Hello, everyone! First off, let me give another big thank you to all of our rookies that completed the Scouting Survey that the other NSFL GMs and I coordinated on. You still have plenty of time to take it at your own pace if you have not already (and it is optional), but the responses so far have been fantastic. One of the things I did notice right off the bat is that a few people asked about how the NSFL Salary Cap works, which is a very good question! And so I figured it would be helpful to explain what the cap looks like for the average team.
For starters, one of the questions we asked in the survey was what kind of contract you’re looking for. This isn’t to take away your negotiating power; if anything, the intention is to help you reach your goal once contract talks begin. As GMs, we want to make sure that we can set aside enough money to pay the players we call up. When you’re dealing with this many rookies, some teams may be calling up anywhere from 5-10 rookies after the draft. And, if we don’t prepare properly, that can lead to some major issues and we’d like to be able to make the first contract negotiation as painless as possible for everyone involved. Not every team will be able to pay our rookies as much as we would like; alternatively, some teams will be able to pay our rookies more than what they’re asking for. But, in most situations, it will fall somewhere in the middle and this gives us our best chance to plan accordingly when we resign current team members and negotiate with free agents prior to the draft. For the record, as GMs, we would love to pay our guys as much as possible. If a player asks for $2m and I can pay them $3m, that’s more training and/or equipment that they’ll be able to purchase. That means more TPE for them, which also helps the team. Everyone wins.
For starters, the salary cap is $75,000,000.
That $75m gets split a few ways. The first expense that needs to be addressed is Offensive Linemen. The league allows us to purchase bots at a rate that is less efficient than what we would pay a player of the same TPE, though not by a wide margin. The average team tends to use 550 TPE bots, which cost $4.5m each. That’s $22.5m total out of our $75m budget. Almost a third!
The next expense that needs to be accounted for are back-ups. These are players that will swap out for a play or two while our starters rest up. Higher endurance means less need to swap out, but even the highest TPE players need to step off the field from time to time. Typically, GMs will grab low TPE inactive players that are sitting in free agency. They’re not going to make a big impact while they’re on the field, but they’re just a filler for a few plays each game, so TPE is not a big need. A lot of these players will only cost $500k each since they’re inactive, so we can sign them for minimum and most of them will be under 200 TPE. For simplicity sake, let’s say we sign 5 back-ups, which will cost us $2.5m and bring our budget down to $50m.
For reference, once a player passes 200 TPE, their minimum contract is $1m for every 200 TPE earned, rounding down. So, a 798 TPE player can take a $3m contract, but a 800 TPE player would be bumped up to $4m if they did another Activity Check prior to signing the deal. Deals are locked in at the time of the signing, so TPE earned during the contract duration won’t affect the deal.
Now, once O-Line and back-ups are accounted for in the budget, this is where the real fun comes. That remaining $50m will be split among all of our active players and starters. Having a few inactives and players willing to take minimum can help spread that money around a little easier, but as you might expect, high TPE players can be expensive even if they’re willing to take the minimum rate. Back in S8, when I was the Yellowknife Wraiths co-GM, we had a great squad that was willing to take team-friendly deals and it included a lot of high TPE players. But, because we were so stacked, it was hard to make everything fit. We were headed for a fiscal cliff and would be forced to make cuts at some point to stay under the cap. And that is exactly the point of the salary cap. When teams get too stacked, the cap forces the team to make hard choices, such as sacrificing o-line bot TPE or allowing good players to leave to free agency. This, in theory, creates balance and forces the best teams in the league to be cautious with their money. However, a lot of players recognize this and tend to sign smaller deals to play for better teams. As GMs, many of us have had the experience of tossing money at a player only to see them sign elsewhere for less. A 575 TPE player that might ask $5-6m from Arizona might take $2m to play for Baltimore because he knows one is a strong contender and one is a long shot. However, it’s not that Baltimore didn’t want to pay them $6m; they probably just didn’t have the cap space for it.
NSFL teams will typically include about 17-20 starters, include flex guy like slot receivers and fullbacks. On offense, if we remove the 5 O-Line bots (which are already paid for at this point), we still need a QB, a RB, a TE, 2 WRs, and a flex player that can bounce between slot receiver, full back, and TE2. Depending on the versatility of the players available, we’ll need 6-8 players for offense. On defense, we need 11-12 players. That includes 3 D-Line (DE/DT), 3 LBs, 4 DBs (CB/S), and one flex player. Some teams might want 2 flex players if they utilize multiple formations, but it’s rare for a team to need more than 12 defenders. With 20 players and $50m to spend, the average player will make $2.5m. If we condense the team to 17 players, we can get it just under $3m at $2.94m per player. As a GM, if I only offered my guys $3m max, that wouldn’t excite a lot of people and it would also exclude me from players with 800+ TPE. Fortunately, if we spread things out and get a good mix of players with different TPE ranges, it’s possible to make it all work.
