Bag receivers
The NFL is allowing teams to boost their already bumper wage bills next season, raising the salary cap by more than $30 million to take it north of $255 million, the league announced on Friday.
That 13.6% leap is the largest on record since the NFL first introduced the salary cap 30 years ago, when the most each team could pay out in wages was “just” $34.6 million. In the '24 season, franchises can also dish out a further $74 million on player benefits (think performance bonuses or retirement packages for former stars), taking the total top spend to $329 million per team, or a whopping $10.5 billion across the whole league.
More money ball
As you may expect for the most valuable sports division in the world, where TV deals alone could reportedly be worth over $126 billion by 2033, the NFL’s cap towers over other leagues, and the size of the increase underscores just how healthy the financials are for America’s most popular sport. Even the ascendant NBA is only projected to reach a $141 million salary cap — a figure that the NFL passed nearly a decade ago.
While salaries for every position on the gridiron have increased in recent decades, it’s interesting to note that there wasn’t a single football player in Forbes’ 10 highest-paid athletes of 2023. This is perhaps owing to the fact that the ranking also takes off-the-field earnings into account, an area where other sports have encouraged their players to command higher sponsorship and endorsement deals.
Note: stalling NFL collective bargaining agreement negotiations meant that the 2010 season was uncapped — though that didn’t lead to teams splashing the cash as much as you might imagine.
