The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

taken from LEAGUE OWES $9 BILLION Originally Posted by Mike Florio March 17, 2008 on NFLFans.com


The NFL, which has been without question the most popular professional sport in America, is nevertheless awash in debt. According to Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, the league had more than $9 billion in debt as of October 2007. Thats an average of more than $281,000,000 per team. The disclosure came in a letter from NFL outside counsel Gregg Levy in support of a decision by the league to reduce the per-team annual debt ceiling. The union has filed collusion charges regarding the move, alleging that the league essentially has limited the amount of money that will be available to pay bonuses and other lump sums to players. Levy's letter has been made public because it has been filed in connection with the collusion charges.

Both the cap and floor are still in place. Regardless of how, every team is required to spend at least $100M a year on players, with that number going up every year.

But the debt figure is really high, in our estimation. Major league baseball clubs owe a total of $3.1 billion, and NBA teams cap their debt at a total of $175 million per team. NHL teams can borrow up to one-half of the value of each franchise.

Let's not get carried away. Look at it like a mortgage. How much do YOU still have left to pay on your house?

NFL teams are worth around a billion each (the Dolphins were valued at $1.2B, including all debt, when Wayne sold half), making $281M seem like a fairly low number.

So if you have 20% left on mortgage, is that really a problem?  OK, so the house is only 80% yours...

With regards to comparisons with other leagues and teams, well, I don't know what NBA teams are worth, so I can't really comment.

Bottom line: This seems like much ado about nothing.

We have a winner.  Exactly correct analogy.