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the changes we have made to the economy due exactly the opposite of what you suggest here. We are going to design player salaries to be fixed and tuned to global income, so that salaries and revenue are explicitly tied together, so that we can assure long term economic stability. This free agent release we see as a short term measure addressing a short term problem, and we still have confidence in our long term plan. We did a poor job predicting how changes we made, and still believe were neccesary were going to affect the market.
Lets review for instance the arena decision. SOME top teams were building huge arenas and huge fan bases, if this continued we would see as you said "the same teams as top teams" all the time, and promoted teams would not be able to build an arena large enough quick enough to compete. So, we made it harder to fill larger arenas, and change the attendance formula such that overall teams earned about the same, but there was less of a spread in amount of income at top divisions. In doing so we felt it was unfair to teams that build huge arenas to change the rules and make their perfectly reasonable long term strategy a penalty, and so we allowed for the arenas deconstruction, which caused this temporary influx of extra cash into the system.
In addition, we announced changes in the marketing revenue, which did increase marketing revenue, but were offset in part by the increase in salaries.. remember previously we were reducing the revenue sharing tax as time went on to keep balance with rising salaries. This was not intended to inject a large amount of money into the system.
Rather than continue this game of raising revenue to match rising salaries, we decided long term it would be better to keep global salary costs more fixed, and so we announced this change to avoid having to announce other changes season after season and have a more constant set of rules. Some seem to have misinterpreted that salaries are going to be going down in the future, or that their specific teams salaries are not going to go up anymore, no matter what level they are competing at... and therefore believe they have more money to spend.
Each of these has led to a temporary fiscal and psychological impact on the market causing prices to rise.. and rise more than we expected, and we are concerned about the inevitable correction that will follow when the bubble bursts, and have thus taken action to rise to limit the size of the uptick in the bubble. We don't think that this action is a major action, but we do hope that it makes the market take a second look at the decisions they are making and reconsider their long term strategy.
Those who are upset at the fact that prices are going to fall because of the free agent release, i would say that prices were going to fall no matter what it was only a question as to from what height, and at what time. The realities of the economics were such that we were convinced we were looking at a bubble.. prices were rising at an unsustainable rate. we stepped in and put our foot down on the party.. not a popular move, but a move I think we all wish were done on the housing bubble before things got too bad. Or at least that is how we view it.