Hamilton Tiger-Cats Go Over the 2014 Salary Cap Slightly

On the cfl.ca website it was announced that the Hamilton Tiger-Cats were the only team to exceed the $5,000,000 salary cap in 2014 by $8,939. That's a pretty small amount over the cap on a percentage basis and as the amount was less than $100,000 the only consequence was a fine of $8,939; no loss of draft picks occurred.

One thing we do know, the Cats at least spent up to the cap. I would be curious to see what the Argos spent, although with Ricky Ray's high salary maybe they did come close to the cap.

The Cats had a fair number of injuries last year although that was true in 2013 and they also went to the Grey Cup without going over.

The interesting thing about no draft picks being lost for going over by less than $100,000 is that an aggressive owner could go over by $99,999 with nothing else happening but a $99,999 fine. If that made a was enough to get the team to the Grey Cup, it could be worth it for the team in terms of increased revenue. 

With the Cats being so close to the cap this year, obviously they will be in tough to keep to it this year. Next year's Ticat number could be interesting. 

Not That Surprising That the Saskatchewan Roughriders Go Over 2013 CFL Salary Cap

So only the Riders went over the salary cap in 2013. However the team only went over the cap (4.4 million) by 18K. That's below the barrier of 100K where a team loses draft picks and the penalty is just a 1 for 1 extra dollar hit. 

I've argued before that there is an incentive for richer teams (which is pretty much the Riders and maybe the Edmonton Eskimos) to go over the salary cap by $99,999 as the monetary penalty is relatively small and no draft picks would be lost. The Riders are widely profitable compared to the other teams in the league, so the extra money is meaningless to them. 100K is potentially 20K per starting offensive lineman, which isn't chump change in the CFL.

I suppose it should be pointed out that only Saskatchewan went over and they won the Grey Cup. However what I find interesting, is that the Ticats set a record for players used in a season (88) due to injuries (and maybe trying out a lot of stiffs in game) and didn't go over themselves. I know a player going on the nine game injured list means their salary doesn't contribute for those games on the salary cap, but what happens for players that are injured for one game at a time?

The NHL and the Falling Canadian Dollar

Tigercatatonia isn't always just Ticats posts.

With that said, watching the Canadian dollar fall over the last few months to below 92 cents US from a long period slightly above and below parity makes one think about the effects on NHL revenues. Those revenues determine the salary caps and floors that accompany them and are priced in US dollars.

I'm willing to bet the Canadian dollar falls below 90 cents US in the next six months, especially with the bad Ontario jobs numbers released in December. So that could be a year on year decrease in Canadian team revenue of over 10%. With seven Canadian teams out of 30, that wouldn't seem to be so problematic if every team in the NHL had the same revenues, but the Canadian teams make significantly more than the average Canadian team.

The NHL is having a good year attendance wise (see this CBS Sports article comparing NHL sellouts versus NBA sellouts; five Canadian teams have sold out all their games) so decreasing Canadian revenue probably will just counteract rising revenues. Still the salary caps and floors won't rise as much as if the Canadian dollar stayed around parity.