The NFL informed the teams that the 2021 salary cap will be no less than $ 180 million, a slight increase from last year’s previous deal between the league and the NFL Players Association.
The league told teams in a memo on Thursday morning that $ 180 million is not the 2021 cap, just an adjustment of the cap set last summer in negotiations between the NFL and the NFLPA.
The final 2021 cap, says the memo, “will be set after reviewing the final 2020 revenue amount and other auditing and accounting adjustments.” The new year of the league and the free agency are scheduled to start on March 17.
Sources familiar with the negotiations told ESPN that the final number is likely to be between $ 180 million and $ 185 million, although almost certainly at the lower end of that range.
“As you know, one aspect of the deals negotiated last summer with the NFLPA to deal with operations during the pandemic predicts that the wage cap for 2021 will be no less than $ 175 million,” said the memo. “After discussions with the union that dealt with actual 2020 revenue and the projected participation for the 2021 season, we agreed to raise the minimum salary cap for the league year from 2021 to $ 180 million. We will promptly notify all clubs as soon as the salary cap is set. “
Last summer, during the negotiation of terms under which the league would continue during the COVID-19 pandemic, the NFL and NFLPA agreed to the original salary cap of $ 175 million per team in 2021. This was to prevent revenue losses sending the ceiling even smaller.
A source said on Thursday that the revenue figures on which the cap is based annually would have led to a salary cap of approximately $ 160 million per team, which would have been a disastrously large drop from the $ 198 cap. , 2 million under which the teams operated in 2020.
With the floor now set at $ 180 million, the limit will be about $ 20 million higher than it would otherwise be. That $ 20 million or more will have to be “borrowed” for future limits, and how it will happen is the subject of ongoing negotiations between the league and the players’ union.
To use a rough example: if revenue projections generate a wage cap of $ 220 million in 2022 and a cap of $ 230 million in 2023, the sides could agree to reduce those figures by $ 10 million each of those two years to offset this year’s $ 20 million discrepancy.
The final 2021 cap may take some time to complete, as the NFL continues to negotiate new contracts with its network partners. New TV contracts would obviously affect revenue projections and could lead to an expansion of the regular NFL season to 17 games later this year.
But a source close to the talks said the best outcome from those talks was unlikely to raise this year’s threshold beyond about $ 185 million.
Teams can roll back the space limit from previous years, so any extra room team that had below the $ 198.2 million 2020 salary limit can be applied to the 2021 limit.
The total audience last season was 1.2 million, down from 17 million in 2019. Thirteen teams did not allow fans in the regular season; other clubs have limited the size of the crowd to provide social distance in accordance with health and safety regulations in their state.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.