BuzzerBeater Forums

Hoarding Tax Q&A:

陈硕良 [forum]

I support the goal of shortening team cycles and encouraging asset circulation. In the long run, a higher asset holding tax can help reduce excessive asset accumulation and keep the economy moving.

My concern is the speed of the change rather than the direction. Increasing the tax rate from 10% to 20% while lowering the threshold from 25M to 15M in a single season is a very significant adjustment. Such a large change is likely to cause a major repricing of player assets rather than a gradual transition.

In the short term, the announcement itself may create a rush of market activity, as many managers will try to adjust their assets before the higher tax takes effect. This could create temporary inflationary pressure and distort player prices. After the new system is introduced, however, the increased holding cost and reduced purchasing power may lead to a significant downward adjustment in player valuations.

The main concern is that this transition may create a market shock rather than a natural adjustment. Managers may be forced to make similar decisions at the same time, causing unusual supply and demand pressure in the transfer market. The resulting price movements may be driven more by the timing of the policy change than by normal market dynamics.

Another possible consequence is the impact on training investment. With the tax threshold reduced from 25M to 15M, many players who previously had no holding tax burden may see their market value adjusted downward due to the increased cost of ownership. However, training costs would remain unchanged, which could reduce the return on investment for training-focused teams. Reviewing training costs in the future may be necessary to maintain a healthy balance between player development and the new asset taxation system.

For these reasons, I would suggest considering a more gradual implementation. As an illustrative example only, the tax rate could move from 10% to 13%, then 16%, and finally 20% over several seasons, while the threshold could also be reduced gradually from 25M to 15M. The exact figures are not important, but a phased approach would allow the market to adapt more naturally while still achieving the goal of shortening team cycles.

I support the objective of the policy, but I believe a slower transition would produce a healthier and more stable outcome for the game economy.

tunjevina [forum]
As someone who, until a few weeks ago, thought the hoarding tax already started at $15m, I fully support this change.

BB has always been a long-running game, but when I started in Season 15, you could reach the top level in half of the time it takes now.

Making money in BB was much, much easier for new managers. With no minimum salaries and no boycott, you had the option to tank whenever your wallet needed a boost. In Div I, tanking could get you $700k+ per week, or $10m+ in a season. It was also easier to make money through training, because to train a quality player who isn't falling behind the players on the TL, you didn't need to spend money on a gym, youth coach, or training field. You could also day-trade if you wanted to. All of this meant that new managers could catch up financially to the ones at the top faster.

But too many managers were tanking every season, making the competition less fun. So I supported many of the restrictions that were implemented and thought they were necessary. However, they also made the game much slower for new managers, while those of us who started earlier got to profit from BB's Wild West era.

I see no reason for anyone to have more than $15m in their budget. This should be a basketball manager first, not a financial simulator where the winner is decided among the 4-5 richest teams.

It seems to me that reducing the maximum budget would level the playing field a bit, allow newer managers to catch up with us older ones faster, and ultimately make the competition more i

tunjevina [forum] continued

That being said, I understand the concern about implementing this change within a single-season. If the number of users with $10m+ is around 1200, as Alonso said, and at least 200-300 users have $15m+, that would mean those managers would have to spend around $1B in total this season. And if we assume that most of them already have all the necessary infrastructure considering how rich they are, a large portion of that $1B would have to be injected into the TL.

The managers who would be hit hardest are those who dropped to the lowest divisions and aren't able to be active this season due to other commitments. They would effectively be forced to become active this particular season or risk losing up to $10m. Furthermore, spending $5-10m in a single season in a lower division is simply far too much.

I think managers should be given 3 seasons to gradually reduce their budgets from $25m to $15m. That should give everyone enough time to adjust, and reduce the risk of creating a sudden large injection of money into the TL.

