00:00And something that's not reported nearly enough, which I think is a much bigger factor
00:04than the salary cap, is the existence of escrow accounts, where if in the NFL,
00:11and this is the only league apparently that does this, where if you sign someone
00:16to a guaranteed contract over time, you have to put in escrow that guaranteed money
00:23beyond the given year.
00:25So, like, for example, if you sign someone to $100 million in guarantees,
00:30$30 million in the first year, $70 million has got to go into an escrow account.
00:35Now, I think they also will let you peel back $15 million for a credit.
00:38I was doing some reading today, so it may not be the full amount.
00:41You may get a little, like I read there was a $15 million credit.
00:45So if you owed someone in future guarantees of $70 million, maybe you'd be able to put
00:49away $55 million, okay?
00:51But something in that range.
00:52So it's just not reported nearly enough that the reason teams are reluctant to sign guaranteed
01:01money is because they have to have all of it in hand immediately.
01:07And whether they have it, have it, or just choose not to have it, it sort of nets out
01:13to the same thing.
01:14In other words, if you're drawing 4% or 5% interest on a guaranteed fixed income sort
01:21of investment, and you have $70 million in your bank account drawing 4%, 5%, do the math.
01:29So why would you want to put that in an escrow account so you keep it where you have it?
01:35Right.
01:35It costs you money to take it out of there.
01:36The money's working for you somewhere.
01:38Yep.
01:38That's exactly right.
01:39So, oh, well, wait a minute, I don't, well, there's a cash flow, and you see where the
01:42cap, well, it happens to be in your account drawing interest.
01:46That's why you have a cash flow situation.
01:48But these are the things you need to be talking about.
01:51When you talk about these free agents, do the teams have the money?
01:53They all have the cap space.
01:55What teams have the cash on hand?
01:58What teams actually, because I think there's some teams that don't have it.
02:01You know, I think there's old school family ownerships to some of these teams that just,
02:06you know, suck off the teat of the team, and they have nothing else, the Brown family.
02:13So some teams might not even have it.
02:15I don't know if Mark Davis has it, has it.
02:18I think there's other teams that have it, but, oh, well, well, we don't have it, you know,
02:24but they do.
02:24It's just working for them in the market somewhere.
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