Today's update gives the Commercial Department a much bigger role in managing sponsors.

Sponsor capacity is now controlled by Commercial upgrades instead of reach tier, while sponsor campaigns now carry real financial consequences for failure and cancellation.

Sponsor Capacity Moves to Commercial

Sponsor capacity is no longer tied to your Local, Regional, or National reach tier.

Instead, it is controlled by the Commercial Department, with six upgrade levels:

Owner-Managed Sales — 1 campaign
Sales Assistant — 2 campaigns
Sales Team — 3 campaigns
Commercial Office — 4 campaigns
Advertising Division — 5 campaigns
Network Sales — 6 campaigns

Each upgrade requires a progressively larger investment, turning sponsor capacity into a deliberate part of your station development rather than an automatic benefit of reaching a new tier.

Failure Penalties — Real Cash on the Line

Sponsor campaigns now carry a failure penalty based on their difficulty and contract value.

Potential penalties range from:

• Easy: 15–20%

• Standard: 20–25%

• Hard: 25–30%

• Premium: 30–35%

The exact penalty is shown before signing the campaign, so you always know the potential risk.

If you fail to meet the campaign objectives by the deadline, the penalty is deducted from your budget and recorded in your finance history.

Near-Miss Protection

Almost completing a campaign shouldn't feel the same as completely ignoring it.

If you reach at least 75% of both your ad and viewer targets, the failure penalty is reduced by 50%.

Below 75%, the full penalty applies.

Major failures below 40% on both objectives also result in an additional reputation loss.

This gives you a reason to keep pushing until the final hours of a campaign — even when completing every objective is no longer possible.

Cancellation Now Has a Cost

Voluntarily cancelling a sponsor campaign now charges the full failure penalty.

You also lose:

• 1 Sponsor Reputation

• 5 Brand Relationship

The confirmation window shows the exact financial and reputation cost before cancellation.

You must be able to afford the penalty to cancel, preventing the old strategy of collecting an upfront payment and immediately abandoning the contract.

The sponsor slot is freed immediately after cancellation.

Sponsor Penalties in Finance

All sponsor penalties are now recorded as separate transactions in your Finance history.

The Finance section also includes a dedicated Sponsor Penalties expense category, allowing you to track exactly how much failed or cancelled deals have cost your station.

Previously earned sponsor income is never taken back — only the applicable penalty is charged.

Existing Saves

Existing stations are migrated automatically.

Your Commercial Department is given the minimum level required to preserve your current active sponsor campaigns, with no additional charge for the migration.

Legacy Sponsor 1.0 contracts continue under their original rules until they complete or expire. New Sponsor Campaigns 2.0 contracts use the new capacity and penalty systems.

Why These Changes?

Sponsors should be a strategic commitment, not a guaranteed source of income with no downside.

Moving capacity to the Commercial Department makes expanding your sponsor portfolio a real investment, while failure penalties make every contract worth considering before you sign it.

The near-miss system rewards genuine effort, while cancellation costs close the old signing-and-dumping exploit.

Choose your campaigns carefully, manage your capacity, and make every sponsor deal count.