National Football League In Debt?

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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.
That’s 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. The Levy letter has been made public because it has been filed in connection with the collusion charges.
But the salary cap (and floor) are still in place. Regardless of how the money is paid out, every team is required to spend at least $100 million per year on players, with that number going up every year.
And the debt figure really is 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 (so they can borrow like 500 bucks, right?).



PFT