*Replacing the Salary Cap with a TPE Cap

[Swanty]

I very much like this idea, one consideration I would make would be to tie a player's TPE cap hit exactly to their contract, so that team-building and contract structure stays the same for team balance. I would like to see the concept somewhat abstractified (not a real word but whatever), so you could say that a team has 160 cap points available, and each contract they have on the books eats into that cap. So instead of the current contract minimums, you could have:

<200 TPE: 1 cap point
200 - 399 TPE: 2 cap points
400 - 599 TPE: 4 cap points
600 - 799 TPE: 6 cap points
800 - 999 TPE: 8 cap points
1000+ TPE: 10 cap points

And through all of this you would exactly replicate the current cap system, and GMs would not need to change strategies and the current balance would not be affected whatsoever, BUT you'd still get all of the benefits of teams being able to hand out money to their players in ways that can be fun!

One thing that I think could be a great benefit of this kind of system is that there are a ton of people who are very active in locker rooms and teams very much like having around but they don't have the time or energy to fully earn the league money needed to buy equipment and all that. In the new system teams could award these players with the money they would need for equipment and so on. After all, league money is really supposed to be a reflection of league activity and contributions, and in a lot of ways these people are just as vital as the people who make media or graphics or whatever. Alternatively you could use that money to bridge the gap for people who earn some money off of a league job or something but not enough to max-earn. However writing all of this out does make me think the team budget could potentially be reduced to $40M instead, or something along those lines, so as to limit abuse.

That's a very interesting tweak on the idea. I think this would probably have a much better chance of being passed than my idea as it still retains the strategic planning of contracts.

I'm still not a fan personally of having tiers and would prefer it just being a set formula, but I get that people like the simplicity of the tiers for easier math and easier contracts.

[Frostbite]

I like tiers significantly less. That would literally just make it the current system but with the ability to give anyone money which would definitely be used to just give all the users who don’t have money money, giving almost the whole league the ability to max earn, which wouldn’t be ideal.

[qWest]

The league has been very against any kind of user to user transaction and, while this doesn't tread totally into that territory, I do worry how this system would affect the overall league economy, league jobs etc. I do believe that this would overall lead to a significant TPE boom and a potential competitive imbalance, as smart teams with players that want to win a championship will distribute the salaries to the poorest players, allowing those players to access an additional 30 - 60 TPE per season that they might not have otherwise gained. Ultimately the TPE cap should prevent too much of an imbalance competitively, but I do worry that it will make users working a league job or making media feel less rewarded when they could just try to demand a big chunk of salary from a team and not waste the time contributing to the league.

sure, but no matter how much a team is throwing money at a player they still need to be active to update their player and make use of it. Thus teams will only actually give their money to people they expect to be somewhat active, and in that way I think it can be a nice reward to players that don't earn money right now but are nevertheless valued in the locker room.

Edit: you could significantly reduce the amount of money a team is able to hand out each season to limit abuses, of course, but I don't think 2-3 players on each team being able to buy max equipment each season is really going to fuck up the balance of the league

2-3 players on each team, so like 28-32 more players in the league going up to max earning is a huge shift and would have significant consequences on the league as a whole. Like yes the players still need to be min active to benefit from it, but it's still a significant introduction of TPE into the league. And to the point of rewarding users for being in the LR, that should be the reward itself no? Like wanting to be a part of the community and your team should be a given if you're invested in the league and not necessarily something that should inherently earn you league money.

[Pat]

Let me offer up NIL deals to people under the table as a means to recruit them to sign with my team and you've got a deal.

[speculadora]

-current contract system with minimums scaled by tpe range is already basically designed to do this

designed to do it, sure. does it do it effectively? probably never really has. but I also haven't been a GM in a long time

[br0_0ker]

the current system already creates a TPE cap, albeit in a roundabout fashion. moving away from league $$$ as a proxy would just disincentivize the activities player use to acquire league $$$, such as media and graphics. unless a replacement vessel is offered to incentivize league activity, i'd lean toward "if it ain't broke don't fix it".