For example:
Season 74: 25m -> 22m
Season 75: 22m -> 19m
Season 76: 19m -> 15m

Misagh[forum]
It’s interesting to me that most users seem to support reducing the cash reserve cap from $25M to $15M. For teams competing at the Division 2 or Division 3 level, you generally don’t need that much money. But if you want to reach the top level, you absolutely need that kind of financial reserve.

Most B3 teams compete with 7- or 8-man rotations. Considering the developers’ apparent desire to encourage teams to use more players, even $25M is a relatively small amount of money.

The policies being implemented simply don’t seem to align with the direction and goals the developers themselves have stated for the game.

Fanega [forum]
I couldn't agree more with the previous posts. This major change is going to have a snowball effect throughout BB, including causing managers to leave the game. A more gradual implementation, as many have suggested, should be seriously considered.

js8[forum]
Again, I think this change is actually positive, but the way it's being implemented is not, with no notice period of this happening. This is going to have a serious effect on the market, causing inflation due to managers wanting to get rid of the surplus cash they'll be taxed on.

bryce_gibbs[forum]
Yes something is coming, but no one could predict something so crazy could happen.

The game is supposed to be played in good faith, there is no other reason to make such a rapid reduction to $15m other than to screw over managers with higher balances. The most worrying thing is when they were discussing the implementation of these changes and the effects it would have, they would have weighed up doing it over 1-5 seasons, so by choosing one season and a 20% penalty, the only conclusion we can draw is that it was their goal to inflict maximum damage.

When the game was on its last legs and the servers weren't loading, when the website kept crashing, it was these managers that kept paying for supporter and Utopia with no guarantees of the future, now they get F'd over intentionally.

CoachQ[forum]
I think you are missing the point, just like the decisions makers did.

There would be a lot to say about why the game is being played the way it is today and I do understand the logic to try and tweak it, here and there, to make it more accessible, more dynamic, etc. But i will go straight to the point:

How on earth can one possibly believe that this 25 to 15M and 20% tax, implemented from the very next season, would be a good idea at all?? This is appalling. As read in many messages above, ambitious managers are planning their roster and financial strategies 2 years ahead - sometimes more! that's 8-10 seasons ahead!

Everyone plays the game fair and square, everyone tries to find the right strategy, and attempting to be successful at the highest level requires times, planning, scouting, training; it often includes twists, setbacks, it demands patience - a loooot of it.

Implementing this rule in 3 months would kill years of efforts for hundreds of managers instantly, it would - literally - completely change the game as soon as today! I think it would be a total lack of respect toward managers who are playing this game seriously if this is implemented from next season. Those managers didn't steal anything from anybody and would be all of a sudden penalised.

This change must be implemented smoothly, slowly, with thresholds, giving managers to adjust. In my humble opinion, rushing into this would be, by far, the worst decision in the history of this game and would clearly demotivate many talented managers who, again, have been patiently preparing for years and would feel robbed.

Fanega[forum]
Yeah, absolutely. I am one of them, with both teams and I will adjust and do my best, but likely I will close the door after this project. I have been calculating, waiting for my time and suddenly I have to replan and change it all. As u say, its been a slap in my face and due to time invested I will end this cycle, but after that, bye bye

Finally, my answer to the hoarding tax questions and statements:

A: Hoarding tax, as it was up to now had little or no effect on discouraging tanking, a long term strategy that kills the competitiveness and is very obviously counter to the whole spirit of the sport, not to mention how it's ruining the fun for everyone else involved. This tax was way too low for way too long, and a sharp cut was needed: we will no longer tolerate such strategies within the game. You might disagree on the timeline, and I understand the sentiment, but what you are are mostly proposing is giving the teams that use a very unsportsmanlike strategy more time to spend their money on what we deem very undesirable. Why would we want to reward such behavior? It is better to try and force these teams back to regular competitiveness as fast as possible, and be done with such nonsense once and for all. Yes, this means that we will consider making the tax even stricter, since 15M is still a lot of money.

