Answering questions about the 17-game season
IF you hadn’t heard, the NFL is expanding the regular season to 17 games
For the first time in 43 years, the NFL is expanding its regular season.
League owners voted this week to approve a 17-game regular season schedule starting with the 2021 season, while reducing the preseason to three games. It’s news of a sort, but it had been widely anticipated. It was made possible through the negotiation of the latest CBA agreement, which was ratified just about a year ago, and it was given financial impetus by the financial impact of COVID-19 on the league revenues in 2020. While many analysts and owners would argue that the owners could have unilaterally expanded the regular season without agreement from the players, any contentious labor battles or legal issues were avoided by including the provision for the expanded season in the most recent CBA.
Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images
I am the kind of person when a question comes into my mind I’m not satisfied until I do everything I can to answer it. I was thinking about the NFL doing all they can to increase the salary cap for the 2021 year season and how the added revenue from a 17th regular-season game is the biggest factor moving forward in getting the 2021 salary cap as high as possible.
But what about the players salaries for the 17th game? Will this mean all the numbers we have been calculating for players counting towards the salary cap will increase?