First in the NFL! The 32 teams surrounding the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs will be able to invest more money in player salaries in the upcoming season than ever before. The league announced this on Friday.
In the future, NFL teams will be allowed to spend a maximum of $255.4 million (around 236 million euros) on player salaries, the league announced. Compared to the previous year, the salary cap is $30.6 million higher. An increase that is also a record.
For comparison, in 2023 the salary cap rose from $208.2 million to $224.8 million – i.e. by $16.6 million. The biggest jump so far was the $25.7 million increased from 221 ($182.5 million) to 2022 ($208.2 million).
Projections previously had the league raising the cap to about $242 million.
“This year’s unprecedented increase of $30 million per club in the salary cap is the result of the full repayment of all amounts advanced by clubs and deferred by players during the Covid pandemic, as well as an extraordinary increase in media revenue for the season 2024,” the NFL explains the new record in an official statement.
NFL: $10.5 billion possible league-wide
The NFL also announced that in addition to the record salary cap, there will be an additional payment of $74 million per club for player benefits. This includes performance-related salaries and benefits for retired players.
The total player costs in 2024 will be $329.4 million per team – that’s an insane sum of more than $10.5 billion across the league.
The new NFL year officially begins on March 13th. Then teams have to make sure they stay under the salary cap.