NFL salary cap will rise to $255.4 million for 2024 season
Teams will have $30 million more to spend in 2024
The NFL salary cap will rise to $255.4 million per team for the 2024 season, the league announced on Friday.
That is a $30 million increase per team from the $224.8 million teams had to work under during the 2023 season. It is also the largest year-to-year rise in the cap since the post-COVID bump when the number went from $182.5 million in 2021 to $208.2 million in 2022.
Why the big jump? The NFL says it is due to the "full repayment of all amounts advanced by the clubs and deferred by the players during the Covid pandemic as well as an extraordinary increase in media revenue for the 2024 season."
The NFL will bring in $110 billion over 11 years for the most recent television deals that were struck in 2021.
Salary cap numbers since 2011 (via the NFL):
2011: $120.375M
2012: $120.6M
2013: $123M
2014: $133M
2015: $143.28M
2016: $155.27M
2017: $167M
2018: $177.2M
2019: $188.2M
2020: $198.2M
2021: $182.5M
2022: $208.2M
2023: $224.8M
2024: $255.4M
There will also be an additional $74 million per team that will go toward player benefits, including performance bonuses and benefits for retired players.
In addition to the increase in the salary cap to a record $255.4 million per club, the NFL Players Association informed agents today it also negotiated an increase in Performance Based Pay by $1 million per club, putting that at $14.147 million per club.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) February 23, 2024
As the 2023 league year winds down, teams will head to Indianapolis next week for the NFL Combine. There will be a good number of meetings between agents and players as they plan out free agency ahead of the market opening on March 13.