drsd wrote:pepe1991 wrote:There has been one MAJOR negative news for Magic and many other teams.
Salary cap for 2026-27 won't grow expected 10% but just 7%. Witch means that projected cap for 26-27 will be $165 M, luxury tax at around $200M, First apron at $209M and second apron at around $222M
Ouch!
The Magic is already certain to be over the 1st apron next year. It will be TIGHT to stay below the second.
But this is only a two-year thing. From 2027/28 the Magic's roster becomes "affordable" again given Suggs declining contract structure, Isaac coming off the books, and what is assumed to then be a 10% bump in the cap.
To pepe: why only 7%? The tv deal is certain league income and I thought smoothing "guaranteed" the 10% bumps.
I have no clue, there are rumors among fans that either WNBA is such a financial bomb OR viewership for playoffs, especially finals, was so bad, or that they are losing money in revenue somewhere else.
In my opinion, and i have nothing to back it up, it's owners who simply told Silver that they aren't interested into investments of half of billion dollars per year for basketball team ( due salary, tax ,repetitive tax ) in economy that isn't THAT great for sport that isn't really booming anywhere in the world.
As for viewership of nba finals. It's wild. Lot of people watched game 7, that's a given. But games 2 and 3 had very poor numbers. Game 2 in particular was one of least watched game 2s of past 30 years.
Who knows. In reality, 10% salary raise , to me, never made any sense. If inflation rate in normal years is around 3-5%, why would cap space go up so much? You already have players that aren't very motivated to play, who make too much money, you already need stipulations to force them into playing 60 games a year, and now you just give them more money ?
Maybe whole system simply needs to be rebuilt. Decrease salary cap by 20% and make championship money pool worth $100M, bonus for Finals MVP, and rest of a money spread among 14 men who played on title winner.
