Program Budget

Your Dynasty-Point (◆) budget is earned, not handed to you by tier. It is the sum of your four school-grade point values: Conference Prestige, Brand Exposure, Stadium Atmosphere and Program Tradition.

Two programs on the same star rating can run very different budgets, because the budget follows what a program has actually built. Your live total and your unspent balance are on My Hub.

Three things follow:

• It funds everything — coaching staff, facilities, retention and recruiting all come out of the same pool.
• It resets at the end of every season. Unspent points do not roll forward, so hoarding is waste, not saving.
• Last season's retentions are already charged against it — see Player Retention in 🏟️ Roster & Position Changes.

Talent Acquisition = high school NIL + transfer portal NIL. Keep it under 25% of your total ◆ budget — 30% if you run the Portal Program philosophy, which leans on the portal by identity.

Retention, coaching staff and facilities sit outside the guideline entirely and are unrestricted. This is a rule about the share of your program you pour into new talent, not a limit on what you may spend.

Your Program Blueprint on My Hub tracks target against actual all cycle. Enter your real remaining allotment from the game and the smaller of the two numbers binds — the league guideline never gives you more room than the game gave you.

Your Program Philosophy is your recruiting identity, and it does one mechanical thing: it splits the Talent-Acquisition share between high school and the transfer portal.

There is no best answer. Developmental at a rebuild and Portal Program on a hot seat are both correct. Pick the program you are trying to become, and let it make the hard call in February.

Changing it: by default your philosophy is a free calculator — switch it on My Hub any time and watch the split move. A commissioner may instead run committed mode, where philosophies lock in for several seasons once the league begins its season. My Hub tells you which mode your league runs and whether you are locked.

It is a soft line, not a wall. Being past it usually means something deliberate — a keystone signing, a rebuild year, a portal raid to fix one broken position group. Those are legitimate ways to play a season, and the line exists to make you notice you are doing it.

Legacy Manager shows you when you are past it. It will not stop you, and there is no automatic points penalty for going over. If a program's spending ever becomes a genuine competitive problem, that is a commissioner conversation under Playing in Good Faith in 🏈 Gameplay & Settings — judged in context, with the season in front of you, not sentenced by a table.