When people talk about the now-doomed Redskins (which, BTW, I hate with a passion only a formed D.C. resident can muster), they always talk about how Snyder collected a team of superstars by paying $100 million in salaries. I always thought this was the total in salaries over a multi-year period, but I was told this weekend by a friend who closely follows the NFL that it is $100 million in salaries this year.
I thought the NFL had a relatively hard salary cap somewhere in the low $60 mil range. If Snyder is shelling out 9 figures, how is he getting away with it?
I think the 100million figure comes from the money they are paying the free agents over the life of their contracts.
Also remember that signing bonuses are pro-rated over the life of the contract for salary cap purposes.
Someone else will be able to give you a more detailed answer, but part of the trick is done by signing longer-term, graduating contracts with big signing bonuses. You pay a big bonus up front, and promise a lot down the line. But the signing bonus is divided among the total time of the contract. So Deion’s $8 mil signing bonus only counts as $1.14 against the cap ($8M / 7 years = $1.14M). If Deion splits after two years, the rest of the salary doesn’t have to be paid, but the bonus may still count against the cap.
(Thwack! Splat.)
Here is an article which mentions that during the off-season this year, Washington had a lot of wiggle room. (I think that George, Smith, and Sanders may have changed that picture somewhat.)
The point of the cap is to avoid what’s happened to baseball happening to football - large market teams with more money being able to afford the better players, thus creating a league of haves and have-nots.
On a slight digression (or a hijack), pro football’s revenue streams are completely different from baseball’s. Football draws fewer fans to the stadiums. It also shares its regular season and playoff television revenue among all the 31 (soon to be 32) franchises. Football also makes a lot more money from its TV contracts than baseball does. Also, the baseball players are much better organized than the football players.
1.) Baseball draws more fans because it plays more games. 163 vs. 16 isn’t a fair comparison. Per game is a different story.
2.) Revenue sharing is pretty good idea if you want to present a competitive league.
3.) Because Football is more conducive to TV than Baseball ratings are higher and conversely so are the TV contracts.
4.) Baseball players may be better organized but they are killing their own league…The old argument that I am not doing this for myself but those who come after me rings hollow when you are contributing to the end of your league by destroying the competitive balance.
But who am I to say, do as Baseball has done and see what happens. When you force the smaller market teams from the league you will erode your fan base.
As a Packer fan I realize more than others the importance of the cap and revenue streams. If the League went away from the cap and revenue sharing it would spell our doom. If that were to happen there would be an extremely sour taste in my mouth towards the NFL and I would have far more time to hunt in the fall.
Continuing my hijack and probable relocation of this thread to GD, I would assert that baseball’s economic problems are almost entirely the fault of ownership and not the players.
Baseball has already started a very limited form of revenue sharing in the form of a luxury tax imposed on teams that spend above a predetermined amount on salaries. However, the teams from the small markets have shown a tendency to just pocket that money instead of spending it on player development.
The purpose of the salary cap was not to level the playing field between small and large market teams… thats what revenue sharing is for… the purpose was to try and limit the rapid growth to player salaries… in practice what it does is screw things up to the point were a true dynasty is virtually impossible to maintain… look at the dominate teams of the ninties… the bills and cowboys had the best runs but the bills never won the big one and the look at the cowboys now… also look at the other dominate teams of the time the packers and niners… i would say the cowboys are the best example of what the cap does to a team… you have a team with a solid core of stars and and very good role players/budding stars to round it out… the stars get there money… theres no cap room left to pay the role players/budding stars… they leave and become roleplayes and stars elsewhere… (there were plenty of legal and front office issues too… but im focusing on the actual players here…)