USFL/NFL Merger (For Fans of American Football)

Xen

Banned
The USFL-NFL Merger of 1988

In 1986 the USFL sued the NFL over anti-trust laws; the USFL won the case and was awarded a whopping $3. However what if they were awarded several million instead? I can’t seem to recall the actual amount they wanted, but it was enough to keep the league afloat for a few years.

1986 was the year the USFL planned on beginning play in the autumn as opposed to the summer, with the failed law suit 4 teams folded, and just before the start of the season the league suspended play, eventually collapsing and dying. Now in ttl the USFL has won its major suit, all 12 teams remain in play. The Final teams are:

Independence Conference
Arizona Outlaws
Jacksonville Bulls
Orlando Renegades
Portland Breakers
San Antonio Gunslingers
Tampa Bay Bandits

Liberty Conference
Baltimore Stars
Birmingham Stallions
Los Angeles Express
Memphis Showboats
New Jersey Generals
Oakland Invaders

In OTL, the LA Express was going bankrupt and was likely to fold before 1986 anyway, however after winning the suit, the Express franchise is convinced to remain, at least for another season. The Express team does fairly well, barely missing the playoffs. 1986 is very exciting for the USFL, the season ends with the Tampa Bay Bandits defeating the Baltimore Stars for the championship in a close game. Because of the USFL’s style of play, ratings begin to get a boost, and for the first time since the merger with the AFL, the NFL has a major competitor.

Television ratings as well as attendance at the turnstile are better for all 12 USFL teams, the league even considers expanding. Venues are explored in Columbus, Ohio; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Charleston, SC; Little Rock, Arkansas; El Paso, Texas, Brooklyn, NY and Hartford, Ct. 1987 proved to be as exciting as the previous year, however a gap began to expose itself between the teams with a large fan base such as Baltimore, Oakland, and Tampa Bay and the teams not as well support such as Los Angeles, Jacksonville and Birmingham. In the championship game the Arizona Outlaws were defeated by the Oakland Invaders 27-17.

With half the league selling out games and performing well on the field, 1988 suddenly looked bleak for the USFL. The league which was planning on finalizing the 1989 expansion to Little Rock and Columbus placed the deal on hiatus. Secret negotiations began with the NFL in November, 1987. Fans of both leagues were shocked on Superbowl weekend when it was learned 6 teams from the USFL would join the NFL for the 1989 season.

The Jacksonville Bulls merged with the San Antonio Gunslingers, changing the clubs name to the San Antonio Texans, while the Los Angeles Express merged with the Arizona Outlaws. The following season six of the 10 teams would be merged with the remaining four that would make it to the NFL.

In OTL the St Louis Cardinals was going to move to Phoenix in 1988, however with the Arizona Outlaws as one of the USFL teams to join the NFL, the move was blocked by the other owners. In a last minute move, the Cardinals owner took his team to Memphis to play in Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. The club would become the Memphis Cardinals.

Prior to the season, the NFL announced the 6 USFL franchises it planned on merging with Baltimore, Arizona, Oakland, Tampa Bay, San Antonio, and Portland. The fan support in these six cities exploded, while the support in the remaining four declined sharply. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers sued the Tampa Bay Bandits over territorial rights, with courts deciding in the favor of the Buccaneers, the Bandits were forced to relocate, much to the dismay of the Bandits fans in Tampa (which out sold the Buccaneers in memorabilia).

The final USFL Championship game pitted the San Antonio Gunslingers against the Baltimore Stars in a contest which was won by Baltimore. The following season the Baltimore Stars merged with the Birmingham Stallions, the team changed its name to the Baltimore Stallions, the Tampa Bay Bandits merged with the Memphis Showboats, relocated to St Louis as the St Louis Bandits.

The final USFL Championship game pitted the San Antonio Gunslingers against the Baltimore Stars in a contest which was won by Baltimore. The following season the Baltimore Stars merged with the Birmingham Stallions, the team changed its name to the Baltimore Stallions, the Tampa Bay Bandits merged with the Memphis Showboats, relocated to St Louis as the St Louis Bandits, the Orlando Renegades merged with the Oakland Invaders, becoming the Oakland Renegades and the New Jersey Generals merged with the Portland Breakers.

1989 NFL divisions appeared as such:

NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys
Memphis Cardinals
New York Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Washington Redskins

NFC Central:
Chicago Bears
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers
Minnesota Vikings
St Louis Bandits
Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NFC West:
Atlanta Falcons
Arizona Outlaws
Los Angeles Rams
New Orleans Saints
Portland Breakers
San Francisco 49ers

AFC East:
Baltimore Stallions
Buffalo Bills
Indianapolis Colts
Miami Dolphins
New England Patriots
New York Jets

AFC Central:
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Houston Oilers
Pittsburgh Steelers
San Antonio Texans

AFC West:
Denver Broncos
Kansas City Chiefs
Los Angeles Raiders
Oakland Renegades
San Diego Chargers
Seattle Seahawks

The league would remain with this line up until 1993 when after several miserable seasons mounting to only 6 wins in its time in the NFL, the Portland Breakers failed to draw in a respectable crowd. The franchise relocated to El Paso, Texas changing its name to the El Paso Cobras. Due to the popularity of the sport and two untapped markets, the NFL expanded locating one franchise in Charlotte North Carolina (the Carolina Panthers) and the other in Birmingham, Alabama (Birmingham Steeldogs). Carolina joined the NFC Central Division while Birmingham joined the AFC Central.

