United States Football League

• 1. Introduction

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  In 1990, the United States Football League received a check from the National Football League for $3.76. The check has never been cashed. It represented the full damages awarded at the conclusion of a years-long antitrust lawsuit in which the USFL had sought $567 million.

  The league had been built on more ambitious foundations. Prospective owners had to post a $1.5 million letter of credit just to qualify for a franchise. Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Reggie White, and Herschel Walker all played in the USFL before their NFL careers began. Three consecutive Heisman Trophy winners signed with USFL teams directly out of college.

  How a league this credible ended up with a settlement it could not be bothered to cash is the question at the center of this story. Why did owners who pledged to follow a carefully designed founding plan abandon it within months? What drove the vote to switch from spring football to a direct confrontation with the NFL? And what did a six-person jury mean when it declared the NFL an illegal monopoly and then awarded three dollars?

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• 2. The Blueprint

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  In 1965, New Orleans antiques dealer David Dixon began imagining a professional football league that would play its games in spring and summer, when the NFL sat idle. He had already played a significant role in bringing the New Orleans Saints to Louisiana and in building the Superdome.

  By 1980, Dixon had commissioned a study by Frank Magid Associates that confirmed demand for spring professional football. Over the following two years, he assembled what became known as the Dixon Plan. It called for teams in NFL-caliber stadiums in the country's top television markets. A hard salary cap of $1.8 million per team would keep costs under control. Dixon required potential owners to meet strict capitalization requirements. He had studied the World Football League, which had collapsed when its teams could not cover basic operating expenses.

  Dixon formally announced the USFL's formation at the 21 Club in New York City on the 11th of May, 1982. ESPN president Chet Simmons was named the league's first commissioner the following month.

  In 1983, the league signed broadcast deals with ABC and ESPN. The agreements yielded roughly $13 million in the first year and $16 million the following year, with ABC contributing $9 million annually. All but two of the 12 founding teams were placed in the top 13 media markets in the country. Ten of those 12 drew more than 18,000 fans per game in the inaugural season, meeting the plan's attendance threshold. Television ratings averaged a Nielsen score of 6.1 in 1983, above the league's own target of 5.0.

  The plan worked. The owners who ran the teams were another matter.

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• 3. Talent on the Field

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  Nine USFL alumni are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as of 2026. Most of them were at the beginning of their careers when they first took the field in a USFL jersey.

  Reggie White, a defensive end from the University of Tennessee, began his professional career with the Memphis Showboats. Steve Young signed with the Los Angeles Express out of Brigham Young University. Jim Kelly joined the Houston Gamblers from the University of Miami. Linebacker Sam Mills spent all three USFL seasons with the Philadelphia and Baltimore Stars. Offensive tackle Gary Zimmerman also played for the Express. All five are now enshrined in Canton.

  Herschel Walker ran for 1,812 yards and 17 touchdowns in the 1983 season for the New Jersey Generals. Over three USFL seasons, he accumulated 5,562 rushing yards, the all-time league record. Jim Kelly threw 83 touchdown passes across his two USFL seasons, also the all-time league record. In 1984 alone, Kelly threw 44 touchdowns and passed for more than 5,000 yards for the Houston Gamblers.

  Nebraska running back Mike Rozier, the 1983 Heisman Trophy winner, signed with the Pittsburgh Maulers. Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie, winner of the 1984 Heisman, joined the New Jersey Generals.

  Observers considered the 1983 championship game between the Michigan Panthers and the Philadelphia Stars more entertaining than most Super Bowls of that era. The Stars had finished that regular season at 15-3, the league's best record. Coach Jim Mora's team combined NFL veteran quarterback Chuck Fusina with rookie halfback Kelvin Bryant of North Carolina.

  Steve Young's contract with the Los Angeles Express was guaranteed at $40 million. At the time, that was the largest contract in professional football history. The Express lost an estimated $15 million in the 1984 season alone.

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• 4. Owners and Overreach

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  The San Antonio Gunslingers played their home games at Alamo Stadium, supplemented by folding chairs the team supplied to reach minimum capacity. Their offices occupied a double-wide trailer. Owner Clinton Manges was admitted to the league partly on the apparent strength of substantial oil wealth. The league did not require him to make an initial capital investment; he paid operating expenses out of pocket as they arose. When the oil market collapsed in 1985, the checks stopped clearing. The team played its final four games without paying its players. Manges ignored a league-imposed deadline to make restitution, and his franchise was revoked.

  J. William Oldenburg bought the Los Angeles Express before the 1984 season, presenting himself as a man worth $100 million. In June 1984, investigations by the FBI, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal exposed his false claims. Oldenburg walked away from the team during the playoffs. A subsequent buyer was pushed out months later when he too was found to have misled league officials about his finances. The league ran the franchise on a shoestring for the remainder of that season.

