Salary Caps

Salary caps are limits put in place that allows teams to spend only a certain amount on player salaries per year. They help keep teams within the league more even. For example, if the league's salary cap is $100,000, they can't sign a bunch of really good guys to big contracts unless they want to basically spend little to none on all their other players. Not being able to sign multiple great players allows the spread of sports stars in the league to different teams. It also helps keep costs down as players will want to sign a contract worth as much money as they can. Players will understand that signing a big contract might keep the team from signing other players that will help the team. Some leagues do not have salary caps, like the MLB. Teams that go over this limit have to pay a penalty to the league. Let's take a look at salary caps throughout professional sports.

NBA
The 2015-2016 salary cap will be set at $70 million.  Last years salary cap limit was $63.1 million dollars, so the increase is a whopping 11% from last year.  The highest team payroll is the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have player salaries that equal out to a total of just under $95 million. The lowest team payroll is the Portland Trail Blazers, which is $41,410,000. This is almost a $54 million difference between them and the Cleveland Cavaliers. They can use the extra money that they can spend in free agency sometime or trade for a player with a high salary.  An NBA team is allowed to have 15 players on their rosters. If players were all payed equally, they'd all have salaries of $4.7 million.

MLB
Major League Baseball is one of the sports that does not have a salary cap. This allows teams to spend as much as they want on players without having to pay penalties. Teams who make a lot of money or who are in bigger markets like New York City or Los Angeles tend to have enough money to spend lots on player salaries. The Los Angeles Dodgers have a team payroll of$272,789,040, which is the highest in the league. The Miami Marlins team payroll is $68,479,000, the lowest in the league. This is a difference of more than $200 million! A higher team payroll doesn't always mean better success as the Houston Astros' team payroll was the second lowest in the MLB, but yet the team made the playoffs. The Boston Red Sox had the third highest team payroll but failed to make the playoffs.

NFL
The NFL salary cap for the 2015 season is set at $143.28 million. The New York Jets have a team payroll of $152.36 million while the lowest is the Tennessee Titans, which is set at $128.23 million. The NFL has a smaller gap between the highest and lowest team payrolls, as it is only about $ 25 million.  Each NFL team is allowed to have 53 men on their roster, so if every player was played equally, they'd make $2.7 million. Keep in mind that the NFL makes the most money out of any professional sport, yet it seems that the bigger stars in the NFL don't make near as much as the bigger stars in the NBA or other sports with salary caps.