A Celtics investor refused to accept a 1979 salary cap unless the team could always keep Larry Bird. The exception the league carved out still runs free agency.

Beginning this postseason, NHL playoff rosters must fit under the salary cap for the first time ever, closing a loophole that helped build three of the last five Stanley Cup champions.

Three players per MLS roster don't count against the salary cap the normal way, and allocation money decides how much they cost on paper.

A hard salary-cap line at $221,686,000 now decides which NBA contenders can fix their roster — and which ones just have to watch it break down.

General Allocation Money lets MLS teams work around the salary cap. Here's how the mechanism works and why some clubs have millions more of it.

One media vote for All-NBA can be worth $40 million under the NBA's Rose Rule. Here's how the 30% max clause works, and the players whose fortunes it has already swung.

From March until Week 1, the NFL only counts a team's 51 richest contracts against the cap. Here's why, and what changes the moment the season starts.

A void year is a season that exists only in a spreadsheet. Teams add them to park signing-bonus money somewhere the salary cap cannot reach it yet.

Tennessee opens 2026 with $94.8 million in unused cap space; Dallas opens $56.1 million in the hole. The gap comes down to one often-misunderstood rule: carryover.