2024 Salary Cap Expected To Be North Of $240M

Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero report the NFL salary cap is expected to be set north of $240 million for the 2024 season. 

However, they add teams will not get the usual projection of the cap at this year’s winter meetings, as the NFL and the NFLPA continue to sort through things. 

“The Management Council and NFLPA are in the process of addressing open matters that will impact the 2024 Salary Cap and therefore will not be able to project a range for the 2024 Salary Cap until those issues are resolved,” a memo sent to teams this week said. “The 2024 Salary Cap will be announced by memorandum, as has been done over the past two years, as soon as we are able to reach agreement but we do not anticipate that occurring until after the New Year.”

Still, the cap is expected to grow significantly from the $224.8 million it was set at in 2023.

Per Over The Cap, multiple teams have been using $242 million as a projection to work with for now. 

“Business is booming, and everyone is finally out of the COVID debt,” a source told Rapoport and Pelissero.

NFL Media reports the NFLPA and NFL are discussing how exactly to smooth out the expected growth in the cap to avoid any one-year spikes. There are also a few remaining deferred benefits from the pandemic that have to be accounted for.  

The salary cap is collectively bargained between the NFL and NFLPA each year based on projected league revenues. 

The league signed huge new media rights deals that along with future gambling revenue streams and a 17-game regular season are expected to dramatically accelerate the NFL salary cap, which already was growing by about $10 million per year before the pandemic. 

The pandemic threw a temporary wrench in things due to revenue loss, but with that in the rearview mirror, the cap grew $16 million from 2022 to 2023 and seems on pace to grow by at least that much in 2024.