  In Chicago, surgeon James Hoffman was approved as the Blitz's new owner in 1984 without close examination of his financial standing. He walked away after the second preseason game. The league took over the Blitz for the remainder of the season; its broadcast contracts required a franchise in the Chicago market.

  Dixon had designed the plan's capitalization requirements to prevent exactly this kind of mid-season collapse, as had happened in the World Football League. The USFL on several occasions set aside its own vetting procedures to secure a franchise in a desirable market. By the time the league folded, it had accumulated losses of more than $163 million.

  New Jersey Generals owner Donald Trump and Chicago Blitz owner Eddie Einhorn had concluded that the remedy was not financial discipline. It was a confrontation with the NFL.

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• 5. The Fall Decision

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  On the 22nd of August, 1984, the USFL's owners voted to abandon their spring schedule and move to fall play beginning in 1986.

  Trump and Einhorn led the campaign for fall play. Their argument was that competing head-to-head with the NFL would eventually force a merger between the leagues. In a merger, they believed, surviving USFL franchise investments would more than double. A consulting firm hired to advise the league had recommended staying in the spring. The spring advocates lost.

  On the 29th of April, 1985, the owners voted 13-2 to reaffirm the fall move. Tampa Bay Bandits owner John F. Bassett cast one of the two dissenting votes. He announced his intention to pull his franchise and form a new spring football league. Failing health prevented him from following through; he died from cancer on the 14th of May, 1986.

  The Pittsburgh Maulers folded rather than face competition from the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Michigan Panthers merged with the Oakland Invaders. The defending champion Philadelphia Stars announced a move to Baltimore, where the NFL's Colts had recently departed. Baltimore's only suitable stadium was occupied by the Orioles during spring months, so the Stars settled in College Park, just outside Washington, while retaining the Baltimore Stars name. The New Orleans Breakers moved a second time, to Portland.

  ABC offered the league a four-year, $175 million deal to remain in the spring. ESPN offered $70 million over three years. Together, those contracts averaged $67 million annually starting in 1986. Following the mergers and shutdowns triggered by the fall vote, there were not enough spring advocates left to accept them.

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• 6. The Lawsuit and Its Aftermath

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  The USFL filed an antitrust suit against the NFL in 1986. The complaint alleged that the NFL had monopolized professional football's television rights and had used pressure to deny USFL teams access to stadium leases.

  The case was heard by United States District Judge Peter K. Leisure in the Southern District of New York. The trial began in the spring of 1986 and lasted 42 days.

  The USFL's lawyer, Harvey Myerson, presented what he described as three smoking guns. One was a 1984 presentation to NFL executives by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, which outlined strategies for neutralizing the upstart league. Al Davis, owner of the then-Los Angeles Raiders, testified for the USFL. His team had been excluded from the lawsuit in exchange for his cooperation. ABC Sports commentator Howard Cosell also testified on behalf of the USFL.

  On the 29th of July, a six-person jury declared the NFL a 'duly adjudicated illegal monopoly.' The jury found that the NFL had acquired and maintained that status through predatory tactics. It then rejected the USFL's television claims, finding that the NFL had not driven the broadcast networks away from USFL games. The jury also found that the fall schedule decision had cost the league six major markets: Philadelphia, Denver, Houston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and the Bay Area. It concluded that the USFL's problems stemmed primarily from its own mismanagement. It awarded $1 in damages, tripled under antitrust law to $3.

  NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle was devastated when he initially heard that the jury had ruled in the USFL's favor. On the way to the league office, he and broadcasting chief Val Pinchbeck learned that the USFL had won almost nothing. They turned around and went back to the courthouse.

  On the 4th of August, four days after the verdict, the USFL's owners voted to suspend operations for the 1986 season. The league never played another game.

  Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly had spent two seasons with the Houston Gamblers before the USFL folded. The Bills had gone 4-28 during those two seasons. When the league collapsed, Buffalo signed Kent Hull, Ray Bentley, coach Marv Levy, and general manager Bill Polian, all former USFL figures. That group made the Bills perennial Super Bowl contenders in the early 1990s.

  Jacksonville, which had hosted the USFL's Bulls franchise, received an NFL expansion team, the Jaguars, in 1995. Art Modell relocated the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore in 1996. Among the factors in his decision was the city's earlier acceptance of the Stars and, a decade later, the Canadian Football League's Baltimore Stallions. ESPN and the NFL launched Sunday Night Football in 1987, occupying the autumn time slot the USFL had planned to claim.

  The last USFL player on an NFL roster was Baltimore Stars punter Sean Landeta, signed by the New York Giants in late 1986. He officially announced his retirement on the 6th of March, 2008, the 25th anniversary of the first USFL game.

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