| Hardly an issue of Pro Football
Weekly goes to press without the mention of the term "salary cap" somewhere
in its pages. It wasn’t always this way. Not that long ago, the salary cap was a
concept reserved for the National Basketball Association.
Then the NFL decided to adopt the concept for its own use.
In theory, the NFL’s salary cap was intended to establish a ceiling for how much a
team could spend on its players. Because the owners had finally granted the players true
free agency, they wanted a cap to protect themselves from each other as a result of the
bidding wars for players that they feared would follow.
Conversely — and almost forgotten now — is that when it was implemented with
a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, it also established a minimum amount that a club
had to spend on its players. At that time, there were a number of teams that were
considerably below the newly established minimum.
Another objective of the salary cap was to maintain a level playing field for all
clubs, whether in large markets or small. Because the NFL had long ago embraced revenue
sharing for that purpose, the establishment of a salary cap would, in theory, prevent the
franchises in the large markets from outspending the small-market teams.
In practice, of course, the salary cap has been shot full of holes, almost as many
holes as the NBA’s cap.
From the players’ perspective, it has produced a system in which the stars receive
an even more disproportionate share of the pie than ever, whereas the above-average
veterans who have gradually worked their way into the middle of the salary range are
sacrificed in favor of cheaper, marginal players. It’s survival of the fittest, but
often even those who deserve to survive don’t.
From the standpoint of establishing a level playing field, that’s a joke too. As
publisher/editor Hub Arkush aptly points out in his "Publisher’s Pen" in
the current print edition of Pro Football Weekly, the amount of money each club
spends on player salaries bears little resemblance to the salary cap. In fact, 17 of the
31 NFL teams will surpass the $62.7 million estimated cap in 2000, according to salary
information compiled by Street & Smith’s Sports Business. Five teams
— Washington, Baltimore, St. Louis, Jacksonville and Chicago — will exceed the
cap by at least $10 million. The Redskins, with a payroll of $88.46 million this year, are
more than $25 million over the cap.
At the other end of the spectrum is Arizona, some $37 million under Washington’s
payroll.
Level playing field? Hah.
The reason for the huge disparity is that the figures mentioned above are the amounts
actually paid out to players in 2000. In calculating the salary cap, on the other hand,
signing bonuses are prorated. A $4 million signing bonus tied to a four-year contract
counts only $1 million toward the cap in each of the four years, even though the entire
bonus is actually paid out at the beginning of the contract. So, a team like Washington
can dole out huge signing bonuses this year without putting itself over the cap.
Of course, these huge bonuses will eventually come to roost, as they did for the 49ers.
But perhaps a Super Bowl title is worth that price.
Glenn Dickey points out in his current column on
ProFootballWeekly.com that Browns president Carmen Policy has reportedly been accused of
violating the salary cap while he was president of the 49ers. Yet, Dickey asks, are there
any NFL teams that haven’t been guilty of a similar violation?
I can’t answer that question authoritatively, but I suspect Dickey’s
implication is correct. I do know that the NFL could have come up with a better system
than the one they have now. Clubs have learned how to circumvent the intent of the salary
cap, making it a farce.
As Arkush points out, teams such as the Redskins and the Ravens can spend way above the
cap because they have such lucrative stadium deals, and stadium revenue is not shared with
other clubs. Teams with unfavorable stadium leases, meanwhile, try to get the most out of
what they have to work with — and hope for the best.
It’s no wonder that despite the salary cap, the rich continue to get richer. |
