Owner wealth and equal competition

[Beren]

What is the impact and correlation between owner wealth and competitive opportunity in the modern day NFL for different franchises?

I have heard that owner wealth has rendered salary caps somewhat obsolete in ensuring the league has equal competition for all teams. For example, the Rams should have been underwater following gambles on big contracts for the likes of Goff and Gurley not so long ago, but they have been able to continually throw money at other players in a way that teams with less wealthy owners cannot.

I understand it to a sense but would appreciate an explanation from someone more knowledgeable on the subject of how this is possible and how they (and others?) get around/exploit the salary cap provisions in a way others cannot/do not.

 

[RedAlice]

I posted this in the Rams thread, but it is a good read to this point.

Broncos now have the richest owner. Look for them to do exactly what the Rams are doing now.

The Rams’ strategy in signing their trio of stars - Sports Illustrated

A look at how the Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp deals got done in a way that made the players happy and keeps some flexibility for the team.

www.si.com

 

[onanygivensunday]

I recently watched a video that explained it very well.

In summary, they refer to it as "cash over cap space" (or something similar). Cash-rich owners are able to fork over very expensive guaranteed signing bonuses, which can then be prorated over the next five years of the contract extension (and even into "voided" years). The net result is a recently extended player has a very low cap hit for the first, and possibly second year of his extension. Their average salary/year is very high, but the cap hit in the near term is considerably less than their average salary.

The video also mentioned that during the last CBA negotiations, most of the teams wanted to incorporate a cash-over cap space limit but certain owners like Jerry Jones and Kroenke would hear nothing of it.

The ultra-rich owners with bulging pockets of cash have a distinct advantage over the other owners.

 

[Lagartixa]

Sports-team owners have pulled two closely related scams on the public.

One is publicly treating player salaries as if they were an expense and not an investment.

The other is pretending that salary caps are about keeping competition between teams fair, when their real purpose is to keep more of the money for owners and have less of it paid to players.

 

[BleuEyedHawk]

I posted this in the Rams thread, but it is a good read to this point.

Broncos now have the richest owner. Look for them to do exactly what the Rams are doing now.

The Rams’ strategy in signing their trio of stars - Sports Illustrated

A look at how the Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp deals got done in a way that made the players happy and keeps some flexibility for the team.

www.si.com

Thank you for the article. As someone interested in finance, I like hearing about the numbers etc.

 

[BleuEyedHawk]

Sports-team owners have pulled two closely related scams on the public.

One is publicly treating player salaries as if they were an expense and not an investment.

The other is pretending that salary caps are about keeping competition between teams fair, when their real purpose is to keep more of the money for owners and have less of it paid to players.

I don't know if anyone has posted this before, but it's one of the clearest explanations about NFL caps and how they function with the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Written for SI by a Packers salary cap manager holding that position for a decade..

It aligns with your comment about the owners keeping more money for themselves because players are paid at 47% currently when it was previously at 50%. It's only expected to increase to 48% in the next TEN years.

Business of Football: Understanding Salary Cap, Dead Money

With NFL teams about to open their wallets, here's a refresher course on the salary cap and an explanation of why we've seen bigger dead-money cap hits lately.

www.si.com

 

[FrodosFinger]

Jed York's net worth is like 90 million dollars. There's players in the league that have more money than the 49er's owner. It's less about wealth and more about team management

 

[Lagartixa]

Jed York's net worth is like 90 million dollars. There's players in the league that have more money than the 49er's owner. It's less about wealth and more about team management

An NFL team is worth billions of dollars. Jed York, the CEO of the 49ers, can have less than $100M in assets because the team isn't among them. He's not the owner. It's his mother who owns most of the team.

 

[hgwellz12]

Jed York's net worth is like 90 million dollars. There's players in the league that have more money than the 49er's owner. It's less about wealth and more about team management

Jed doesn't own the digits, tho.

 

[FrodosFinger]

Mike Brown is the league's poorest owner and his team was a couple of plays away from hoisting the Lombardi. GTFO

 

[RedAlice]

Mike Brown is the league's poorest owner and his team was a couple of plays away from hoisting the Lombardi. GTFO

View attachment 53512

Fact.

also a good PR story that keeps small markets excited that they also, might.

 

[RedAlice]

Ive been obsessed with reading the Bengals forum that is pretty much exactly like this Hawks forum.

eta: ok, their OT is better. They are not delusional liberals.

 

[hgwellz12]

"eta"?

 

[Lagartixa]

"eta"?

I think it's "edited to add..."

 

[RedAlice]

Yes. I post eta if I edit my first post.

edited to add