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Ram_in_Oz
if fans didn't go to games or pay the cable costs the Cap would have to get smaller as would players salaries. It's great if your a NFL star though. Though I feel for the other 50 odd players on your team getting what is relatively low pay!!!! because if they weren't on your team Star or not you wont win. Just my 2 pence on it. Football over here is just as bad a new Manchester United player just signed on for something around £350k-£400k per week.....sick.

Teams can't spend beyond the cap, and the cap is covered by the league's tv contracts.

And no, having a high-priced player does not work that way by lowering the money of all the others. As a rule, teams spend 50% of their cap on 8-10 or so top players. The rest are rookies, UDFAs, low market veteran FAs, cuts, and so on. That's true throughout the league and has been that way for as long as I know of.

What drives contracts is the market. Every year the avg. annual amount for different positions goes up. Every year, a team has a choice with their own FAs--either they pay that amount, or another team will.

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