After a year of enormous attendance drops and television ratings losses, the NFL salary cap is set to take a historic hit of nearly $16 million.
The league that began their season with near empty stands and then chased away television viewers by turning their gameday experience into a platform for social justice messaging, announced on Wednesday that all teams will have to be at or under a salary cap of $182.5 million by 4:00 PM EST on March 17.
The $182.5 million figure represents a $15.7 million drop from the $198.2 million cap the league had last year.
As Pro Football Talk reports, “The 2021 cap could have been reduced by tens of millions more without the NFLPA and league finalizing a new CBA and negotiating an agreement in July to have the season.”
The NFL was not the only major American sports league to take a massive financial hit in 2020. As Forbes reported on Tuesday, the top four U.S. sports leagues lost over $14 billion in revenues during the pandemic-plagued 2020 season.
The revenue losses stem primarily from historic drops in attendance due to the virus.
Of course, the four major sports leagues surrendering to Black Lives Matter didn’t help matters either.