The Absolute Stingiest NFL Owners

You get what you pay for, and in the NFL, where every small edge matters, cheap ownership shows up fast.

Sure, football doesn't always come down to money, but it's never completely separate from it either. Not all NFL owners invest in their teams the same way, and even after you factor in franchise value, some of them are clearly squeezing pennies. You have franchises worth billions, and players are still eating low-grade food, rehabbing in aging facilities, and flying without basics you would expect from a professional operation.

To find the absolute stingiest NFL owners, we looked at team facilities, off-field perks like food, and ownership opinion from the 2025 NFL Player Report Card (spoiler alert: some teams really do have less financial firepower). To zero in on owners who could spend more but simply don't, we also folded in franchise value and salary spend. That gave us a list of the biggest cheapskate owners in the NFL.

Here is who spends, who saves, and where players feel it the most.

Key Findings

Here is the quick read on what the data showed:

• Michael Bidwill is the cheapest owner in the NFL.
• The Arizona Cardinals rank number one in overall cheapness, with the worst locker room (F-), bottom-tier food (D-), and a D- ownership grade, despite a $5.5 billion franchise valuation and nearly $78 million in unused cap space.
• Robert Kraft ranks as the second-cheapest owner, leaving over $121 million unused while players fly on a plane with no Wi-Fi and ashtrays in the seats.
• The Steelers’ locker room is among the worst in football.
• Woody Johnson is the lowest-rated owner in the entire NFL.
• The Jets owner receives the league’s only F in ownership, paired with a C- food grade and D+ locker room, ranking him fourth in cheapness even though the team is worth $8.1 billion.
• The Bengals cheap out on food, running the worst food program in the NFL.

The Stingiest NFL Owners

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1. Michael Bidwill – Arizona Cardinals

The Arizona Cardinals’ Michael Bidwill takes the top spot, and not in a way anyone in that building will brag about. Cardinals players rank at the bottom of the NFL Player Report Card out of all 32 teams for overall conditions. Once you factor in how much the team is worth, it only gets worse. Bidwill comes off as flat out disproportionately cheap.

2. New England Patriots – Robert Kraft

Kraft lands as the second-cheapest owner in the NFL. Team travel is where his frugality really shows its face. Road trips for Patriots players feel like a throwback. The team plane is outdated, with no Wi-Fi and ashtrays in the seats. Other teams land feeling rested and taken care of thanks to their travel setups, while The Patriots just land and get on with it.

3. Pittsburgh Steelers – Art Rooney II

The Steelers slot in third thanks to a D-graded locker room that players describe as outdated and cramped, even though the franchise valuation is strong. Add in a D grade in ownership, with Rooney regularly underinvesting in upgrades, and the pattern is hard to miss. For a brand that sells itself as one of the league’s blue bloods, players say the daily environment feels far from premium.

4. New York Jets – Woody Johnson

Woody Johnson earns an F in ownership, the lowest mark in the league. The Jets pair a C- food program with a D+ locker room and a franchise value north of $8 billion, and players describe the whole thing as “top-down problems.” Cutting the food budget and scaling back nutrition support locked in their reputation as the fourth-stingiest operation on the board.

5. Cincinnati Bengals – Mike Brown

The Bengals’ shiny new locker room looks great, but it doesn't erase their food situation, which is the worst in the NFL. The team is one of only two in the league that does not provide three meals a day. Back in 2000, Bengals players were given used jock straps and had nothing but a water fountain available. With that history in mind, Mike Brown probably deserves a “most improved” nod. Even so, Bengals players are still dealing with surprisingly bare-bones off-field perks.

6. Los Angeles Chargers – Dean Spanos

On paper, the Chargers look fine. A- food, an A locker room, and an A in ownership. They still land in the cheap tier though because the spending pattern doesn't line up with how valuable the franchise is. With nearly $94 million in cap space, Spanos comes off cautious in the spots that matter most, like roster flexibility and comfort that goes beyond the basics.

