On Wednesday, the league’s owners will meet in Dallas. And they’ll be told something that, if they’re reading this, they’ll already know.
Specifically, owners will be told the salary cap will increase by $8 million to $10 million per year, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. Currently, the cap sits at $155 million per team.
In past years, the league has been accused of understating the expected growth of the cap. This dynamic often prompts teams to set their spending budgets based on lower numbers, which causes teams to spend less than they could.
Yes, there’s a four-year, per-team, 89-percent spending minimum. But that means each team can pocket up to 11 percent of the available spending allotment, each and every year. At $155 million, that’s $17 million in pure profit that can be diverted from player spending.
It becomes much easier to pocket profit if the teams are setting their budgets based on salary-cap projections that are lower than the spending limit actually will be.
