Lucky Eight: A Tale of a Grander USFL

FDW

Banned
While I desperately try deal with my writers block, I want to talk about the USFL, so let's go:

Lucky Eight #0

The USFL was a curious league, trying to challenge the supremacy of the NFL by not challenging it all with it's spring season. The USFL also brought a number of other innovations such as: the two-point conversion, the Salary cap, and the Territorial Draft. However the USFL also had the problems of an impatient ownership that was a bit too eager to compete with the NFL, leading to instability, relocations, a lawsuit, and the leagues demise. Now let's say things had gone differently, what would be different if the USFL made a bigger splash on the world of football?

______________________

"I want eight"

"Excuse me Mr. Dixon?

"I have decided, I want eight teams for my football league, to keep costs down"

______________________

And there's our POD, Dixon decides to start the USFL with 8, rather than 12 teams. I'll write more later. Any comments?
 

FDW

Banned
BUMP. I plan to do another update on this tonight. Also, one more little thing, I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable on football, so if anyone has some suggestions or ideas in area of players and coaches it would help A LOT on my part.
 

cclittle

Memories

The Michigan Panthers were a sucess on the field. So was Philladelphia. Gismo Williams played there before Edmonton. New Jersy and Oklahoma City were spending big when the league folded. There would be no US v Sims if Billy Sims plays for Oklahoma City.
 

FDW

Banned
cclittle said:
The Michigan Panthers were a sucess on the field. So was Philladelphia. Gismo Williams played there before Edmonton. New Jersy and Oklahoma City were spending big when the league folded. There would be no US v Sims if Billy Sims plays for Oklahoma City.
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To start off, I can say that the USFL won't be playing in Oklahoma for sure. And my reasoning for the 8-team start (as opposed to 12 teams) is really to help keep capital costs down for the league, and from the way I see capital costs were one of the reasons why the league ended up collapsing OTL. So, what we'll see is a slower start with just 8 teams, followed by a very lucky break(If people here know their football, they'll know what I'm talking about here), which is turned followed up by a clearly defined expansion plan and backed up by a much more solid leadership at the top (In particular, no Donald Trump and no David Dixon leaving after one season.).
 

Durindal

The problem with a GRANDER USFL is that while the league may have lasted a little longer had it stuck to the Dixon plan...without guys like Walker, Young, White, Kelly etc. the league would have been just a semi-pro football league playing in the spring (like the Arena Football League). With those players; however, costs were too high and attendance to low in the major media markets, that the USFL needed to keep their TV contracts, to survive. If you want a GRANDER USFL, I think you have to keep Trump AND Dixon in. One thing I would suggest is maybe working it out so that the Generals win the Championship in '84. This may have been enough to stroke Donald's ego long enough to keep him from pushing to Fall ball so soon.

BTW: Anybody reading this thread that remembers the USFL or has a lot of knowledge about it...Wikipedia states that Randall Cunningham was being persued by the Tampa Bay Bandits in '85, but he was a territorial draft pick for the Arizona Outlaws. Does anybody know if the wikipedia claim is true or this yet another one of their unsubstantiated claims?
 

FDW

Banned
Durindal said:
The problem with a GRANDER USFL is that while the league may have lasted a little longer had it stuck to the Dixon plan...without guys like Walker, Young, White, Kelly etc. the league would have been just a semi-pro football league playing in the spring (like the Arena Football League). With those players; however, costs were too high and attendance to low in the major media markets, that the USFL needed to keep their TV contracts, to survive. If you want a GRANDER USFL, I think you have to keep Trump AND Dixon in. One thing I would suggest is maybe working it out so that the Generals win the Championship in '84. This may have been enough to stroke Donald's ego long enough to keep him from pushing to Fall ball so soon.

BTW: Anybody reading this thread that remembers the USFL or has a lot of knowledge about it...Wikipedia states that Randall Cunningham was being persued by the Tampa Bay Bandits in '85, but he was a territorial draft pick for the Arizona Outlaws. Does anybody know if the wikipedia claim is true or this yet another one of their unsubstantiated claims?
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That's why i'm starting with 8 teams rather than 12, to reduce exposure for losses. However the big POD that you're overlooking here takes place in 1982, before the USFL even played a game. I'll try and update this weekend to show how things are going to unfold.
 

Durindal

I'm anxious to see what you come up with. Not really sure what you're going to change in '82 outside of fewer teams though. Is ESPN bigger? I just hope it doesn't turn the USFL into just another semi-pro league. I can help you with players a bit if you need help.
 

FDW

Banned
Durindal said:
I'm anxious to see what you come up with. Not really sure what you're going to change in '82 outside of fewer teams though. Is ESPN bigger? I just hope it doesn't turn the USFL into just another semi-pro league. I can help you with players a bit if you need help.
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The thing I'm going to change is not within the USFL itself, but rather something big in the sport that happened in OTL that won't happen ITTL. And yeah, some advice on teams would be good, though not until I announce who the owners and teams will be. And keep in mind my aim is not necessarily to get an intact USFL to 2011 but rather to ensure that they aren't the footnote they ended being in the scheme of things. You'll see how this plays out as the TL advances.
 

Durindal

No strike...does Al Davis bail? I'm curious to see what you can come up with. On another note, I think a merger at some point is definitely possible if the talent is there. Rather than having to outbid each other the two are likely to agree to a merger at some point...that's why the NFL-AFL merger happened. As for teams, I would definitely keep as many of the Sun Belt teams as possible...Birmingham, Memphis, Jacksonville etc.
 