7. Washington Commanders – Josh Harris

In Washington, things fall apart fast once you hit the locker room. The team has an F grade there, one of the worst in the league, with ongoing plumbing issues and an overall dated feel. With a top-10 franchise value, the lack of investment in facilities stands out and keeps the Commanders flagged as cheap, even with new ownership in place.

8. Tennessee Titans – Amy Adams Strunk

A C- locker room and B+ food put the Titans right in the middle for facilities, but how they spend tells the rest of the story. Despite a solid team value, Tennessee keeps leaving a big chunk of cap space unused and hasn't fully modernized key parts of the building. The players feel that gap, and it shows up in the Cheapness Index.

9. Jacksonville Jaguars – Shahid Khan

The Jaguars sit near the cheap end because almost everything about the setup feels just okay. A C+ food grade, B+ locker room, and B+ ownership paint a picture of a franchise that has made some upgrades but still pulls back when it comes to really investing. With plenty of cap space available to push more money toward players, the environment comes off as modest compared to what other teams are offering.

10. Detroit Lions – Sheila Ford Hamp

Detroit’s locker room, food, and ownership reputation are not the problem here. Sheila Ford Hamp is viewed by most players as willing to invest in facilities and serious about building a winning team. The issue is more about what is left on the table. With over $52 million in cap space and a franchise that's climbing in value, the Lions could push even harder, and usually do not.

What Cheapness Reveals About NFL Ownership

Some owners treat their franchise like a long-term football project, while others treat it like a balance sheet. You see the difference fast in the facilities, the food, the support staff, and how much money actually lands in the locker room instead of sitting in an account. On one end, you have poor facilities, limited or mediocre food, and owners who keep payroll tight. On the other, you have organizations that spend on modern buildings, player support, and are willing to use the cap instead of just talking about “commitment to winning.”

Money alone doesn't decide who covers or who makes a Super Bowl run. A great breakfast spread or a shiny weight room won't win you a playoff game by itself. Teams can grind in dated spaces and still play high-level football on Sunday. But spending does tell you where an owner’s head is. In a league this public, penny-pinching rarely stays hidden. Players feel it in their day-to-day, and the grades and financial data back it up.

Methodology: How We Found the NFL’s Cheapest Owners

To figure out which NFL owners come off as the stingiest, we combined what players report about their everyday experience with how each franchise behaves financially. The focus was on four key factors that show how willing an owner is to invest in the team. Here is how we built the Cheapness Index across all 32 teams:

Facility grades: food, locker rooms, ownership opinion

We used the 2025 NFL Player Report Card, where players rate their own team in categories like:

• Food and dining (Is it good? Is it fresh? Are meals actually provided?)
• Locker rooms (Clean? Modern? Enough space for an NFL roster?)
• Ownership (Do players feel the owner invests in the team?)

Grades run from A through F, with A as the best and F as the worst (lower grades usually mean less money going back into the team).

Food programs and locker rooms are not the biggest line items in an NFL budget. So when a franchise is getting hammered with low marks there, it usually signals a choice to cut back, not a lack of funds. Some organizations have more financial muscle than others, but every owner decides how much to reinvest in player comfort and support.

Franchise value vs. unused salary cap space

We also looked at how much salary cap space each owner left unused compared with how valuable the franchise is:

• High-value team + a lot of unused cap space = cheaper owner
• Lower-value team + reasonable spending = less cheap

In short, if a very wealthy owner still refuses to spend into the space they have, this metric catches it.

Those four factors taken together (food grade, locker room grade, ownership grade, and cap usage relative to franchise value) were weighted evenly to create the Cheapness Index on a 0 to 100 scale. The higher the score, the cheaper the owner.

You can see the full dataset here.

Sources:

We used publicly available information from:

• NFLPA 2025 Report Cards (facility and ownership grades)
• Statista (team franchise values)
• Spotrac & PFF (salary cap space and financial breakdowns)

Every NFL Owner Ranked, From Most To Least Cheap