Are you saying I win or lose the hypothetical simulation?
I forgot I'm the one who put the floor in budgets
Your way is defnitely the way to go now, still wasn't in OOTP15 I don't think. Every team makes $55M+ automatically, $30M is automatic for national media, $20Mish average for local media and then merchandising adds what it adds. Schauwn will make at least $57M automatically from here on out and it should keep going up a little bit each year until it peaks.
The only thing you're really wrong about is schauwn's future budget during Rat's reign of terror. He could very easily make it to $130M if he wanted to, but I don't think he should.
$57M from media/merch already this year. $27M already for season tickets. That's $84M. Projected at $22M for regular tickets, $106M at least. If he wins a bit, he's going to sell more tickets. So at Schauwn's worst (last year) he's making $91M. This year he's projected at $106M. So from here on out he's going to just be breaking even as long as he wins 30 games.
Every 1,000 fans he gets to come is $2M a year in revenue if he keeps his prices at $25. If he starts winning 50+ games a year he gon be bringing in 30k+ fans. That's an extra $12M in revenue without raising prices. I'm just telling you if he doesn't spend he's going to be around $125M in budget.
I think he should spend what he can on IFA and say fuck his budget though, he's going to jump a ridiculous amount after Rat anyway. There are a lot of ways he could play this honestly, and the best financially is to hold all of his prospects down for another year at least. Ideally he'd want their last minimum year to be the year after Rat is gone so that he gets that year of $20M payroll while winning a ton. Buy out their arb that year so the contracts kick in in 2053.