The NFL Salary Cap was ~$34 million when it was introduced in 1994. Today the Salary Cap is ~$260 million.

Has the NFL Salary Cap outpaced inflation?

If you use CPI to calculate the 2024 value of $34 million 1994 dollars, the answer is a MASSIVE YES.

According to CPI, $34 million in 1994 dollars is equivalent to $72 million.

According to the government, the NFL is a massive success, however...

If we use the M2 money supply growth as the proxy for inflation, things look different.

Using M2 as a proxy for inflation, $34 million 1994 dollars is equivalent to $205 BILLION.

Nearly 10x the current salary cap.

Neither of these measures is a perfect proxy for money supply growth (inflation). No one knows how many dollars exist and more can be "printed" at any time.

That said, NFL players likely make less than their 1994 counterparts.

They just seem richer because the "non-rich" have gotten poorer by comparison in the last 30 years.

I make wine, not sense.

I buy #Bitcoin, not dollars

HODL WINE

HODL BITCOIN

Just don't HODL dollars

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I’m here for this kind of financial analysis. 🫡

thx. I love calling rich people rekt

That made perfect sense actually.

You’re probably right that M2 overshoots it a bit but CPI is waaaaay too low.

In all sports right now it's all just about how crazy the salaries are getting, but it's wild to realize that they're actually poorer than they used to be

s/BILLION/MILLION/

otherwise, this is a solid analysis

I can't count that high

Listening to any sports talk shows the hosts will always talk about how "much money" each new contract is. But just because it's more monopoly money bits doesn't mean there's more value. Shout out to Russell Okung for taking some of his NFL salary in bitcoin.

it's cool to see more and more of them listening to him

Love it!

tbf 90s 🏈 and 🏀 were better than today tho

damnit that makes me sound old

hahahahaha

now I don't even need a snarky response

you got got by yourself 😉🫄

Silly CPI. Hard to imagine the accumulated malinvestment over the decades as people poured capital into economically unprofitable ventures smh

That’s so wild with the money supply. Just getting rigged without Bitcoin.

absolutely.

how far we've fallen

I would say

I love sports as much as the next guy, but the amount of GDP that goes to pro-sports and entertainment is indicative of how high time preference it is.

Pro-athletes, entertainers, actors; they are all super close to the money printer.

(Why do we think most of them support the left. Not that they are even consciously aware of any of this)

I think the point of my post is that they've actually gotten less Rich than they were in 1994. we've just gotten even poorer in comparison

💯 my point was a side point 🤙