Friedman: Salary cap could rise as high as $95-97 million next season

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It makes sense. I think the projections were always way too conservative on the cap growth given revenues. I’m not sure how you tell your workforce to stay satisfied with meager growth or complain about how much players are making when the owners are taking in incredible revenues and team valuations are skyrocketing towards $2 billion for an average team.
 
I said this like 3 months ago and got argued against it like some people really wanted to die on the hill.

NHL revenues are through the roof, the cap is going to skyrocket, people who didn't think so and thought "well it'll only go up 4 mill a year max" were being naive.

Cap will be $105+ million in short order.
 
Panthers winning the cup plus Arizona moving to Utah certainly must have contributed to this as well.

We will keep seeing the cap raise, the spike from Vegas and Seattle is not going to rise significantly again, but another round of expansion perhaps?

Atlanta v3, Houston? A properly run expansion in large population centres will certainly spike the revenue again.
 
We go through this same song and dance literally every year. In November/December they always, always forecast revenue to be higher then it actually is and forecast a cap that's higher then it actually ends up being.


It'll be $92.5M.

I don't think so. This isn't a case of the revenue maybe being higher, the existing revenue is *already* way past what the cap is at a 50-50 HRR split.

The NHL knows the cap has to go up a lot, letting it go up a bit more next year is no big deal. Anyone can do the basic math and see revenue even prior to this year is like 30% higher from pre-COVID.

They'll let the PA have this one as an act of goodwill going into CBA negotiations. A cap of $105+ million soon is basically a lock, all the owners know it. Anyone can look at the existing revenue number (not even the projected ones) and see it.
 
Inflation has gone up 22.7% since the league froze the cap.
They've only increased cap 5% last year.
The only reason its going up 5% is because the league and PA agreed on a maximum increase per year.

The cap is going to go through the roof if the league + PA agree to remove that maximum limit.
 
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Inflation has gone up 22.7% since the league froze the cap.
They've only increased cap 5% last year.
The only reason its going up 5% is because the league and PA agreed on a maximum increase per year.

The cap is going to go through the roof if the league + PA agree to remove that maximum limit.

It's probably honestly better that the cap start rising more now to make it more of a phased process even for the team side.
 
We go through this same song and dance literally every year. In November/December they always, always forecast revenue to be higher then it actually is and forecast a cap that's higher then it actually ends up being.


It'll be $92.5M.
PA cares about escrow. Want it under 5% which apparently it was last season. Also,
I think they got most of it back.
 
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It makes sense. I think the projections were always way too conservative on the cap growth given revenues. I’m not sure how you tell your workforce to stay satisfied with meager growth or complain about how much players are making when the owners are taking in incredible revenues and team valuations are skyrocketing towards $2 billion for an average team.
This doesn't change how much players get as a whole,they still get 50% regardless, they would just received equalization payments instead of paying escrow. Raising the cap just just redistributes that 50% and puts more money into the pockets of the better free agents.
 
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I'd wonder how much of this is based on projected "4 Nations" tournament revenue?


If that goes off big, i could see it being feasible. But if it bombs...it seems really unlikely they get to that number. But a big chunk of that money is presumably already contracted and pending. Which is probably driving some of this. Among other things.
 
I don't think so. This isn't a case of the revenue maybe being higher, the existing revenue is *already* way past what the cap is at a 50-50 HRR split.

The NHL knows the cap has to go up a lot, letting it go up a bit more next year is no big deal. Anyone can do the basic math and see revenue even prior to this year is like 30% higher from pre-COVID.

They'll let the PA have this one as an act of goodwill going into CBA negotiations. A cap of $105+ million soon is basically a lock, all the owners know it. Anyone can look at the existing revenue number (not even the projected ones) and see it.
The NHL has the 5% max increase (unless agreed upon otherwise) rule to prevent things like what happened in the NBA in 2016, where the cap increased 24M and a team like Golden State was able to just add Kevin Durant without losing anyone important. If the cap goes up by the above amount it will be similar to the NBA's increase in 22/23 and 23/24 where it increased 11M and 12.5M after their escrow was paid off.

I wonder if scaling contracts is something that gets negotiated in the next CBA
 
I'd wonder how much of this is based on projected "4 Nations" tournament revenue?


If that goes off big, i could see it being feasible. But if it bombs...it seems really unlikely they get to that number. But a big chunk of that money is presumably already contracted and pending. Which is probably driving some of this. Among other things.
It's only 7 games, it's not going to have a significant impact on total revenues either way
 
We go through this same song and dance literally every year. In November/December they always, always forecast revenue to be higher then it actually is and forecast a cap that's higher then it actually ends up being.


It'll be $92.5M.
I think there is absolutely no chance it only goes to 92.5. This isn't like a hope on forecasted revenue. It is what the revenue currently is lol
 

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