I guess the most popular ones are Football Manager (FM) and Out of the Park baseball (OOTP) series. Have you played any other not so well known manager games and enjoyed them?
My first manager game was Championship Manager in the 90s. It was like a drug. We had a player group in school and shared some tactics and player transfer tips. I also played some OOTP maybe 15 years ago when I studied some baseball rules and watched often MLB.
Now I have played some FM (EGS giving them for free all the time), Football tactics and glory, We are football and I’m hoping for OOTP 25 sales before 26 arrives (That series has taken some graphical steps up and they also have MLB license).
I would also pay anything for a quality boxing manager game but I have never found a good one.
The Sports Mogul games go free after a few years, so anyone interested in trying out (american) football mogul or baseball mogul can get those.
https://www.sportsmogul.com/store/c3/footballmogulstore and https://www.sportsmogul.com/store/c2/baseballmogulstore
My other favorite is an older games called football fanatic. Abandoned over 20 years ago, but still plays good, if you can handle the dos-like interface.
Nice. For example Baseball 21 is free. I see that their older games used to be on Steam.
I forgot to mention ”Motorsport Manager” as it’s not a spreadsheet manager. I loved the game. I also tried F1 Manager on Gamepass but I didn’t like it. EGS is giving F1 Manager 24 for free starting tomorrow. Let’s see is the final game of the franchise the best.
