opinion low as the amount of them is far too high, its incredible to think that we are only in season 2 and that we only need 35 to make a full compliment in each team, we should reduce the amount straight away for me then this would drive up the figure maybe?

The way my roster is set and with my plans on coaching, I should never need to buy another BRB.  I've got it set up to replace 2 one season and 3 the next, and will have the age V, SL 2 or 3 players around to do so each year.  Well, barring some completely unforeseen circumstance that is (like all my schoolboys and apprentices getting injured every match they try to play for an entire season) or unless the rules change.  I'm guessing that several other managers have figured that out as well and the market will dry up by the close of this season.

Some managers may opt for a fresh Age I in the off-season or for a real low price at auction, however I doubt we'll ever see the 500-600 range again unless the market on them is drastically cut back.  Like offering 1 every other session or even rarer than that, such as Andy's suggestion about having them for sale only in the off-season.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback...so two follow-ups.

1) I will make a note for season 3 to review the number of backroom boys to reduce their introduction (perhaps off-season auction only as suggested).

2) Where's my Backroom Boy estimated value formula?  Give me something straightforward to start with.  :-)

Thanks,
Al

I'm not sure there's any point in trying to determine a formula for their value when you can buy an Age V for 264k who can immediately become an Age I BRB.

What I'm after is that currently the auction 'min bid' is really using a player-like formula and I 'think' I put in an SL of 5 on these (it gets automatically calculated...the min bid thing does').

So...with Andy's note above...I'm going to generalize this.

An Age I Backroom Boy's value is 275k (min bid 275k)

An Age II Backroom Boy's value is 225k (min bid 225k)

Don't like those? Give me something else. 

I just want something we can hang our hat on here as opposed to the 'strange' way I value them now (like a I/5 or II/5 player).  Which again, seems strange and I'd rather just have a general value for an Age I BRB and an Age II BRB and there we go.  

Al

Those values don't seem outrageous to me.

If the supply is controlled then the demand would see higher prices paid anyway.

Thanks for the feedback.  I'm going to start with these numbers.

An Age I Backroom Boy's value is 275k (min bid 275k)

An Age II Backroom Boy's value is 225k (min bid 225k)

Al

275k for an age 1 seems reasonably ok, but shouldn't an age 2 be worth at most half as much as an age 1?

If bought at the start of the season the age 2 will be on the roster for half as long as the age 1 (e.g. 1 season vs. 2 seasons).

If bought at mid season he's going to be on the roster for 1/3 of the time of the age 1 (e.g. 0.5 seasons vs. 1.5 seasons).

If bought towards the end of the season the age 2 is going to be almost worthless.

If we say an age 1 BB is worth 280k at the beginning of a season, he's costing exactly14k per session over 2 seasons. So based on a 280k starting price for an age 1, I would say your formula would be something along the lines of:

(280/BB-Age)-(14*Session-Number)

So:

if you bought an age 2 BB in the session 4 auction his value would be (280/2)-(14*4) = 84k

if you bought an age 1 BB in the session 2 auction his value would be (280/1)-(14*2) = 252k

The bigger question is their availability in the transfer market.  I had suggested that they only be available in the close-season auction, which would obviously affect the value.

Maybe I need a "how much is an Age II Backroom Boy worth" poll to solve that? 

Anyway...I probably need an end of year poll or something...

Al

Given that an Age I Youth Coach attracted no bids at all, it seems as though there is a surfeit of BRBs out there.

How about making things a little more challenging and introducing some new types.

Medic: Adds +1 Fitness to all players who start a session with negative fitness.  This is in addition to any fitness gained through not playing and/or coaching.

Marketing Manager: Increase a team's income each session by £x.

Instead of just having a coach, have four: GK/SW, DF, MF and FW - they reduce the cost of coaching those areas only.

I really like the Marketing Manager idea...anyone else like that one?

Al

It does sound intriguing.  There is no other way to impact revenue in this league currently.  The only ways to get cash are 80k per session regardless of results, selling players, and trades.

If we add this BRB, I think the bonus should be per match, not just per session.  That way the bonus can be kept smaller, yet still have some flexibility on total team impact and give a benefit to those teams playing semi-deep into Cup competitions to get extra games without seeing any financial rewards unless they reach the finals.