The answers to the last question will, unfortunately, be pushed off into the unknown of the future. These are 16 and 17-year-old kids, after all. Who knows what they’ll grow into?
We can look at some of the rest, though, so let’s do that, shall we?
Off Topic
First, caveats:
- The first important thing to realize is that the 2044 process is not quite over. Yes, it’s May, but to my ability to do high-powered math, there still exist twelve kids out there waiting to be feted.
- At least five teams remain who could spend up to the $5M level and not have to pay a penalty, and two more who have already played in the market and could afford to do so again and stay under the tax cap. In addition, teams who are already over the cap could decide to make one more splurge and take the hit that they already know is coming--so, yes, this could change.
- I should note that the numbers I have for out-seasons could be missing a few players. I don’t think so, but the data collection process is manual so there you go. (Still I don’t think it will change the picture)
History
First let’s step into the not-too-Wayback Machine and take a look at how the IFA market had been performing. Here, for the five years before the change, were the numbers of teams who played in the market, and how many pre-tax BBA bucks were spent.
| Year | Teams | Pre-Tax Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 2038 | 7 | $55M |
| 2039 | 7 | $31M |
| 2040 | 5 | $30M |
| 2041 | 9 | $36M (*) |
| 2042 | 8 | $33M |
Regardless, on the whole you could squint and see that about seven teams would spend money on IFA, and taking a scan through them, it tended to be the competitors—teams like Calgary, California, Vegas, Yellow Springs, New Orleans (who may not draft overly well but are generally a big player in IFA). There are many others, too, but they tend to dip their toes in and then get out.
2043
Needless to say, the 2043 IFA class was deep and suddenly able to command that $5M from teams before they incurred any cap penalties. The game of poker, as my grand dad used to say, had gone up. So, what happened?
Bottom line: 17 teams entered the fray, and walked away after having spent an astounding $217M dollars—and that’s after removing the $27.5M contract offered to Cristian Burgos that was later remedied. That’s right. Nearly double the participation, and almost seven times the amount of cash.
Questions abounded. Was it the quality of the players? Was it the expanded cap room?
The answer was probably “yes.” Of the seventeen teams who spent on players, fourteen went over the $5M level and were put on some restrictions for 2044. So, the quality was there. Still. Seventeen teams.
Here are the players I have listed as signing:
So, yes the big cats roared but a LOT of them played at the same time (and got penalized for 2044), and you also see the Charlotte, Vegas, and Vancouver picking up a player while retaining their ability come to the table next year. This is an interesting change in the theory of IFA. Is it better to play big every other year, or better to consistently pick up a solid player or two? I don’t know. It probably depends on where you are. Still, it’s clear that this structure and level of player quality added a new dimension to the mix, and that participation was way up.
Team Player Bonus Charlotte Cougars Rabi Mahmud 2,500,000 Charm City Jimmies Luqman Ferran 10,200,000 Charm City Jimmies Insung Yun 8,341,781 Charm City Jimmies Peng Hann 3,512,328 Chicago Black Sox Taki Goto 9,000,000 Edmonton Jackrabbits Candranibha Saswata 10,700,000 Hawaii Tropics Adhyapayana Mehta 10,000,000 Las Vegas Hustlers Pedro Guzmán 3,687,945 Long Beach Surfers Félix Navarro 5,049,405 Louisville Sluggers Greg Shaw 12,500,000 Louisville Sluggers Mujahid bin Anis 3,300,000 Louisville Sluggers Isat Kasturirangan 11,059,589 Louisville Sluggers Amitdhvaja Sambandan 3,343,835 Mexico City Aztecs Juan Féliz 7,000,000 Montreal Blazers Burhan bin Bishr 8,800,000 Omaha Cyclones Humam bin Nuri 6,000,000 Omaha Cyclones Juan Romano 16,000,000 Phoenix Talons Rajeshkumar Simha 15,678,901 Rockville Pikemen Zong-yuan Guang 6,800,000 Rockville Pikemen Farid bin Mubarak 10,500,000 San Fernando Bears Rubén bin Majid 16,400,000 Seattle Storm Murtadi bin Anbar 11,600,000 Vancouver Mounties Ahamyati Sophia 1,400,000 Yellow Springs Nine Burhan Tahir 12,000,002 Yellow Springs Nine Idhma Motiwala 12,000,002
In the final analysis, that first year with the new levels was flashy and kinda fun to watch, but the proof is in the pudding, and folks started looking at 2044 as another litumus test.
Would participation continue?
Would dollars flow?
Enter Present Day 2044
Probably the first thing to say is that, once again, there were tempting players to be had in the IFA market—which is a requirement for a fun time to be had by all. Second, as noted above, fourteen teams had some degree of restriction on their ability to play IFA ball, so there is also that.
Pundits were uncertain what to expect.
The answer, though, probably makes sense: nearly as many teams participated (14), but the dollars spent dropped…a little. Put it together and the table looks like this:
| Year | Teams | Pre-Tax Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 2038 | 7 | $55M |
| 2039 | 7 | $31M |
| 2040 | 5 | $30M |
| 2041 | 9 | $36M |
| 2042 | 8 | $33M |
| 2043 | 17 | $217M |
| 2044 | 14 | $141M |
In addition, it seems that perhaps teams have gotten a bit savvier around that $5M level, or at least a bit more concerned with it. Looking at the teams who played in the market shows the following:
Seven teams: Des Moines, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Nashville, Twin Cities, and Vancouver acquired players, but stayed under spending limits, therefore allowing them to sign players again next season without any penalty at all. Wichita over-spent only a little, and will be restricted to singing only a single player at a salary of more than about $800K.
Team Player Bonus Boise Spuds Mauro Diaz 10,602,250 Calgary Pioneers Carlos Torres 9,500,000 Calgary Pioneers Najib Fakih 5,295,616 Calgary Pioneers Devesita Manjunath 2,328,767 Des Moines Kernels Kaden Azim 4,500,000 Jacksonville Hurricanes Jiong Liu 4,924,657 Las Vegas Hustlers Ra'id Youssef 702,602 Long Beach Surfers Nanda Lalita 5,000,000 Madison Wolves Bin Wan 6,000,000 Madison Wolves Muhsin bin Abdul 4,100,000 Nashville Bluebirds Wafid Bishr 5,000,000 New Orleans Crawdads Shirai Nakashima 18,110,000 New Orleans Crawdads Kiyomori Yoshida 4,500,000 New Orleans Crawdads Chang Jiu 7,000,000 New Orleans Crawdads Art Howard 4,010,959 Sacramento Mad Popes Okyay Nisanc 12,010,000 Sacramento Mad Popes Boulos Naim 6,310,000 San Antonio Outlaws Majid bin Husam 12,700,000 San Antonio Outlaws Carlos Nava 4,000,000 Twin Cities River Monsters Jonas Murdock 5,000,000 Vancouver Mounties Ramiro García 3,972,054 Wichita Aviators Sertaç Safavî 5,500,000
Calgary, Madison, New Orleans (there’s those Crawdads again!), Sacramento, and San Antonio will now be unable to sign players for more than about $400K—which, if the market remains as viable as it has been, puts them essentially on the sidelines.
As noted before, of course, the market place is still open, so some of this could change. That said, demands of players available are still moderately high, and teams are now focused on signing draft picks, so I suspect future traffic will not change the picture in ways substantial enough to make a difference in the story…which is, that for the second season in a row, the IFA market seems to be playing much deeper into the BBA.