And yes, there are teams that dropped divisions to do this, but we never said we we're going to support this, on the contrary, it was counter to to what we were saying since hoarding tax was implemented. To say that this is a welcome, but to rash a decision is a very contradictory: do you want the game to be better or not? Do you want it to get better as fast as possible or not? Should we allow for unsportsmanlike behavior or not? In my view, it should have been implemented a long time ago, best second best time is now.

On the concerns on the effects on the transfer market, do not worry, there is lots of room for the prices to grow, we want them higher, they incentivize training and scouting. I'm more worried what happens if they go down after this season, but that could be fixed by a even stricter hoarding tax in the future. We will continue to monitor and adapt.

In the meantime, a full season is a lot of time for a small number (yes, we are talking about a small percentage) of teams to spend their extra money, so it will not balloon the market overnight nor will it upend the BB economy negatively. This is also lots of time for managers to switch out from what they thought was a painful, but necessary strategy, and to them I say this: No longer will you need to give up competitiveness for long periods of time, just for a chance at glory. You can adapt and you can return, and you will enjoy the game a lot more doing it!

Last edited by BB-Marin at 8/13/2026 10:22:49 AM

I think there is a fundamental contradiction here, and it has very little to do with BuzzerBeater specifically. This is basic economics.

You are trying to achieve two things at the same time:

Reduce the amount of cash managers are able to hold, potentially moving the effective ceiling from $25M to $15M and perhaps even lower in the future.
Keep transfer-market prices high, or even push them higher.

In the short term, both can happen at once. In the long term, however, they naturally work against each other.

The basic framework is the quantity equation:

M × V = P × Q

Where:

M = money supply
V = velocity of money
P = price level
Q = quantity of goods/transactions

When the hoarding threshold is suddenly reduced, you can temporarily increase V dramatically. Managers who were holding $20M, $25M or $30M now have a strong incentive to spend that money quickly before it is taxed.

That can absolutely create short-term inflation in the Transfer List.

In other words, money that was previously sitting inactive in bank accounts suddenly starts chasing players.

So I completely understand the argument that prices may rise this season.

But that is a transition effect. It is not the long-term equilibrium.

After the excess cash has been spent, if the system continuously prevents managers from rebuilding large cash reserves, and increasingly removes money through taxation, then M falls.

Once the one-time increase in velocity has played out, you cannot keep increasing V forever to compensate for a continuously smaller money supply.

All else being equal:

lower M → lower aggregate purchasing power → downward pressure on P.

This is not a BuzzerBeater theory. This is one of the most basic relationships in monetary economics.

If tomorrow a real-world economy doubled its money supply while producing the same amount of goods, we would expect upward pressure on prices.

If you remove a large part of the available money from the economy while keeping the supply of goods broadly similar, the opposite pressure exists.

Obviously the relationship is not perfectly mechanical because velocity, supply, expectations and other variables matter. But you cannot continuously reduce purchasing power and simultaneously assume asset prices will remain structurally higher without another variable compensating for it.

There is also an important distinction between spending money and destroying money.

If I buy a player for $8M, most of that $8M does not disappear from the BB economy. It moves from the buyer to the seller. The transaction increases circulation, but it does not meaningfully reduce the total money supply except for transaction taxes or other sinks.

A hoarding tax is different. Money removed by the tax is actually destroyed.

Therefore a harsher hoarding tax can create two opposite effects at different times:

Short term: managers rush to spend → velocity rises → player prices can rise.

Long term: cash reserves are smaller and money is continuously removed → purchasing power falls → player prices face downward pressure.

This is why I find the statement that, if prices fall later, an even harsher hoarding tax could be the solution very difficult to reconcile economically.

It may create another temporary spending rush. But once that adjustment is complete, you have removed even more purchasing power from the system.

You cannot repeatedly solve a shortage of demand by further reducing the amount of money available to demand.

If the objective is simultaneously to have:

smaller cash reserves,
less tanking,
shorter team-building cycles,
larger/more competitive rosters,
and higher player prices,

then something else has to compensate.