FDW

Banned
Durindal said:
I think a merger and some point is definitely possible if the talent is there. Rather than having to outbid each other the two are likely to agree to a merger at some point...that's why the NFL-AFL merger happened. As for teams, I would definitely keep as many of the Sun Belt teams as possible...Birmingham, Memphis, Jacksonville etc.
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Let's not get ahead of ourselves shall we? I'll post the next couple of parts on saturday, and we'll go from there.
 

AltSptHst

Durindal said:
No strike...does Al Davis bail? I'm curious to see what you can come up with. On another note, I think a merger at some point is definitely possible if the talent is there. Rather than having to outbid each other the two are likely to agree to a merger at some point...that's why the NFL-AFL merger happened. As for teams, I would definitely keep as many of the Sun Belt teams as possible...Birmingham, Memphis, Jacksonville etc.
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I would have those teams in the USFL, but only Memphis would be the viable team to merge into the NFL in my eyes. I heard that Tex Schramm said that the mid-south Tennessee area was being looked at by the NFL for future expansion going into the 80's. What curtailed that was the strikes and the USFL.

Here's another possibility: Don't award a team to Arizona right away in your timeline, but wait a year or two and award it to Bart Starr's group that wanted to put an NFL team in Arizona in the mid-80's. They were going to call them the Firebirds, and they were going to build a stadium on the Gila Indian Reservation outside Phoenix or something. Maybe they would take that in hopes of the team going to the NFL in a merger someday.
 

Durindal

AltSptHst said:
I would have those teams in the USFL, but only Memphis would be the viable team to merge into the NFL in my eyes. I heard that Tex Schramm said that the mid-south Tennessee area was being looked at by the NFL for future expansion going into the 80's. What curtailed that was the strikes and the USFL.

Here's another possibility: Don't award a team to Arizona right away in your timeline, but wait a year or two and award it to Bart Starr's group that wanted to put an NFL team in Arizona in the mid-80's. They were going to call them the Firebirds, and they were going to build a stadium on the Gila Indian Reservation outside Phoenix or something. Maybe they would take that in hopes of the team going to the NFL in a merger someday.
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Obviously, Birmingham and Jacksonville aren't huge media markets, but they still could've been viable NFL teams. Memphis, Birmingham and Jacksonville should definitely be in the USFL and in most merger scenarios the NFL as well. The top 5 teams in attendance in 1985 were Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, New Jersey, Birmingham, Memphis in that order. All averaged more than 30,000 fans/game which is right on par with NFL teams during the time and is still on par with today's MLB attendance. Additionally, (excluding perhaps Trump's Generals) they were all well ran and already had teams in place that could be or were close to being competitive with the NFL.

As for not awarding Arizona an early franchise...if Alex Spanos doesn't pull out the history of LA and Arizona could be very different, but I don't see why somebody else wouldn't just step up to put a franchise in Phoenix...I believe it was the largest media market without a pro football franchise at the time.

As for an initial 8 teams, I would suggest: Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York (New Jersey) are musts. Tampa Bay and Birmingham had great success all three years and had good owners involved from the get go. I'm not sure what the POD will be as far as the NFL's legal issues in '82, so perhaps Spanos and Taube actually get to keep their teams in San Francisco and San Diego (instead of Oakland and Phoenix). The final team I would suggest is Philadelphia or Detroit.
 
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FDW

Banned
Durindal said:
Obviously, Birmingham and Jacksonville aren't huge media markets, but they still could've been viable NFL teams. Memphis, Birmingham and Jacksonville should definitely be in the USFL and in most merger scenarios the NFL as well. The top 5 teams in attendance in 1985 were Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, New Jersey, Birmingham, Memphis in that order. All averaged more than 30,000 fans/game which is right on par with NFL teams during the time and is still on par with today's MLB attendance. Additionally, (excluding perhaps Trump's Generals) they were all well ran and already had teams in place that could be or were close to being competitive with the NFL.

As for not awarding Arizona an early franchise...if Alex Spanos doesn't pull out the history of LA and Arizona could be very different, but I don't see why somebody else wouldn't just step up to put a franchise in Phoenix...I believe it was the largest media market without a pro football franchise at the time.

As for an initial 8 teams, I would suggest: Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York (New Jersey) are musts. Tampa Bay and Birmingham had great success all three years and had good owners involved from the get go. I'm not sure what the POD will be as far as the NFL's legal issues in '82, so perhaps Spanos and Taube actually get to keep their teams in San Francisco and San Diego (instead of Oakland and Phoenix). The final team I would suggest is Philadelphia or Detroit.
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I can definitely say that San Diego, Birmingham, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Phoenix will not have teams in the first season. Other than that I'm keeping my mouth shut until tomorrow.
 

Durindal

FDW said:
I can definitely say that San Diego, Birmingham, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Phoenix will not have teams in the first season. Other than that I'm keeping my mouth shut until tomorrow.
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Why no L.A. team? Three of the original twelve owners wanted L.A. teams.
 

FDW

Banned
Durindal said:
Why no L.A. team? Three of the original twelve owners wanted L.A. teams.
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I didn't say there would no L.A. team at all, I just said that there wouldn't be one in the first season. This Alt-USFL is going to have a more orderly plan for expansion that I'll get to in the next update that I'll post soon. Though I will say that only city that definitely say won't get a USFL team ITTL will be Philadelphia, and the reason why should be really obvious to you.
 
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