The Salary Cap Legitimately Might Decrease

[Direckshun]

Adam Schefter:

“We all wait to see when and if there will be football this season — and I think there will be — what form it will take. I think that everybody understands and recognizes that it could be, potentially, a little bit of a shortened season. Hopefully not, maybe not, but it could be. It certainly could be with no fans...

“Now i want people to think about this going forward — because it is something that the NFL and the NFLPA soon is going to have to be thinking about — and that is if there are no fans in the stands this season that would equate essentially to about on average roughly $100 million less in revenue per team for each of the 32 NFL teams in the NFL. If we multiply that $100 million by the 32 we get $3.2 billion in lost revenue, and why is that a big deal? Because the Salary cap is based off the total revenue that comes in...

“So if there is $3.2 billion in less revenue, which is a rough number... but well within the range that is expected and as other people pointed out there are other financial losses as well, we are looking, potentially, at the salary cap dropping in 2021 by $70 to $80 million.”

Now if we say the salary cap, which is currently $209m, goes down $70m, that puts the cap at $139m.

Looking at OverTheCap's 2021 salary cap, and that means exactly five teams will start under the cap. Every other team is starting the 2021 offseason over the cap.

Forget focusing on just the Chiefs for a minute, let's talk about the entire NFL.

What in the living hell does the NFL look like in 2021 if this happens?

Almost every team will have to savage their own roster with dramatic cuts. They will have to replace those guys with dudes off the street. And any free agent player who is remotely talented will essentially sit out 2021.

What on earth?

[staylor26]

Dude, what the **** is up with all the doom and gloom lately? JFC

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by staylor26

Dude, what the **** is up with all the doom and gloom lately? JFC

Shrug. It's a salient issue.

[RunKC]

If this happened, teams would start restructuring the hell out of deals to push the can down the road.

Kelce and Matheiu IMO will be extended regardless. That will free up money. Jones getting extended will move his cap number down and save roughly $10 million for rollover.

There are ways to maneuver through this

[Direckshun]

The restructures would be fascinating.

I mean, the Eagles and Saints would both be like $130m over the cap.

We'd be 50m over -- pre-Jones and Mahomes deals.

[BossChief]

The new tv deals and additional advertising should offset a large part of the attendance revenue.

[KChiefs1]

Going to need 10-12 rookies to make the team every year.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by BossChief

The new tv deals and additional advertising should offset a large part of the attendance revenue.

I think the owners are going to have to strike a deal so the cap doesn’t collapse — literally zero owners want that.

But asking the salary cap to stay still or even go up is asking owners to look past tens of millions in lost costs, and ... well, they’re billionaires for a reason, and writing off $100m in losses is usually not part of that equation.

Football’s different, but we’ll see.

[tyecopeland]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I think the owners are going to have to strike a deal so the cap doesn’t collapse — literally zero owners want that.

But asking the salary cap to stay still or even go up is asking owners to look past tens of millions in lost costs, and ... well, they’re billionaires for a reason, and writing off $100m in losses is usually not part of that equation.

Football’s different, but we’ll see.

They'll just borrow from future years cap. Keep a stagnant cap for next year and then instead if a big jump with new TV deals they will have smaller increases.

[TomBarndtsTwin]

IF that happens, more than likely leave cap where it is (allowing teams to borrow money to cover costs, if need be) or an uncapped year this year. I'm sure the owners would prefer the first over the second, as they'd have to eat a lot of extra expenses and costs for an uncapped year. Would suck for them.

Then again, they're rich billionaire owners so I won't lose any sleep over it. They'll be experiencing a little bit of what the little man has to go through during this Corona crap. The NFL will be back and humming the following season, so they'll be back to raking in their millions and millions in revenue.

Life (and football) goes on . . . . . .

[TomBarndtsTwin]

Originally Posted by tyecopeland

They'll just borrow from future years cap. Keep a stagnant cap for next year and then instead if a big jump with new TV deals they will have smaller increases.

This is also a strong possibility.

[DaneMcCloud]

As I mentioned in the Lounge thread, the NFL has an untapped revenue generating resource that could make up a good portion of their lost earning: Advertising.

They could open it up to player's jerseys with tiered pricing that starts at the helmet and ends at the knee pads. Advertisers could have the option to pay a Premium for upper echelon players such as Mahomes, Jackson, Rodgers and so on, along advertising on tarps all across the stadiums.

Regardless of what they decide moving forward, the bottom line is that the NFL isn't going to destroy their league if revenues fall short this season, which is exactly what would happen if they decided to chop off $50 million of the salary cap.

They'll either pursue other revenue generating ventures or spread the losses over subsequent seasons.

[R Clark]

I’d think they would prorate the wages to the revenue?