Moved on from my Mineiro save and decided to tackle Lobos BUAP in Mexico.
I've had a few good saves with them on past versions. But the last one on FM18 was kinda buggy. Hoped they had fixed it since I reported it, but appears to be a hard nope.
Lobos are a university club (there are a few of them in Mexico) who got promoted two years ago, quite unexpectedly. They are still second division in quality, which makes them a bit of an interesting challenge. The majority of the starting squad is on loan from other Liga MX clubs, there isn't much money, the facilities are mediocre, and the contracted players are equally mediocre. I enjoyed running them because its POSSIBLE to do reasonably well and get a bit of money to build a squad that is entirely your own within 2-3 seasons. Mexico produces some good newgens and you can bring thru 4 and 5 star newgens from South America.
The problem I ran into on the last save I tried with them on FM18 was monetary. In Mexico, clubs tend to be rich but they are that way due to sponsorship incomes more than anything else. Most clubs have strong attendances, but the per-ticket income is low. There is almost no prize money from the competitions. Participation money is decent but not huge. But sponsorships can be like $30m or more. A bit part of that is clubs having individual TV deals, which can be hugely lucrative for the biggest clubs.
There seem to be two fundamental problems. One is that the club has a low reputation to start - lowest in Liga MX, which is probably realistic. Like in other leagues, sponsorship incomes link to club reputation. The second problem is that Lobos don't have a TV deal of their own. This is accurate, but it means the club never gets an individual TV.
On my first go around with Lobos, I managed to sign several very good first day newgens and selling one of those after the first to Dortmund for like 30m alleviated any financial issues. The second save, I also signed those kind of players but didn't sell any, and the club lost a ton of money. Never got an individual TV deal and reported it as a bug to SI. I was told that the individual deal was "replicated" in other broadcasting incomes, but that never really seemed to be the case. The biggest Liga MX clubs can get like 30m a season from their TV deals, and despite getting our rep up there, the club never got near that.
So I finally tried Lobos on FM19, hoping this was resolved. The club starts with something like 4.5m in the bank but only 170K to spend. That was used up signing a couple of free players. Media Prediction is to finish bottom, so I figured making the playoffs would be a good season. Finished around 5th in the Aperatura, made the playoffs, and lost out in the first round to Leon. In the Closura, we again made the playoffs but nearer the top of the table, got some good matchups in the playoffs, lost several of the matches but did well enough in the other legs, and ended up winning the Closura. Also won the Closura Copa MX. The latter got us almost $1m in prize money. It was pretty dicey at times - played a 4-3-3 and literally had 2 MCs and 1 DM for those positions, and if someone couldn't play, I had to play a winger out of position in the middle. We finished the season almost 2m in the red.
I was hoping to get some decent money for sponsorships and therefore have a bit of money to spend. The club reputation went up to about 12th in Mexico. Since so much of the squad is loans, there is a rebuild required.
New commercial deals... was about 3.5m. And the board gave me $74K to spend.
$74,000.
After the loanee players leave, the club has 12 players under contract. 2 more returning from loans. 3 want to leave. The reserve and youth players are nowhere near an adequate quality to contribute. I can't even target a glut of free signings to fill the squad as most will want a signing bonus and that eats into the transfer budget, plus there isn't a ton of wage budget either. So.... can't exactly build anything. I do have a couple of newgens who my scouts found coming in, but most wont' arrive until the third season due to their age and since most generated at lower-level clubs, aren't coming in as a immediate wonderkids.
I checked using an external editor, and the new sponsorship deals we got are about on-level with what 2nd division clubs got in Mexico, rather than Liga MX clubs with a similar reputation to what ours increased to. So its still buggy. But I've already posted it to SI and got told its all good, so not much point to doing that again.
The finances are just unworkable. At the current rate of loss, we would be negative $4m after the second season or lower. On FM18's second save with the club, the lowish sponsorship incomes continued even after the second season when the club rep had improved more significantly, so no reason to expect it to be resolved.
I ended up starting up a new save Pumas, which is one of the Grande clubs of Mexico. Big club, big stadium, big fanbase, good facilities, but current squad isn't up to the level of the club. A chance to build. But it never really grabbed me. A bit too easy. Think I might try Blackburn again.
