Could it happen? Many people say he was the league's downfall, so could he still be a factor without the league failing? How would it play out?
USFL Successful With Trump As An Owner
- Thread starter Calcaterra
- Start date
The USFL could have survived as a spring league with a manageable payroll with the prospect of increasing their television rights over the years, that is until they blew out the payroll budget on players like Herschel Walker and other stars.
What Trump did was to push in the same direction as most of the other owners did in pushing for a fall schedule and go for a risky anti-trust suit against the NFL.
Once the decision was made to move to a fall schedule the league was doomed to fail, so it really doesn't matter whether or not Trump was involved, the seeds for its collapse was sowed years before Trump got involved.
With that in mind Trump would have been a disaster as a NFL owner as he would have overpaid name players and coaches, not let them do their job without interference, tried to move whatever team he owned in to New York City with the his personal preference of Manhattan or make outrageous demands on whatever the city the team was in.
What Trump did was to push in the same direction as most of the other owners did in pushing for a fall schedule and go for a risky anti-trust suit against the NFL.
Once the decision was made to move to a fall schedule the league was doomed to fail, so it really doesn't matter whether or not Trump was involved, the seeds for its collapse was sowed years before Trump got involved.
With that in mind Trump would have been a disaster as a NFL owner as he would have overpaid name players and coaches, not let them do their job without interference, tried to move whatever team he owned in to New York City with the his personal preference of Manhattan or make outrageous demands on whatever the city the team was in.
Didn’t Doug Flutie start off with a salary of like $2 million for the NJ Generals in 1984? (Fittingly tHat was Trump’s team.) So yes, trying to blow the doors off NFL salaries was a very risky move, and to top it off by playing in the fall against the NFL was essentially the equivalent of that episode of Futurama where Zoidberg bet a ridiculous stack of money on a single roulette number.
Come to think of it, Trump running the USFL could be summed up perfectly by that scene with Zoidberg at the roulette table.
I'd just like to point out that Trump was definitely not the worst or craziest owner in the USFL, despite the fact that he probably did the most damage. [Trump, ultimately, is the reason the NFL was able to basically kill the USFL even with their victory in the antitrust lawsuit].
The craziest owner was probably the guy in LA, whose name I can't remember. Although, the owner of the San Antonio Gunslingers is up there.
My basic take on spring leagues is that it's clearly a good and viable idea, but rich investers wanting quick, short-term returns will continue to kill spring leagues until someone with a ton of money who's willing to take five years of crushing losses in order to ensure viability gets involved. Trump's never gonna be that guy in any AU.
The craziest owner was probably the guy in LA, whose name I can't remember. Although, the owner of the San Antonio Gunslingers is up there.
My basic take on spring leagues is that it's clearly a good and viable idea, but rich investers wanting quick, short-term returns will continue to kill spring leagues until someone with a ton of money who's willing to take five years of crushing losses in order to ensure viability gets involved. Trump's never gonna be that guy in any AU.
Yeah, that was his name.
Honestly, the fact that the book Footbal For a Buck hasn't been turned into a TV series is kind of astounding.
I'd love to see a USFL TL, if you decide to write one.
I always thought John Bassett was the best owner; he understood the appeal of the Spring league and voted against moving to the fall. The problem was a lot of the owners wanted to be NFL owners, and Bassett didn't. He even threatened to pull the Bandits out of the league and start a new spring football league...
My thoughts,
My thoughts,
I love Football For a Buck. I would like to write a USFL TL, but I don’t know if I have the time or chops to tackle the subject (pun not intended) in a way that I could be proud of.
Time is always pressing but don't underestimate yourself. You'll never know until you try, and even if it's not up to your own standards, you'll learn what you did right, what you did wrong and what you can do better.
Henry Ford said "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently". He would know; when Ford Motor Company went bankrupt, his investors took the company over. They hired a guy named Henry Leland, a great engineer and stickler for standardization and he renamed the company after the founder of Detroit: Antoine de Laurent de la Mothe de Cadillac. Leland BTW later started his own car company. He named it after the first president he voted for: Lincoln.
Regards,
No doubt; the Bandits were a well-run club, from what I've heard.
I actually think Bassett pulling out of the USFL and starting a separate spring league would be a really interesting TL. Especially since he probably could have pulled it off.
If Bassett's league could last long enough to absorb the energies of the failed, but interesting, CFL expansion into the U.S. in the mid-nineties, you'd really be cooking.
I’m thinking about a possible USFL TL, with different scenarios like Favre going to the League and that sort of thing, but I just don’t know how I’d work it all out, or what the POD would be.
Lusitania
Donor
But I think a spring league could expanded its schedule slowly to end in autumn. Add that it could of merged with the cfl and become a cfl south of the border and have a league that ran in cities without nfl. A Daley cap if 2-4 million. Be a second tier leguea but could a s successful one.