Rule change proposals for 2024/25 season

[Interpaga]

Please post here your proposals for rule changes starting from next season.

Changes already approved:
1. FA bidding (starting from 2024/25 season). The duration to win a player in FA will be 24 hours. Basically, in order to avoid too long auctions, you win a player after being the highest bidder for 24 hours

[Interpaga]

The rulebook has been just updated to reflect the changes already agreed upon for the next season and to remove some obsolete parts

[jimw]

You should consider canceling all money paid on contracts this year. It only helps the elite teams and keeps bad teams held down. Getting subsidies out of the league was a good start, but it should be accelerated.

If you won't do that you should increase everyone's cap to match.

It's not fair that one team has $34 mil in cap space more than the rest of us in 2024. It's killing the league.

[Interpaga]

If my calculations are correct, the overall impact of previously agreed cash exchanges on 2024/25 should be relatively limited. There is only one team with around $17mn of net total paid salaries and two teams with around $12-13mn of net paid salaries, all the other teams have less than $10m paid on a net basis.
Then in the 2025/26 season previously agreed cash exchanges will go close to zero, so the impact of the old rule will become almost null.

Please also consider that, according to the rules, each team must be salary cap compliant for all seasons and stay always under the cap also in the subsequent years, so the almost full wipe out of cash exchanges in 2025/26 will have some impact also on the upcoming season. To make this impact even stronger, in the upcoming 2024/25 season, we plan to move the deadline to extend a player (and pick up team option) before the end of regular season, so basically a team will need to re-sign an expiring contract before the playoffs (and obviously will need to have cap space to do it), otherwise the player will become a UFA in the offseason.

I cannot cancel unilaterally previously agreed cash exchanges, because cash exchanges were within the previous rules and managers who gained cap usually had to gave more assets to make that happen.
On the other side, a cap 'premium' for teams without cash exchanges on their balance would be too hard to quantify

[jimw]

I would disagree that a team having $17 mil extra in cap this year as "relatively limited".

I also would disagree that in 25/26 the impact of the old rule would "become almost null" because the assets that teams acquired will still be on their teams or traded for other assets. I would expect the top teams to remain top teams for at least several years past the cap advantages. I would say it's impossible to quantify the time it will take for this to be fixed.

That's why I was thinking the sooner these deals are gone the better.

Why not give extra cap this year to the teams who do not have these subsidies? I don't understand how it's too hard to quantify. But it's ok.

Thanks for responding to my post

[Interpaga]

It is true that a team in 2025/26 could be able to continue to benefit from expensive players previously acquired through cash exchanges, but, if the salaries paid disappear, this same team will have to have the ability to maintain these players while remaining under the salary cap without subsidies, otherwise it will have to sell assets. And it is important to note that obtaining a salary paid has generally had a cost (in terms of players or picks) for those who have benefited from it.
Surely the effects of what has happened so far in the league will also be felt in 2025/26, but I believe that more than to the old cash exchanges going forward, this will be due to the high activity that some teams have had since the start of the league. For this reason, I believe it is key for the league to increase further the engagement and activity of the participants.

Regarding a possible cap premium, first of all, some teams with paid salaries could feel penalized since the cash exchange typically came at a cost (players, picks). Even assuming that no team disputes the cap premium, what is the fair level of the premium?
A premium of $17m is undoubtedly high, it would create an enormous amount of cap space for all teams with difficult to predict consequences and above all, by opening up new cap space, it could benefit the most active owners which are often also those with the best teams (at the moment some of the teams are constrained because they are close to the cap). On the other side, an arbitrary premium of $3-5mn for teams without paid salaries would in my opinion remain subject to criticism without helping the teams that would benefit from it much

[Daddy]

It is true that a team in 2025/26 could be able to continue to benefit from expensive players previously acquired through cash exchanges, but, if the salaries paid disappear, this same team will have to have the ability to maintain these players while remaining under the salary cap without subsidies, otherwise it will have to sell assets. And it is important to note that obtaining a salary paid has generally had a cost (in terms of players or picks) for those who have benefited from it.
Surely the effects of what has happened so far in the league will also be felt in 2025/26, but I believe that more than to the old cash exchanges going forward, this will be due to the high activity that some teams have had since the start of the league. For this reason, I believe it is key for the league to increase further the engagement and activity of the participants.

Regarding a possible cap premium, first of all, some teams with paid salaries could feel penalized since the cash exchange typically came at a cost (players, picks). Even assuming that no team disputes the cap premium, what is the fair level of the premium?
A premium of $17m is undoubtedly high, it would create an enormous amount of cap space for all teams with difficult to predict consequences and above all, by opening up new cap space, it could benefit the most active owners which are often also those with the best teams (at the moment some of the teams are constrained because they are close to the cap). On the other side, an arbitrary premium of $3-5mn for teams without paid salaries would in my opinion remain subject to criticism without helping the teams that would benefit from it much

His suggestion is valid.

The teams over the cap should be forced to move those assets to get under the cap.

[Interpaga]

Last year we made the important decision to prohibit new cash exchanges starting this offseason, but there has never been a ruling on canceling existing cash exchanges. A transition year is normal for the effects of an important old rule to be phased out; then next year, previously agreed cash exchanges will go near zero.
I am confident that the effects of the old rule on the upcoming season will be limited in any case, also thanks to the all-seasons cap compliance rule as described in my previous post.

I do not think it would be fair to introduce now a rule to immediately penalize teams that have salaries paid in their balance sheet. Cash exchanges were allowed to the entire league and teams that received salary payments operated within the rules and usually spent assets in exchange for cash received.

I would rather consider introducing a cash bonus for this season only, available exclusively to teams without paid salaries in their balance sheet.
In essence, these teams could apply for a cash bonus of up to $10 million in exchange for picks (for example, $3 million for a second-round pick and $10 million for a first-round pick). The picks would then go to open teams to favor new owners and help rebuild these teams.
This would address jimw's request to accelerate the transition (it's a kind of cap premium) and at the same time avoid disputes with managers with paid salaries who could argue that cash exchanges have cost them picks or players.

If a similar proposal gains support, we can consider it

[jimw]

If there is not enough time for teams to adjust to losing their subsidies for this season, why not remove all subsidies for 2025?  Everyone has a year and a half to be prepared for that.

[OUDAN]

Taking away the payments that were already made doesnt seem to make sense in my head. The trades were made with that considered in the trade.