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If a player signs a contract with a split bonus, part paid this year and
part next year, is the CAP hit based on the total split bonus prorated or
just the part paid this year prorated over contract life?
.. or anyone.
If a player signs a contract with a split bonus, part paid this year and
part next year, is the CAP hit based on the total split bonus prorated or
just the part paid this year prorated over contract life?
AFAIK, any time money is guaranteed, it can be prorated over the remaining years of the contract. As an example: everyone's favorite Slot Machine received a $5.5M signing bonus in '07. That can be prorated at $1.1M/yr over the 5 years. He's also due to receive a $3.5M option bonus this year, which can be prorated at $875K over the remaining four years of the contract.
Similarly, the Pats could guarantee Brady's salary, and prorate 1/3 of it over each of the next three years ('08, '09, '10).
So if Player X signs a 5 year contract that has 4M Bonus to be paid this
year and a 6M bonus to be paid next year (split bonus) then for the Bonus alone the Team would get hit with what CAP hit assuming the team wants
to pro-rate as many years as possible?
So which of the following is then true?
1) 10M over 5 years? 2M cap hit each year.
2) 4 Mill over 5 years and 6Mill over 4 years.
(Cap this year = .8 M and CAP next year .8 + 2.5 = 3.3M)
3) something else
(2), except there's an error in your math (the cap hit for the remaining four years is $0.8M + $1.5M [= $6M/4], or $2.3M).
If I'm not mistaken, Miquel tries to avoid "interpreting" contracts in his cap spreadsheets. If the future bonus is written as a one-time bonus (like a roster bonus), then Miguel lists it as a one-time non-prorated bonus in the year it will be paid (even though Miguel knows that the bonus will almost certainly be converted to a pro-rated bonus).
For example, he had Stallworth's 2008 bonus listed as a one-time lump sum hit against the 2008 cap even though, had the Pats decided to keep Stallworth, that bonus almost certainly would have been juggled to pro-rate the money over the length of the contract.