Last week, Patriots owner Robert Kraft suggested that those who believe the new TV contracts will cause a spike in the salary cap as of 2014 are believing wrong. Over the weekend, the NFLPA reportedly said otherwise.
Kraft elaborated on his view at the league meetings Monday.
“People are assuming that because the TV spikes that’s all going to get paid,” Kraft said, via Ian Rapoport of the Boston Herald. “The networks aren’t looking to pay us a lot of money right up front. They also smooth out how they pay us out, so I would think the later years of the deals there would be higher payments. So, that’s the reason for that. They agreed to these long-term commitments but they also smooth out. . . . Part of doing long-term deals allowed for payments that, they have to show their stockholders that they did a wise deal, so . . I mean the good news here is that we have growth, we have it long-term and everyone’s going to benefit by it, but it’s not going to be spikes that will be not good for planning. This way, people can plan.”
It’s hard to disagree with Kraft, and it’s even harder to reconcile the NFLPA’s promise of a spike with the important objective of managing the expectations of the constituents.