Colts Get Second Best Value From Roster in NFL
By Evan Reller
After over a decade of greatness, multiple Super Bowl appearances, near annual playoff experiences, and greatness across the roster it isn’t a surprise that the Indianapolis Colts give one of the best experiences back to their fans.
According to Nerdwallet, the Colts not only offer the second best value in the NFL but are sixth in US sports. They broke down the efficiency of every team in the NFL, NBA, and MLB by combining the salaries with wins to determine the value.
From Nerdwallet:
"Our rankings of all 92 baseball, basketball and football franchises are based on financial efficiency — roster spending vs. team performance.In our analysis, we counted regular season victories over the past 15 years and factored in whether the team had won any championships to create an “adjusted wins” total for each franchise.We then divided each team’s share of the league’s total adjusted wins since 2000 by the team’s share of the league’s total payroll over that same time. This gave us a payroll efficiency index with an average score of 1. The more financially efficient a team is, the higher the index number."
Nerdwallet also offered up an incredible stat regarding NFL rosters:
"Since 2000, NFL teams’ roster payrolls have totaled over $47 billion — 67% more than the NBA’s and 28% higher than MLB’s, despite baseball’s lack of a salary cap."
Staggering numbers, but the NFL’s revenue in 2014 was estimated at over $12 billion. A number which has steadily crept up over the past 15 years for America’s most popular sport.
The Colts were only behind the New England Patriots in value in the NFL (apparently winning four Super Bowls puts you on another level). The Colts have been a model of success since 2000. They have only missed the playoffs twice and have 10-plus wins in every other year.
For a majority of the 2000s, the Colts were forced to draft well and get value from younger players who wouldn’t be with the team for too long. With Peyton Manning and a few other key players eating up most of the cap space, the Colts weren’t burdened with free agency.
For the past three seasons, the Colts have gotten tremendous value out of a very cheap 2012 draft class. That will change after this season when the front office makes some tough decisions on who to re-sign. Andrew Luck is sure to eat up a bunch of cap space in the near future.