The NFL has announced a record-setting salary cap for the 2024 season, signaling good times ahead for the league. The cap figure for 2024 will be an impressive $255.4 million, surpassing the previous record of $224.8 million in 2023. This $30.6 million increase represents the largest year-to-year increase in total money in free agency history, highlighting the league’s continued growth and success.
The announcement comes just as teams are preparing to travel to Indianapolis for the NFL Combine, where meetings with agents of veteran players will take place. Having the cap number ahead of these meetings will undoubtedly aid teams and agents in their negotiations and business dealings leading up to the start of the league year on March 13.
Teams had initially budgeted for a lower cap in the low to mid-240s, but the league’s post-pandemic growth has proven those conservative plans unnecessary. The NFL recently signed a new broadcast deal worth over $110 billion over 11 years, with additional revenue pouring in from streaming games and gambling. This influx of revenue, coupled with the full repayment of amounts advanced by clubs and deferred by players during the COVID-19 pandemic, has contributed to the significant increase in the salary cap.
The league experienced a dip in the cap after the 2020 season due to revenue losses from the pandemic. However, it has successfully recovered from those deficits and more. The cap number for 2021 went down to $182.5 million but rebounded to $208.2 million in 2022. In the next two years, the cap saw an almost 8% increase each season.
The $255.4 million figure represents a remarkable 13.6% jump in the cap, marking the largest spike in a non-COVID year since 2006. This substantial increase could potentially lead teams to utilize the franchise tag more freely, as they now have an extra $10 million in cap space. Additionally, projections for pending free agents’ salaries are expected to increase across the board.
While the massive cap increase is undoubtedly positive for teams and players, the league and the union generally prefer smoother cap increases to allow for better planning and to avoid disproportionately benefiting or disadvantaging a particular free agency class. The NFL has been cautious since witnessing the NBA’s cap spike by over 34% in 2016 and aims to prevent a similar situation.
There was some debate over how much this year’s cap should increase relative to the next few years, and it is possible that the cap numbers in 2025 or 2026 will not experience the same rate of growth.
Overall, the record-setting salary cap for the 2024 NFL season reflects the league’s continued success and financial prosperity. With teams now armed with additional cap space, negotiations and player contracts are likely to be more lucrative. As the NFL Combine approaches, teams and agents will undoubtedly be strategizing to make the most of this newfound financial flexibility.
