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Money from supporters

Written by HPE-relu_

A major source of income considered in all aspects!

As a virtual club managers we don't have to worry about hooligans acts of fanatics supporters. Even if we lose more games in a row nobody jumps the fence into the ground and we are not contested everywhere because we change coaches too often and only do just what we care with the club. :))
Being more diplomatic than the owners of real life, we understand that we must have a good relationship with the supporters because they contribute to the club treasury with large amounts of money.

The most constant income is from tickets sold at championship home matches, cup matches and friendlies. To optimize it we should consider the major factors which are influencing them: the fans mood and fan-club size.

The easiest way to keep high the fans mood and attract more supporters is to fulfill their expectations.
At the beginning of the season fans will tell us, on their page, what they expect from the team. Their expectations mainly depend on last season ranking and previous results of the club.
If we had one weak season fans won't ask the impossible in the following championship. Before they proclaim their expectations, they have a meeting and analise first of all the number of points obtained and then the place that was ranked our team in the recently ended season.
For supporters isn't important that we finished the 2nd or 5th place as long as these positions have the same number of points.
In terms of fan-club supporters, who pay money on subscriptions and contribute at the end of the season, it is important to remember that there is a maximum limit for each league. So we cannot expect to have 2,500 members in the gallery when we play in league 7, for example.

Each game awakens an interest from the fans. On the supporters page we can see their expectations each week. If we can overcome or at least not disappoint them, their state will encourage the influx of spectators at matches. I, rather prefer to lose a home match because I can adjust the fan status with a victory in the next game played away. So fans will be happy in my next home match and the wallet will not suffer.
Upgrading of the supporters mood is done even after the conclusion of an official match. Season expectations are updated immediately after the last league match. If you are playing a qualification match the expectations will be corrected after the match to fit the new situation.

It is no secret that the team attitude and money reserve influence supporters positively or negatively, as appropriate.
Settings on the players attitude in the game (match of the season or play it cool) affect the temper of the fans depending on the outcome of the match.
If the result is in line with expectation, or better, then play it cool attitude will reduce the possitive efect on supporters and match of the season will increase it.
If the final score is weaker than their expectation, then play it cool setting will increase the negative effect and match of the season will decrease it.
If you have a lot of money, fans will be somehow harder to satisfy because they feel that you can invest in improving the team. Supporters of rich teams react stronger to defeat and less to the victory than those of the poor clubs. The more money we have in our account, these expectations of the public will be bigger.

The only category of specialists who directly influence supporters are spokespersons. Theoretically we can employ many but it is important to note that the effect of each additional specialist gradually decreases. Two are better than one and four are better than two, but the effect is not double. It's recommended a maximum of 10.

Weather is also important. Fewer spectators will come to the stadium on bad weather, but those to come will be interested to buy more expensive tickets, under the roof which costs 18 euro. We can find the weather forecast with a click on the county or the region, as appropiate, in which our team is registered. It is updated daily and is displayed for two days. For the current day we can be sure about the weather but nothing is excluded for the next day, though.
As in real life, prognosis can fail sometimes. However if it rains today is more likely it will rain tomorrow, too... or will be rather cloudy sky than sunny day.
According Hattrick Infocenter the influx of spectators to the weather can be translated as a percentage like this:

-Sunny = 100%
-Clear skies/Sunny = 95%
-Cloudy = 87%
-Rain = 71%

Meaning that when the sky was cloudy there would be a crowd turnout of 87% compared to the turnout if the weather had been sunny.

(http://www.hattrickinfo.com/en/matches/211)

Ticket revenues also depend on the structure of our stadium.
It's a good idea to have a mix of different types of seats for our fans. Most people want to buy tickets to the terraces, therefore these should be the largest in number, among your seats types. Some people only attend matches if they have seates to sit down and some will demand a roof over their heads, so you should have quite a lot of those, too.
There is also some who want watch the game from the comfortable armchairs in VIP sector. They're not that many but they pay 32,5 euro per ticket compared to 6.5 euro from the lawns.
The seats under the roof and VIP lounges aren't affected as much by the bad weather as the other types.

But when we should modernize the stadium and how much?

We may adopt the following tactics: closely monitor the occupation degree of different sectors and when we see that a certain area is full or nearly full 2 games in a row, expand the sector. This only if assumptions as in the following matches we get positive results. Otherwise we expand in vain ...
Or we use different tools such as:
(http://www.arenaoptimizer.es/);
(http://nrgjack.altervista.org/eco.php?t=8000&...0&v=0);
(http://www.htarena.org/);
(http://www.databased.at/hattrick/x-ray/index.asp?sta...=1250).

Before the end of the season, it is imperative to keep in mind that for two weeks we won't have significant income from tickets (or is much reduced, to the level of revenue that is characteristic to friendlies). And if the first match of the new season will be away, things are even more serious. All this without taking in discussion the reset off the supporter's mood, which also means less money we receive in the beginning of the new season.
It is customary that during period between seasons to expand the stadium, although it is recommended that this expansion to take place around mid-season, when fans are happier and thus more willing to fill the stadium. We must calculate the time limit for completion of the work (a week or more, depending on the size of construction) so the expansion will be ready before a certain match!

Finally we turn back to the fans and remember that positive results are the suitable recipe for increasing their number every week.
Moreover promotion means a 10% increase in the number of supporters.
Let's keep in mind that negative results, in exchange, will banishes weekly the fans and in case of relegation 10% of those enrolled in the fan-club are to annoyed to go on and leave us.
We will suffer losses in this chapter if we decide to change the team's name or move our club to another county, too. But this time the percentage is only 3%.

This article was written with the support of several members from BH LTD (82955) and I want to publicly thank them for their support!