Originally posted by NYniner85:
Originally posted by jonnydel:
They agreed to a floor, meaning they don't know the revenues with the uncertainty but all agreed that anything below 175 mil would destroy the league as the revenues on a per team average could be as low as 270 million.
That doesn't mean they agreed to a cap. To me, it's a good faith gesture by the owners to set the precedent with the union that they're willing to bypass the 47% cap calculation to protect the game - but will then expect players to do their part and agree to a league wide pay-cut claused into all contracts to try and maintain the market values of players.
I get that it's capitalism, but the NFL is also a product based game. They've worked for their audience for decades and while we can act like owners are just greedy guys, they're business men first and foremost and entertainment business men. You protect your audience - that's your real product. That's what they sell advertisers. They don't sell advertisers the games or the scores, they sell the audience. If you lose your audience, you lose your product.
They're not going to further risk losing an audience because once you lose an audience, it's very, very hard to get them back - just ask WCW or WWF/E, if you're familiar with wrestling, how easy it is to get the 11 million people who were watching in 1998 and aren't watching now, to come back.
If you allow the league to be gutted of dozens and dozens of playmakers and fill out teams with 1 year players or UDFA's because of the cap, the audience will leave and your product is less valuable.
The audience isn't going anywhere, especially if it's for a season. The owners having a good faith gesture is funny. The literally wanted the opposite of what the players wanted during negations
It's not just about the cap, but actual cash that they have to hand out
https://www.nfl.com/news/2021-nfl-salary-cap-conundrum-three-major-consequences-of-projected-decrease
Before diving into the potential ripple effects of a decreased cap, I want to state that I believe the need for cash spending by clubs will increase in 2021. Generally speaking, the way most club's lower cap numbers is by spending more cash in the present to spread the cap hit out over future years. However, as we all know, it has been a very difficult year for teams and owners to generate revenue, so the availability of cash might be a real issue for some organizations. In addition, this type of cash now/credit card borrowing will likely increase to push spending forward, but past credit card borrowing may exacerbate problems for teams this year because the bill might come due.
Once the TV rights are done (2022) they will have plenty of capital going forward.
Like everything in the world s**t is gonna be a little lean for the next yr....the NFL like everything else will have to adapt. Including the players.
I understand the cash handed out - if anything, that proves my point. What that quote from the article is talking about is converting salaries to bonuses to spread the cap hit out by spending cash up front. So, he's saying that will be a tougher option. This goes along with what I showed as the only potential way for the Chiefs to get under the cap next year without creating more free agents was to do this and it would barely help them, cause them to shell out all the money in Feb-Mar and then give them huge cap hits down the road.
I also understand things are getting leaner, so, again, it's a good faith gesture in the sense that the owners are giving first. They're going above the 47% cap mark(it was projecting at possibly being 135 mil as a salary cap based off that calculation of revenues) to show players they're giving a good bit, now they're going to expect the players to do the same. If not, you're going to see a major market reset.
Why would the Vikings pay Danielle Hunter 12.1 mil in base salary if they can go sign Melvin Ingram, Shaquille Barrett, Ryan Kerrigan or Aldon Smith for 900k-1 mil? If Melvin Ingram is only getting a 6 mil a year contract because no one has cap space, how can Von Miller, Brandon Graham, Chandler Jones, JPP, Bradley Chubb(they're all going into their last year in 2021), or others demand 19-20 mil/year for an extension? They can't. So, it would completely destroy the market for years.
You would have teams trying to dump player contracts in bulk for a market reset to save room for years. This wouldn't be good for the players union any more than it would be for the NFL.
This is why I come back to the NFLPA agreeing to an across the board pay-cut. What you do is cut ALL salaries 5-7% - that would be about 8-10 mil per team, on average. You clause it into ALL contracts. That way, you maintain the market values. So, if, for example, Melvin Ingram signs a 4 year, 60 mil contract, it costs 14.25 year 1, not 15(at a 5% reduction). You maintain a market value on the contract but factor in a COVID year and reduce the salary.
