Semi-Pro to Pro Financial Trouble - Ideas?

Hi! For the first time I'm managing a local reputation team. My main concern this moment is the low income per month. My average attendance per match stands at a pitiful 500, which grant me about 5K a month. Merchandising income doesn't get past by 500€ a month and my sponsorship deals are simply pathetic. This is even worse when thinking in terms of expenditure. My players wage expenditure is increasing as a result of higher expectations I develop for this team. Therefore, players wage and staff wage consume a lot of my budget. At this moment, it's not profitable to sell my first team players although I get a lot of offers every week. Chairman only lets me use 20% of the transfer gains. There is an option on the expenditure list named "Other" which is constantly growing (Why?). Further more, season tickets income is also very low, something like 10K. TV revenue only got me 30K this year.

The stadium isn't mine yet. Training facilities are average and the youth facilities are basic. The pitch condition is "ok", which means by the end of the season I may have to replace it, raising the ground maintenance expenditure.

Maybe the most frustrating thing of all is when the transfer window opens and no one wants to join my team. I must admit... I'm using GS to filter my options. Normally, I search for players with a max reputation of 2000, max wage of 500€ a week, but still it's very difficult to sign someone. My team was semi-pro just yesterday but my chairman decided it was time to take a new step, so now I manage a professional team. Yeeeey. But as a result, every player wants a new contract as they don't want to be in a part-time contract and, of course, they want to earn more. Signing good staff members is almost an impossible task because the board won't allow to offer more than 2K per month to a coach.

I know match results are a very huge factor when it comes to the reputation of the team. So, more wins, more money.
But except for that fact, what more can I do to increase my overall income?

The only time my month balance is positive is in June/July, when I get payed for the final classification. But that's terrible, I don't want to rely on a prize money that comes around once in a year.

While many might call it cheating, there is a great way of earning money. Organise away friendly games with teams from other continents with big stadiums. You can earn anything from 7k to 14k from each match. Try indian teams Mohun Bagan, East Bengal in repitition. They will always accept and you will get 10k per match.

When it comes to LLM situation it's always a tough challenge to succeed because you need to have great patience and determination. You need to be very thorough with your choices regarding all aspects of managing your team's employees financially and emotionally.

I'd strongly recommend you to read Jon's article on lower league management for starters.

About finances, I believe I could come up with an interesting article since I always loved this part of the game; taking a team with no money and taking it to the top of the world in terms of team value.

Surely more wins means more money, but there are also a few things you can do that add up some extra finances:

• arrange friendlies with reputable teams (even their reserves)
• look out for bargains and snatch them quick, not always because you need them to add depth but to resell them for profit
• same goes for players who have their contracts run out in 6 months and you can approach for free - another trick could be to loan the ones with 1 year on their contract and once they reach 6 months without a renewal from their team you give it a shot
• do not sell your best players as long as it's not really beneficial for you - 20% is crap, wait until it becomes at least 50%
• see if you can put up a link between your team and a more reputable one, it should get you some extra income (they pay on a yearly basis)
• having decent staff is indeed essential, make sure you apply appropriate filters in staff search keeping this coach formula in mind

I might have forgotten something, but that sums up what comes to my mind at this point. Hope it helps.

P.S. By the way I edited the topic title in an effort to make it more clear as to what the discussion is about; I hope you don't mind.

Thanks for the shout, stam. The most consistent way to bring in money as a lower level team is to milk the preseason by arranging as many friendly games as possible. I've gotten in the habit of scheduling games every 4 or 5 days until a new season kicks off. That will not only help get your team physically ready for the new season but if you can schedule games against high reputation clubs you can bank a lot of money in the process.

It's not wierd at all that you only profit in June and July since your supposed to live right on the edge if your pushing forward... for me it took 2 straight promotions (the last one in to Leauge 2)before my chairman decided to go pro. and regarding the pitchcondition, my pitch was shit from my first season in BS North, it took me three years and a third promotion before i finally decided to fix it... one last way to save money, eaven though i know it's risky, is to hold off on your biggest signings until january or maby eaven later just to cut down your wagecosts...
I've earnd 3 straight promotion without a huge increase in wagecosts (until this summer anyway), and still i have never had more than 400k in the bank...