Thanks Taylor Swift! Swifties take credit for NFL salary cap increase

Across the league, preparations for the 2024 NFL season have already begun. Scouts are analyzing incoming prospects, coaches are devising new tactics, and front office executives are obsessively combing through ways to improve their roster. The decisions made in the upcoming weeks will determine the outcome of the 2024 campaign, and every decision will begin with the salary cap.

On Friday, the league announced that the salary cap figure for the 2024 NFL season will be $255.4 million.

The figure marks an unprecendented $30 million increase over last year's cap figure, which totaled $224.8 million. Most projections expected the salary cap to be approximately $242 million, and the increased spending budget will provide relief for teams looking to acquire talent.

The record-setting figure comes just weeks after Super Bowl LVIII drew the largest audience for any televised event in the United States since astronauts first stepped on the moon in 1969. Much like Super Bowl viewership, the salary cap has skyrocketed this century.

As the NFL's rapid growth shows no signs of slowing down, one person is being given credit for it all: pop icon Taylor Swift.

Did Taylor Swift actually impact the NFL salary cap?

The league certainly profited from it's convergence with Swift and pop culture — a record number of young, female viewers tuned in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs in 2023. While Swift's effect on the NFL has been the center of media attention, the league actually benefitted more from other areas.

According to the NFL, the leap in salary cap is also partially "the result of the full repayment of all amounts advanced by the clubs and deferred by the players during the Covid pandemic as well as an extraordinary increase in media revenue for the 2024 season."

The league's biggest sources of revenue over the past two years have included:

• The NFL agreed to a seven-year, $14 billion deal that gave YouTube the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket
• The NFL began partnerships with DraftKings, Caesars and FanDuel
• The NFL launched EverPass Media, a new venture to distribute Sunday Ticket to commercial establishments
• Sold Thursday Night Football streaming rights to Amazon for $1 billion per year over the next decade

The salary cap is determined by a calculation that's defined in the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association. Under the current terms, players are entitled to 48 percent of the the defined gross revenue, which is the league's profit from contracts with national television networks, ticket sales, merchandising, naming rights and advertising. Once that figure is determined, 48 percent of it is divided by the league's 32 franchises, which determines the individual salary cap figure for each team.

As of Friday afternoon, seven teams are above the official 2024 salary cap figure, per Over The Cap: the Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints and Buffalo Bills. Teams must be under the salary cap before the new league year begins at 4 p.m. ET on March 13.