Sunday, July 30, 2006

Difference between Payroll and the Cap

There seems to be alot of confusion in cyberworld about the difference between payroll money and cap money. The payroll money that you see on the NHLPA's website, which they call compensation,are The figures of the actual money that the players will receive during the season, minus taxes of course, yes they pay taxes too. The amount that appears in a cap count is the average per season of the contract and in most times they are not the same amount. For example, last season Jose Théodore signed a 3 year 16 million dollar contract, which gave him 4.5 million for last season, in 2006-07 he will receive 5.5 and 6 million in 2007-08. Take the 16 million and divide by 3 and it should come up to 5,333,333 million, which will be the space he will take in Colorado's cap money. As you can see, there is a difference in actual salary numbers and cap money. Yes it does happen at times that both are the same, take a player that has a one year contract, at let's say 1 million, both numbers will be the same. it can also be true for a long term contract. For example, Alex Kovalev in Montreal signed a four year 18 million contract, which will pay him 4.5 million a season and that amount will appear in the Canadiens cap money for 2006-07.

By installing this system, Gary Bettman warned the owners that he was going to keep a close eye on them and did during last season and will be the same until the end of the CBA. At the beginning of the season, teams will have to send in a list of the players that will be part of the line-up for the upcoming season. The maximum allowable for each team is 23 players. Once the league receives these sheets with the cap cost included, they are then entered to a secure website that can only be accessed by the clubs and the league officials. This is done for what we call the daily monitoring of the cap for all 30 clubs. How does it work you ask ? Let's say your team has 38 million locked in contracts for the up coming season, take the number and divide by 196 (total days in the season) and it should come up to $ 193,877.55 a day, and the upper limit daily is $ 224,489.77. Your the General manager of your favorite team, and luck is on your side and your team stays healthy and you don't have to replace an injured player and add salary to your cap count and your daily count remains at i mentionned above and the trade deadline approaches, you should have close to 4.8 million in cap space to spend.

The CBA is a very complex document, i'm getting an education on how it works. If you want to compare actual salaries and cap money,here is a good site.

The site has pretty good CBA FAQ's and you can also e-mail him with questions.


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