Guide

Agents, agencies and sponsor deals

An agent is a member of your team who runs your commercial side: they bring in sponsors, negotiate deals and take a cut. Agents work for an agency (or on their own). Agencies are content: a mod can add new ones, rebalance the core ones or replace them.

Agencies live in data/staff/agencies.json (or any file in data/staff/agencies/). Each file is a JSON array. The editor schema is the agencies reference. Patches target agency:<id>.

An agency#

{
  "id": "acme.agency.arrowhead",
  "name": "Arrowhead Sports",
  "description": "A small firm with big ideas and a lot of friends in the drinks trade.",
  "reputation": 3,
  "commission": [10, 15],
  "retainer": 0.25,
  "contractWeeks": [52, 104],
  "specialities": ["sponsorship"],
  "contacts": ["drinks", "local"],
  "standingMin": 20
}

exhibitions: an agency that specialises in them brings more exhibition bookings, bigger nights and 12% better fees. Every agent finds bookings and takes their cut of the fee.

The loader rejects an agency whose ranges are back to front ([20, 10]), out of bounds, or name an unknown category. It warns when no staff role has a commission effect (nobody could work for the agency) and when a category is listed twice.

Agents in the Team market#

Any staff role with a commission effect is an agent role. Each month some of its candidates are placed with an agency (picked by weight, favouring agencies whose reputation is close to the candidate's level) and the rest are independent (about 30%). An agency pulls its agents' quality toward its reputation.

• Agency agents ask a commission in the agency's range, a retainer of retainer × the role's wage, and sign for contractWeeks.
• Independent agents ask half the role's wage as a retainer, and a cut set by the role's commission effect: the value is the cut at skill 20 and half of it at skill 0 (the core agent: 7.5%–15%).

You hire them through the Team screen like anyone else, offering a weekly retainer (which may be nothing) and a length. On commission, a small retainer doesn't upset them.

Approaches. With no agent on the team, once your standing reaches 20 and the agent role is open to you (through its own availability, or an agency's roleFor), there's a 35% chance each month (at most every six months) that an agent approaches you: usually from the most prestigious agency whose standingMin and roleFor you meet. You get an inbox message with their terms, and they're in the market for the month, keen whatever your standing.

Negotiations#

Every sponsor offer, and every renewal at the end of a season, is a negotiation. You can counter on:

• value per season (between half and 2.5 times their opening),
• length, 1–3 seasons,
• a signing bonus (up to half a season's value, paid at signing),
• performance bonuses: a sum per title (up to a quarter of the value) and per TV final (up to half),
• the targets: keep, ease (one step gentler: a semi-final instead of a final, top 32 instead of top 16, 60% of the followers, an average 4 lower) or drop each one.

The sponsor prices what your counter costs them over a season: the value, the signing bonus spread over the deal, the bonuses at the rate they expect you to win (from your last year), 6% of their opening value for each eased target and 15% for each dropped one, and 5% for each season more or less than they wanted.

They have a hidden reservation (the most a season may cost them: 6–20% over their opening, plus up to 20% more with a good agent, and 5% more for a renewal after a season with every target met) and patience (2–3 counters, plus up to 2 with a good agent). At or under their reservation, they accept and the deal is signed. Over it, they spend a point of patience and come back part of the way; a counter more than 35% over their reservation is an insult and costs two. Out of patience, they walk away and the offer is gone.

Competing bids. Sometimes two brands in one category bid for you at once (12% of approaches, more with an agent, more again in the agency's contacts categories). Play one off against the other: they beat the rival's bid by 3% if they can, match it if they nearly can, or bow out. A rival bid stretches their budget once, by 8%. When one raises, the other drops out unless it can follow. Signing one withdraws the other.

Let your agent handle it. With an agent, they play off any competing bid, then settle a good way towards the sponsor's ceiling (45% of the gap alone, up to 95% for the best), never past it, so the deal always closes.

Commission#

A deal signed while you have an agent carries their cut for its whole life: every monthly payment, signing bonus, performance bonus and season-end bonus pays the agent their percentage, shown in Finances as Agent commission. If the agent leaves, the cut stops. Agents hired in saves from before commission existed keep their flat weekly fee and take no cut.

Stories#

Stories can react to deals (see Stories):

• "hasStaff": "agent" (you have an agent), "staffQualityMax": 2 (a poor one).
• "negotiated": "walkedAway" | "biddingWar" | "agentDeal" | "signed": it happened in the last 4 weeks.
• Text: {agency}, {dealSponsor} (the sponsor in the latest news) and {otherBidder} (the other side of a bidding war).

{
  "id": "acme.story.agent-bragging",
  "trigger": "weekTick",
  "condition": { "negotiated": "agentDeal", "hasStaff": "agent", "chance": 0.3 },
  "title": "{staff:agent} Can't Stop Talking",
  "body": "{staff:agent} has told half the sport about the {dealSponsor} deal.",
  "choices": [{ "id": "fine", "label": "Let them enjoy it", "effects": { "image": 1 } }]
}