Every major league says it controls spending. Almost none of them do it the same way. Some set one hard number for every team. Some set a number and let you pay a tax to go over it. Some don't set a number at all, they cap it relative to your own revenue. And one sport doesn't cap anything.
Hard numbers, same scale
These four set an actual dollar figure per team. The bars below are scaled against each other so you can see the gap.
Salary cap per team, 2026 — Hard cap. Every team must stay under it.
Salary cap per team, 2025-26 — Soft cap. Tax line sits at $187.9m, further aprons above that.
Salary cap per team, 2025-26 — Hard cap. Floor sits at $70.6m.
Competitive Balance Tax threshold, 2026 — Not a cap. Teams can exceed it and pay a tax instead.
Fixed pools, different shape
These also set a hard number, but it's a squad-wide auction or salary pool rather than a per-team spending ceiling, so they aren't on the same scale as the chart above.
Auction purse per team, 2026 season. Covers the whole squad, not one player, and is the same for every franchise. The total cap is ₹151 crore (~$17m) once performance pay and match fees are added. In a mini-auction, retained players count against the purse, so what each team had left to spend on the day differed.
Total squad salary cap, 2026-27 season. Unchanged this year. What changed is how it can be split between players.
Revenue-linked, not fixed
No single number applies to every club here. The ceiling moves with what each club actually earns.
No fixed spending number. Clubs can lose at most £105m over a rolling three-year period, off-pitch spend included. Being replaced by a Squad Cost Ratio model from 2026-27.
No fixed number either, it's set per club. Every euro of revenue a club generates can fund one euro of squad cost. Spend beyond your limit and new signings can't be registered.
No cap at all
Fighters negotiate individually with the only major buyer of their labor. Independent estimates put the fighter share of total revenue at 16-20%, versus roughly 50% in the NFL, NBA and NHL.
Why this matters
A cap is never just a number. It's a design choice about who a league is trying to protect: competitive balance between teams (NFL, NHL), a middle ground that still lets rich teams outspend if they're willing to pay for it (NBA, MLB), or a system that ties spending to a club's own income rather than an external ceiling (Premier League, La Liga). The IPL and Big Bash show that even a hard number can be redistributed rather than raised. The UFC shows what's left when none of these mechanisms exist at all.
Figures current as of the dates each was reported. League caps and tax thresholds are official; revenue-linked ceilings are club-specific and change with each club's finances.