NFL cap

The War Room Detroit Lions — The Den
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In a season with no fans how much did each team lose? Well, nothing. The latest numbers I could find are from 2019, but this is the breakdown. The average worth of an NFL franchise was $2.86 billion, up 11% from the previous year. In 2018 the value increased by 7%. If you think those numbers went down they may very well have, but I’d bet large not by much. So even in a down year your franchise is now worth $150 million more than the previous season. Then you have the TV revenue…

“Fitch says the NFL estimates each team’s media revenue at $250 million per season. The number gets bigger later in the contract, and each deal is set to expire in the next two years.”

“Ganis estimates each team’s average of stadium-related revenue — tickets, parking, concessions, sponsorships and merchandise among other things — at $130 million annually. The midway point in Forbes magazine’s most recent analysis of stadium incomes for all 32 teams was about $150 million.”

So, if you take the $150 million out of the TV revenue it leaves you with $100 million. Now add the $150 million from the net increase of your franchise, $250 million. Your salary cap is basically $200 million, that leaves you $50 million to pay the other bills.

A wash. maybe. Did you lose money, I doubt it.

“Fitch Ratings recently affirmed its “A-plus” credit mark for the NFL and its properties while noting that the league had approved raising the borrowing limit for each club to $500 million from $350 million.”

Although those numbers are generally meant for capital improvements like stadiums, etc, the point is that loan rates are at all time lows and there is money available for any team that can’t pay their freight and we’re only 2 years away from a new TV contract. NO NFL team has ever “lost” money in modern times, there isn’t a team out there that will have to sell because of 2020. I fully expect that 2021 will see numbers that are very close to “normal”.

So, what does that mean for the cap? Well, I think Deadstroke is right that the cap will remain the same for this season, but the owners will use that to get their 17th game and possibly other concessions. The players are likely to get quite the haircut if they’re FA’s this year, and the teams with money are likely to get some serious deals. We’ve seen the lists on here of who we would all like to kick to the curb and there’s some serious money at stake. This is not a bad time to renegotiate existing players as well, like Flowers. The “re-build” can get kicked into high gear this off season if we have the money to go shopping. This is not a time to be shy.

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I agree with a lot of this re: the cap (though I think the owners will try to be as stingy as possible), but I would almost rather sit out FA this year, load up on comp picks, then really hammer FA next offseason when our cap is really clear, no matter how low the limit is. Almost every FA is at least 25, and most are older. If we’re in for, say, a 2 year rebuild, we need youth and flexibility more than talent who will be at the latter stage of their career by the time we’re ready to compete. Those guys can be added later.

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When you figure the compensatory picks the first thing used is the average dollars per year of the contract signed. I’m not talking about getting ANY hi dollar contracts, I’m talking about players who once went for $10 million may very well go for $5 million this year. And players who went for $5 million may very well go for $3 million this year. The fact is we could sign some serious depth and still get our compensatory picks.

  1. Start with the Average Per Year (APY) of the contract signed.
  2. Subtract from the APY any money that the compensatory formula does not count3.
  3. Rank these players by adjusted APY in descending order, and assign points to each player, equal to [number of leaguewide players]-[rank].
  4. Add anywhere from 25 to 100 points for players who played a percentage of snaps on offense or defense in the range of 25% to 100%. (Kickers and punters are given a different point addition unrelated to snap counts.)
  5. Add 20 or 5 points for postseason honors as determined by the AP’s All Pro list, and the PFWA’s All NFL/All Conference list.

FA starts March 17th, I don’t want to be first one in or last one out. By then we should know what the actual cap is, I can’t imagine not knowing.

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This is what I expect to happen, cap stays where it’s at…

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I think it might go down a little, but not a lot . . . too much carnage. I’ve been saying since mid summer that I expected them to find a way for it to be above $190M. The next wave of TV contracts aren’t going to double, but they will be close.

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That’s the thing, they can spread this thing out with no cost that can’t be recouped if they wanted to do so. Even leaving the cap where it’s at this year was set to have some serious carnage. In the end it is an opportunity for teams that have cap space to make it work. Do you know when they officially announce what the cap will be?

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They’ve announced it right before the season began a couple of times (when negotiating CBA extension). I would expect sometime around a week before the league year begins.

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How are teams suppose to sign players when they don’t know what the cap is?

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They can’t officially sign players before the league year starts. Plus most teams will probably have an idea of what the cap is because they will all be in touch with the NFL management team as they negotiate with the NFLPA.

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Ah, league year yes, March 17th, thanks, same time free agency starts.

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season . . . league year . . . same thing (at least in my head). Sorry, yes sometime 03/08-03/17 is my guess.

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I think you can go after a couple of FA if you get them great if not just sign cheap fillers . there will be solid players but older who will be released during FA an for some times to just get to cap whatever it is.

I would like them to go hard after a couple of young FA example would be Marcus Williams, FS he is very young an very good. He would be hitting his prime in two years an he already is good,

A couple in that bracket for age an talent would work. But i agree we also should look at extensions for a couple of are top end players. who will be UFA after this season Ragnow I would try get him signed long term this year.

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The NFLPA is predicting it to drop to 180Mil.

I tend to take notice when the players association thinks it’s dropping that far.

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Here’s what the Lions cap looks like:

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image1024×706 107 KB

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Nice…

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Looks like Mr Wood is going to have to get real good at creative accounting and kicking a bunch of cans down the road.

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That’s Disner’s job … lol

If 180 mil is right then it’s going to be interesting to see how teams manage that.

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All of that is good analysis…but just because your house went up 15 grand in value last year doesn’t mean you have 15k in income.

An NFL franchise is illiquid, and I’m not sure how easy or hard it is to get a “home equity LOC” on one if them…and I’m sure most owners don’t want to do that when they can just do some backroom harrumphing and David Copperfield up a New Improved Cap Number and smooth the numbers out later.

The Big 5 get Big Money to do that stuff and then produce a “clean” audit notice.

Worked for Enron and Arthur Anderson for a long tine…until it didnt

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No, it means that your assets increased by that much, and in the case of the NFL in modern times those numbers have never gone down. And with the new TV contracts coming in the next two years people in the stands will become less and less relevant. Ponzi schemes exist, but do you really think that the NFL and it’s teams fall into that category?

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Who does Disner work for…lol?