Player Payroll Cap Rule Clarification

Here is the player payroll cap rule clarification for Season 22, and a structured penalty scale so that such penalties will be transparent and consistently applied going forward.

1. SALARY CAP - $100 MIL. (Updated for Season 22)
At no time may player payroll exceed $100 million.  The means for determining compliance will be the Payroll Number that appears under Payroll Information upon clicking the team name link on the Standings page.   You are not permitted to accept players in a trade that will put your Payroll number over $100 million, even if cash is included to cover the player's salary.   The commissioner will make every effort to monitor deals to ensure they are in compliance with the Salary Cap rule, and urge owners to veto deals that are not, but if a deal slips through putting a team at over $100 million in payroll, it is a violation, as ultimately it is each owner's responsibility to ensure compliance with the rule.

WIS has ruled in past inquiries that a Player Payroll budget above $100 million is not an enforceable violation (it has to be actual payroll); however, Player Payroll budgets over $100 million are strongly discouraged to prevent accidental violations.

Penalties for Non-Compliance:
Owners will have 7 days from the date of discovery of the violation to get back under the $100 million payroll cap.  If unable to do so, the owner will face the following penalties:

Violations of $2 million or less
1st Offense:  Owner receives a cap penalty for the following season of 3 times the amount over the cap, rounded up to the nearest million.
2nd Offense:  Owner receives a cap penalty for the following season of 6 times the amount over the cap, rounded up to the nearest million.
3rd Offense:  Owner will be removed from the world.

Violations of more than $2 million
1st Offense:  Owner will be removed from the world.

Rule Objective: The rule somewhat minimizes the # of max salary contracts that can be offered and to guard against having to find an owner for a team with bad contracts if the original owner bails.

Rule V Exception: It is possible that payments from having rule V players drafted from your team will put you over the cap. You will not be forced to transfer $ in this case, however, your player payroll will not be allowed to exceed $100 million.