Business is booming in the NFL, and so is the salary cap.
The cap will jump almost 10 percent to $155.27 million per team this season, according to figures confirmed by the NFL Players Association on Sunday.
The increase from $143 million per team last season — the biggest single-year boost since 2006 — was fueled by a flood of revenue from the new Thursday night TV package and other income that exceeded league projections.
The cap also jumped when the NFL was caught by NFLPA auditors trying to pull a fast one on the union by hiding some revenue from the cap formula. An arbitrator ruled against the league, adding nearly $2 million to this season’s overall cap figure.
As a result, the Giants are projected to have $57.743 million in cap space when free agency begins March 9, the fifth-most in the league. The Jets are projected to have $21.951 million, which ranks 21st.
The cap figure also means the values for the franchise and transition tags are set. The franchise tag for 2016 — the guaranteed one-year contract for a player who doesn’t agree to a long-term deal — will range from a high of $19.953 million for quarterbacks to a low of $4.572 million for kickers and punters.
Thanks to a clause in the collective bargaining agreement, teams are allowed to carry over a large amount of cap room from last season.
The Jaguars ($32.7 million) will carry over the most of any team from 2015, followed by the Titans ($20.78 million) and Browns ($20.73 million). The Seahawks, meanwhile, are carrying over just $11,587, according to NFLPA calculations.
Teams will be under the gun to spend the bulk of their cap room this season. Another clause in the labor agreement requires clubs to spend an average of 95 percent of the cap over a four-year period that began in 2013 or write a check to the union — to be disbursed to all players — for the unspent amount.