There's been a lot of discussion in the Steelers thread about Bell, plus other random threads across BBTL every time a young player has a major injury about how the NFL is such a violent game with horrible injuries that all contracts should be guaranteed like the other major sports.
I've been thinking recently about what would the impact be to the league if that were the case. I certainly don't expect that to cause the salary cap to increase, so you still have the same pool of money available to the players, so what would we actually see in the league.
We can draw a little bit from the other major sports, but there's some economic factors that make their situations unique:
I've been thinking recently about what would the impact be to the league if that were the case. I certainly don't expect that to cause the salary cap to increase, so you still have the same pool of money available to the players, so what would we actually see in the league.
We can draw a little bit from the other major sports, but there's some economic factors that make their situations unique:
- MLB - There's still a major difference in the salaries of pro teams from the top 4 teams all over $194M, the league average at $139M and lowest team at $68M. The salary/tax luxury cap has had an impact here in that the richest teams can't just buy their way out of mistakes by trading players to non-contending teams and covering their entire contracts. We do see teams, like the Red Sox with Hanley and Sandoval, willing to completely cut bait on players that are below replacement value. We've also seen a little bit of the non-guaranteed contract impact with opt out clauses and player/team options in recent years.
- NBA - Very complicated structure with many teams over the cap and the rules that govern signing players. Potentially most interesting is the idea of a max contract and how that has shaped the league over the last few years.
- NHL - I'm a casual hockey follower, but honestly don't know the economics well enough to comment.
- QBs continuing to get the biggest money. While injuries are common, we don't see a ton of career ending injuries hitting QBs compared to many other positions.
- Lower contract value and shorter years. There's going to be less money to go around if there are players receiving money for guaranteed contracts unable to play (or play about replacement level) already taking up a chunk of the cap space.
- More 1 year deals and player movement
- Worse product on the field, harder for fringe players to break into the league