Different teams have different philosophies on how they approach their budgets. In my case, I try to structure my budget in a way that allows me to pay most of my guys $1-2m over their minimum. That keeps me out of the running for some high target FAs, but it allows me to keep a happy squad and feel like I’m treating everyone fairly. It is a strategy that made us successful in Yellowknife and hopefully one that will lead to similar success in Arizona, but it is not the only successful philosophy. Other teams may prefer to ask several guys to take minimum contracts, so that they can pay someone $8-10m to lure them in. In fact, some of the top players in the league intentionally take minimum deals to make their teams stronger. In S11, Arizona drafted Alex Selich and myself at #2 and #3. We both told the GMs at the time that we wanted minimum deals, so that Arizona could take the $4-6m they were saving on us (as a duo) and put us that on a free agent. This can be controversial as too many players taking minimum can lead to super teams and hurt parity, but to some degree, minimum contracts are an important component of what makes many team budgets work and can be healthy for the league when done in moderation.
Now, none of this is to say that you shouldn’t chase what you want. The NSFL gives you the ability to determine what you’re worth. None of this is meant to dissuade you from that. It’s just meant to provide a behind the scenes view that many players seemed interested in. At the end of the day, you have the right to determine if want $2m or $4m or even $6m. Asking for more money may limit your options as more competitive teams operate on stricter caps, but that’s the purpose of the salary cap. And it’s also completely fair to weigh your expectations based on the situation. If a team that’s contending year asks a rookie to take a lower contract, they’re going to be more willing to listen than they would if a rebuilding team (like Arizona) offered the same pitch.
It is also important to note that the DSFL covers up to $4m for anyone player that gets sent down. So, GMs will practically always pay you the maximum allowed for any season that they expect to send you down. Some contracts are even structured to increase the payout for future seasons to $4m if the player does get sent down. Ironically, the DSFL pays more than the average NSFL player is able to make, but the idea is to give you a head start in the early stages of your career.
Hopefully, this does give you guys some insight into the budget process. Of course, the NSFL has a lot of ways to make money, including league jobs, twitter participation, graphics, and even articles like this one. If you’re not sure what a fair asking price is, you can always refer back to that $2.5-3m range that the average player makes as a starting point in negotiation.
If you guys have any questions, feel free to PM me or ask in the comments. I also invite any other NSFL GMs to share any insight of their own that they feel I may have not touched upon. Even if you disagree! The more points of view, the better.
1777 Words
For starters, one of the questions we asked in the survey was what kind of contract you’re looking for. This isn’t to take away your negotiating power; if anything, the intention is to help you reach your goal once contract talks begin. As GMs, we want to make sure that we can set aside enough money to pay the players we call up. When you’re dealing with this many rookies, some teams may be calling up anywhere from 5-10 rookies after the draft. And, if we don’t prepare properly, that can lead to some major issues and we’d like to be able to make the first contract negotiation as painless as possible for everyone involved. Not every team will be able to pay our rookies as much as we would like; alternatively, some teams will be able to pay our rookies more than what they’re asking for. But, in most situations, it will fall somewhere in the middle and this gives us our best chance to plan accordingly when we resign current team members and negotiate with free agents prior to the draft. For the record, as GMs, we would love to pay our guys as much as possible. If a player asks for $2m and I can pay them $3m, that’s more training and/or equipment that they’ll be able to purchase. That means more TPE for them, which also helps the team. Everyone wins.
For starters, the salary cap is $75,000,000.
That $75m gets split a few ways. The first expense that needs to be addressed is Offensive Linemen. The league allows us to purchase bots at a rate that is less efficient than what we would pay a player of the same TPE, though not by a wide margin. The average team tends to use 550 TPE bots, which cost $4.5m each. That’s $22.5m total out of our $75m budget. Almost a third!
The next expense that needs to be accounted for are back-ups. These are players that will swap out for a play or two while our starters rest up. Higher endurance means less need to swap out, but even the highest TPE players need to step off the field from time to time. Typically, GMs will grab low TPE inactive players that are sitting in free agency. They’re not going to make a big impact while they’re on the field, but they’re just a filler for a few plays each game, so TPE is not a big need. A lot of these players will only cost $500k each since they’re inactive, so we can sign them for minimum and most of them will be under 200 TPE. For simplicity sake, let’s say we sign 5 back-ups, which will cost us $2.5m and bring our budget down to $50m.
For reference, once a player passes 200 TPE, their minimum contract is $1m for every 200 TPE earned, rounding down. So, a 798 TPE player can take a $3m contract, but a 800 TPE player would be bumped up to $4m if they did another Activity Check prior to signing the deal. Deals are locked in at the time of the signing, so TPE earned during the contract duration won’t affect the deal.
