Start Your Franchise

League Settings

To fully control your career in Franchise Mode, you must get to know the League Settings menu very well. Customize these settings to your liking—if you’re playing online in a league, the commissioner will be the only one who can do this.

Things to Do

View Box Score
Negotiate Contracts
View Trade Block
View Free Agency
Start Weekly Training
Install Game Plan
View News

The first screen after you’ve chosen your settings is the Things to Do page, a checklist of what needs to happen before each week starts. Whether it’s the draft, choosing the week’s training, or watching for free agents, everything will be on this screen. If you choose to be heavily involved with your team, you may want to look into each of the tabs that are presented each week.

Preseason

As with most situations, the Preseason can be simulated. Unless you want to get some practice in with your new squad, it’s wise to do this because your players will not suffer any injuries, and they will continue to gain XP and confidence.

Owner Mode

Your funds in the top-right corner of the screen is the most important number to keep track of—it’s what you have to work with. If your league has a salary cap, you may want to keep it in mind when paying your players. The owner has quite a few responsibilities when managing the team in addition to coaching the team. The owner must manage the financial pieces of the team and if this is something for which you want to take responsibility, Owner is definitely the appropriate role. Within the My Owner panel, you have all of the responsibilities the owner has. Here are some tips on how to utilize them:

Owner Goals: Owner goals are normally long term goals as they contribute to the owner’s legacy.
Media Questions: Answering questions posed by the media will directly affect Fan Happiness and Team Popularity. Choosing the right responses is vital for this progression.
Team Value: Tracking your team’s value is important, but not if you are spending like crazy. Make sure you have funds going into the off season because if you are unable to pick up any free agents, the next season may be a rough one.
Finances: Ticket prices should cost as much as your team is worth watching. But increasing the price of admission just to earn the funds necessary to dig yourself out of a hole for next season will come back to bite you.
Marketing: Team popularity drives ticket prices, which translates to ticket sales and Fan Happiness.
Stadium: Upgrading your stadium can help with Fan Happiness, but sometimes relocating can improve things exponentially.
Fan Happiness: Use this tool to track your progress with all of the other Owner features and keep an accurate scope of how you are doing as an owner.
Staff: Staff can be extremely important as they come with perks that both directly and indirectly affect your team and roster.
Team Success: This tab is another grand scale tool that will track the legacy of the team. Use it to see how you’re doing and compare it to the rest of the league.

Once you’ve become familiar with the full list of tools in Owner Mode, you can try out multiple options and play with how they work. Getting a good balance to start off your season and playing with your financials and your response to the media will only help your franchise and gain popularity amongst your community.