NFL salary cap reportedly about to make surprising change
Well, this is a genuine surprise.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reported, per a source, that the NFL salary cap is projected to rise in 2018.
It won’t be a small bump, either. The cap is expected to go up by at least $10 million.
Obviously, that’s not a small amount. Though $10 million may not be enough for an elite talent, it’s ample money to sign two or three solid players. It also gives significant wiggle room to teams that are close to or over the cap limit, like the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
The salary cap bump is perhaps most shocking when considering that the NFL’s television ratings have been steadily declining.
For consecutive seasons, the NFL saw its ratings dip significantly. Following an 8 percent ratings decline from 2015 to 2016, viewership dropped another 9.7 percent in the 2017 season.
That dropped the average NFL viewership from 16.5 million viewers per game to 14.9 million viewers.
The decline in viewership was significant enough that at the end of last season, the NFL had to actually refund several advertisers. In-game ad revenue dropped by 1.2 percent last season, which, when dealing with billions of dollars, is a significant amount of money.
Considering that the NFL’s salary cap is directly influenced by television revenue, it’s strange to see the cap rise after consecutive years of declining television ratings.
The NFL salary cap was $168 million last season. Next season, the cap is projected to reach at least $178 million, with some estimates putting it at or even over $180 million.
The NBA has seen a similar steady increase in its salary cap, but NBA ratings have been consistently rising in recent years.
A big contributing factor in the salary cap bump is the new “Thursday Night Football” package that the Fox network recently purchased.
While the previous “TNF” package cost about $450 million per year to air, Fox won the bidding war and now pays about $550 million per year for the rights to broadcast the Thursday night games.
One does have to wonder if the NFL will be able to continue to charge such exorbitant rights fees.
It’s hardly a secret that ESPN has bristled at the fact that it pays nearly $2 billion per year for the rights to “Monday Night Football” and still gets saddled with sub-optimal matchups. It’s hard to imagine any network will want to pony up $2 billion per year for “Monday Night Football” if ratings continue to decline. ESPN’s contract for “MNF” expires in 2021, which is rapidly approaching.
The NFL salary cap is a figure determined by revenue and agreed upon by the NFL and the NFL Players Association. It is expected to be finalized soon.
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