Now, once O-Line and back-ups are accounted for in the budget, this is where the real fun comes. That remaining $50m will be split among all of our active players and starters. Having a few inactives and players willing to take minimum can help spread that money around a little easier, but as you might expect, high TPE players can be expensive even if they’re willing to take the minimum rate. Back in S8, when I was the Yellowknife Wraiths co-GM, we had a great squad that was willing to take team-friendly deals and it included a lot of high TPE players. But, because we were so stacked, it was hard to make everything fit. We were headed for a fiscal cliff and would be forced to make cuts at some point to stay under the cap. And that is exactly the point of the salary cap. When teams get too stacked, the cap forces the team to make hard choices, such as sacrificing o-line bot TPE or allowing good players to leave to free agency. This, in theory, creates balance and forces the best teams in the league to be cautious with their money. However, a lot of players recognize this and tend to sign smaller deals to play for better teams. As GMs, many of us have had the experience of tossing money at a player only to see them sign elsewhere for less. A 575 TPE player that might ask $5-6m from Arizona might take $2m to play for Baltimore because he knows one is a strong contender and one is a long shot. However, it’s not that Baltimore didn’t want to pay them $6m; they probably just didn’t have the cap space for it.
NSFL teams will typically include about 17-20 starters, include flex guy like slot receivers and fullbacks. On offense, if we remove the 5 O-Line bots (which are already paid for at this point), we still need a QB, a RB, a TE, 2 WRs, and a flex player that can bounce between slot receiver, full back, and TE2. Depending on the versatility of the players available, we’ll need 6-8 players for offense. On defense, we need 11-12 players. That includes 3 D-Line (DE/DT), 3 LBs, 4 DBs (CB/S), and one flex player. Some teams might want 2 flex players if they utilize multiple formations, but it’s rare for a team to need more than 12 defenders. With 20 players and $50m to spend, the average player will make $2.5m. If we condense the team to 17 players, we can get it just under $3m at $2.94m per player. As a GM, if I only offered my guys $3m max, that wouldn’t excite a lot of people and it would also exclude me from players with 800+ TPE. Fortunately, if we spread things out and get a good mix of players with different TPE ranges, it’s possible to make it all work.
Different teams have different philosophies on how they approach their budgets. In my case, I try to structure my budget in a way that allows me to pay most of my guys $1-2m over their minimum. That keeps me out of the running for some high target FAs, but it allows me to keep a happy squad and feel like I’m treating everyone fairly. It is a strategy that made us successful in Yellowknife and hopefully one that will lead to similar success in Arizona, but it is not the only successful philosophy. Other teams may prefer to ask several guys to take minimum contracts, so that they can pay someone $8-10m to lure them in. In fact, some of the top players in the league intentionally take minimum deals to make their teams stronger. In S11, Arizona drafted Alex Selich and myself at #2 and #3. We both told the GMs at the time that we wanted minimum deals, so that Arizona could take the $4-6m they were saving on us (as a duo) and put us that on a free agent. This can be controversial as too many players taking minimum can lead to super teams and hurt parity, but to some degree, minimum contracts are an important component of what makes many team budgets work and can be healthy for the league when done in moderation.
Now, none of this is to say that you shouldn’t chase what you want. The NSFL gives you the ability to determine what you’re worth. None of this is meant to dissuade you from that. It’s just meant to provide a behind the scenes view that many players seemed interested in. At the end of the day, you have the right to determine if want $2m or $4m or even $6m. Asking for more money may limit your options as more competitive teams operate on stricter caps, but that’s the purpose of the salary cap. And it’s also completely fair to weigh your expectations based on the situation. If a team that’s contending year asks a rookie to take a lower contract, they’re going to be more willing to listen than they would if a rebuilding team (like Arizona) offered the same pitch.
It is also important to note that the DSFL covers up to $4m for anyone player that gets sent down. So, GMs will practically always pay you the maximum allowed for any season that they expect to send you down. Some contracts are even structured to increase the payout for future seasons to $4m if the player does get sent down. Ironically, the DSFL pays more than the average NSFL player is able to make, but the idea is to give you a head start in the early stages of your career.
Hopefully, this does give you guys some insight into the budget process. Of course, the NSFL has a lot of ways to make money, including league jobs, twitter participation, graphics, and even articles like this one. If you’re not sure what a fair asking price is, you can always refer back to that $2.5-3m range that the average player makes as a starting point in negotiation.
If you guys have any questions, feel free to PM me or ask in the comments. I also invite any other NSFL GMs to share any insight of their own that they feel I may have not touched upon. Even if you disagree! The more points of view, the better.
1777 Words
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Thanks to Jangorhino for the sig.
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