Members of the National Football League’s finance committee are leaning towards increasing the debt limit for its owners.

Currently, owners can have as much as $600 million of debt on their team and a buyer of a team can use as much as $1.1 billion of debt. According to the NFL executives who spoke with Forbes, those figures a likely to be increased to $1 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively.

The biggest disagreement among owners is the amount of debt existing owners can stack against their teams, with some in the finance committee believing the limit should only be increased to $800 million from $600 million. The league last increased its debt limit for existing owners from $500 million to $600 million a year ago and boosted its debt limit for a buyer of a team from $500 million to the current ceiling in 2021.

To finance the $6.05 billion purchase of the Washington Commanders in July, the group led by Josh Harris used $1 billion of debt.

The increase in the debt limits would have to first be approved the NFL’s finance committee and singed off by at least 24 of the league’s 32 owners. People with knowledge of the debt limit discussions believe the new debt limits will be approved by the end of this season.

One of the reasons for the debate among owners is that interest rates have risen dramatically in recent months. The NFL typically borrows at about 1.125% above Secured Overnight Financing Rate, which has jumped to 5.33% from 2.99% over the past year.

Despite climbing interest rates, the NFL’s balance sheet almost begs for more leverage. By Forbes’ count, NFL team debt is an average of just 9% of team values. And those teams with relatively high debt from new stadiums, like the Las Vegas Raiders ($1.3 billion) and Los Angeles Rams ($3.2 billion), are not having an problems servicing their debt.

The NFL has at least $126 billion of television money that will be equally dividing among its owners through 2032. Thus, boosting team debt limits will not jeopardize the leagues high investment grade ratings for its notes or lending facilities.

The NFL currently has $12.153 billion worth of various lending facilities available to its teams:

Lending facility/Fitch rating

Football Club Term Notes 2023-XV Trust, series A-F: $1.27 billion/A

Football Funding II LLC revolving credit LWCF: to $4.113 billion/A

NFL Ventures, L.P. (G-4 Stadium Finance Program: $1.3 billion/A+

NFL senior unsecured notes (G-3 Stadium Finance Program: $70 million/A+

Football Trusts leaguewide credit facility: $5.4 billion/A