In a change that will make things little less anxious at the Kansas City Chiefs executive offices, the NFL told its teams that the salary cap for 2021 will be no less than $ 180 million. ESPN’s Adam Schefter had first.
The NFL informed teams today that the salary cap this season will be at least $ 180 million.
– Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 18, 2021
Albert Breer de Sports Illustrated’s MMQB joined the conversation with the memo itself.
According to a memo sent to the teams, the salary cap for 2021 will be set at a minimum of $ 180 million (against $ 175 million).
This is not the final limit. Just the new minimum. pic.twitter.com/L0wtC8GuGv
– Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) February 18, 2021
In talks at the end of last summer, the league and the NFL Players Association agreed that the limit would be no less than $ 175 million, so this is just a $ 5 million increase over that. Minimum amount – and as Breer noted, this is no what the final limit number will be.
So why is this news important to the Chiefs – and the other 10 teams that are currently above the salary cap?
The biggest conclusion of this news is that, despite the coronavirus pandemic, the league’s 2020 revenues did not reach the worst case projections; the league is already comfortable in raising the minimum threshold value. Even though this $ 5 million increase is just a drop in the ocean – which it really is – this is really good news.
How Breer annotated in another tweet, most likely will come.
Two things to remember about: 2,021 salary cap …
1) Making TV deals, as expected, would likely make homeowners more flexible in borrowing in future years.
2) A big drop in the limit hurts MANY people (veteran players, free agents, teams, etc.)
– Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) February 18, 2021
This follows the NBC Sports’ Peter King in his column “Football Morning in America” on Monday morning.
The NFL is close – “within a month,” a source told me at the Super Bowl – to signing new 10-year contracts with its network partners that could result in an aggregate 70 to 100 percent increase in royalty rates. last contract.
It is important to remember that the salary cap is mostly driven by revenue from these television contracts. While many stadiums were empty in 2020 – and many others filled to capacity with only a small fraction of their capacity – the NFL managed to get through the season without canceling any games, which prevented them from losing broadcast revenue. And, as King noted, if they manage to close deals before the league starts on March 17, it will help the NFL set the salary cap at a more viable level.
Doing business now can provide the league with the cash inflow it needs to not have the salary cap crushing teams in March.
Still … there is no reason to expect that, in 2021, the salary cap will suddenly return to normal – that is, 5-10% higher than last season’s 198.2 million; while the league avoided an absolute revenue disaster in 2020, revenues did come down. But with this news, there is now hope that it can get somewhere closer than it was a year ago.
As I explained on Wednesday, the Chiefs are currently $ 18.1 million above Spotrac’s projected salary cap of $ 185 million – just $ 5 million more than the new minimum. During the Super Bowl week, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said that he and his team looked at scenarios where the limit would be as low as $ 175 million – but that “anything over $ 185 million and we are in good shape. form”.
So, at least for now, Veach and his team can dismiss these $ 175 million scenarios – and we can hope that the Chiefs will not have to make too many drastic wage cap moves in 2021.