For example, the game would need some combination of higher recurring revenues, lower non-player expenses, greater demand for players, reduced supply of high-quality players, more roster spots that are economically viable, or some othe

, or some other mechanism that increases effective purchasing power or demand.

Otherwise there is a mathematical limit to what managers can pay.

Imagine that under the old system ten competitive teams can collectively bring $200M of available purchasing power into a market segment.

If, after several seasons of tighter taxation and lower cash ceilings, those same teams can collectively bring only $120M, you cannot simply expect the same group of assets to become permanently more expensive unless something else has changed.

The money to pay those prices has to come from somewhere.

And this is why I think the short-term market reaction is being confused with the long-term economic effect.

Yes, forcing managers to spend their accumulated money can inflate the TL right now.

But after that accumulated stock of money is gone, permanently restricting the amount managers can accumulate is fundamentally deflationary unless another part of the economy offsets it.

So if the long-term goal is genuinely to make players more valuable and encourage training because selling players should generate higher returns, then I think the entire money-flow model has to be considered together.

You cannot look only at the hoarding tax.

Income creation, salaries, training costs, infrastructure costs, transfer taxes, cash ceilings, roster requirements and the supply of trained players are all parts of the same economy.

Changing one of the biggest variables in that system while expecting the opposite long-term price effect is not really a BuzzerBeater question.

It is Economics 101.

Drop the axe.

The more I read the arguments for postponement, the less sympathy I have for teams sitting on $25M+ in their banks. There will, theoretically, be a massive influx of cash into the market from teams that currently have more than $25M. Nobody should be surprised if that creates some short-term inflation in player prices on the TL.

But the spending won’t stop there. That money will eventually end up in the banks of other managers, who will themselves have an incentive to spend it ---- > most likely on the TL again. Over time, prices will stabilize under the new system.

And if some teams don't spend their money because they are inactive or hibernating, and instead lose it through taxation, I don't see how that negatively affects transfer prices. After the change, those teams will eventually drop down to $15M, which is effectively just as relevant to the market as their $25M was before the change.

So I really don't see the need to postpone this any further. Let the system do what it's supposed to do.

Many of these issues could have been solved with some simple changes a long time ago.

1) The ability to train players past Legendary (20) should never have been allowed. Hard capping at 20 would have forced managers to focus on training other skills and avoided these unbalanced monsters that require farm teams focused only on training, which in turn leads to hording money and skill inflation all across the board.

2) The nature of the game with individual country pyramids created the pieces for the unbalance system we have now from the very start. When there were 50,00 users, sure it wasn't a problem. However, it is not a coincidence that the hording and financial issues started cropping up when the user base declined and reduced the jeopardy or relegation and financial pain in some pyramids to point of irrelevance. Frankly, there should have been more consolidation and far fewer league pyramids much, much earlier.

This also included the creation of Utopia by the way. Aside from being a way for the game owners to generate more cash flow for the game (not a bad thing), it was a big catalyst that put many of the games problems into overdrive.

3) The training system has been broken from the start. It's original design is far too limited, both in number of trainees and being limited to one primary skill at a time. This type of system was always going to be prone to failure under circumstances that eventually occurred. Again, when there were 40,000-50,000 users, it worked because there were more players being trained. However, as the user base fell, instead of fixing the training system accordingly, the powers that be resorted to cheap fixes that made thing worse.

Take your pick of extra staff (Youth Trainers in particular), new facilities (Gym, Training Court), or bumping starting skills on draftees, all of them have contributed to the standardized training patterns (1v1, OD, ID, etc.), unbalanced builds, the proliferation of 150+ TSP monsters, and far, far, far too many individual skills over 20.

Managers should have had the ability to train multiple players in different skills at the same time from the start. That would have encouraged creativity in training, allowed the ability to create more skilled players to use and sell, and, most crucially, allowed manager to rebuild without tanking. That would have shown who truly has skill instead of who can horde the most money or build the biggest trainer farm.