Around the league, Art Modell and the city of Cleveland agreed to a new stadium deal in 1996, Bud Adams and the city of Houston agreed to a deal in 1998, the Rams and the city of Anaheim agreed to stadium deal if the Rams would change the name to the Anaheim Rams, and Los Angeles financed a stadium deal for the Raiders next door to Dodger Stadium.

In 1998, seeing the divisions as being over crowded, the NFL reorganized the leagues:

The NFC Liberty Division:
Dallas Cowboys
New York Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Washington Redskins

The NFC Continental Division
Atlanta Falcons
Carolina Panthers
Memphis Cardinals
New Orleans Saints
Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The NFC Federal Division
Chicago Bears
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers
Minnesota Vikings
St Louis Bandits

The NFC Union Division
Anaheim Rams
Arizona Outlaws
El Paso Cobras
San Francisco 49ers

The AFC Liberty Division:
Buffalo Bills
Miami Dolphins
New England Patriots
New York Jets

The AFC Continental Division:
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Indianapolis Colts
Pittsburgh Steelers
Seattle Seahawks

The AFC Federal Division:
Denver Broncos
Kansas City Chiefs
Los Angeles Raiders
Oakland Renegades
San Diego Chargers

The AFC Union Division:
Baltimore Stallions
Birmingham Steeldogs
Houston Oilers
San Antonio Texans

In 2003 led by their former first round draft pick, the NFL MVP Ryan Leaf, and All-Pro Christian halfback Lawrence “Mr. Clean” Phillips the Baltimore Stallions defeated the Cleveland Browns to become the first former USFL team to advance to the Super Bowl. At a sellout crowd in El Paso, the Stallions lost to the heavily favored Atlanta Falcons 38-14.

In 2004 the city of New York lured the Jets back from the Meadowlands, after the baseball New York Mets began playing in a new stadium in Newark, New Jersey, the vacant Shea Stadium was renovated as a football only stadium, for the first time in the clubs history, the Jets were the primary tenants of a stadium.
 
Eh... it doesn't really fly. For all the initial publicity surrounding the USFL, it didn't really have the long-term fans needed to sustain a new league, let alone expand one. Their major problem was that they were before their time.

The Arena Football League has shown that it is possible to operate a spring football league in the United States, albeit with far different rules. We have to remember that the USFL was the pioneer of the two-point conversion and televised instant replay, things that the NFL has since adopted and have been proven to work.

So what was the problem with the USFL? It wasn't the timeslot. Arena football has proven that a football league can thrive in the spring. Arena football has also proven that odd (to the NFL) rules aren't the problem, either. The 2pt. conversion and instant review didn't turn people away.

The problem was that the audience simply wasn't there. When the USFL was founded in 1983, ESPN was only 4 years old. Fox Sports and Comcast Sports Nets weren't even dreams. Most fans got their scores from newspapers, and the Internet was only for nerds. The era of mass-market sports hadn't gotten off the ground yet.

Let's look at the XFL. The XFL was founded in 2001. It had novel rules, promised a different style of play, and took up that critical spring timeslot. And indeed it was successful, drawing 14 million viewers for the first game, and the first week's games averaged a 9.5 rating, an enormous success for the infant league. That success didn't last, however. Blasted by mainstream critics, hampered by players unfamiliar with the new rules, and widely seen as taking the dregs of the NFL and CFL, getting players cast aside by those two leagues, ratings dropped dramatically, and the league folded after one season.

The XFL's failure can be attributed to both the league's lack of talent, and by virtual unanimous disaproval by mainstream critics directed toward a league funded by the owner of the World Wide Wrestling Federation. The USFL doesn't have any of these problems. What it does have is the lack of an initial fanbase.

So let's move the founding of the USFL up by 7 years. It's 1990. The Cold War is over. Cable television is in 53% of American homes, and ESPN has been showing Sunday Night NFL football for 3 years. This is the time in which the USFL makes its appearance on the sports scene. In the booming economy that follows the end of the cold war, Americans are eager to embrace the upstart league with characters like Shannon Sharpe, Junior Seau, and Ricky Prohl. Rule changes from the NFL, such as the two-point conversion and instant replay are hailed by critics who have yet to become entrenched in their bastions of sports media.

The first year is still somewhat shaky for the league. Several teams switch cities, as it seems that the league is unable to compete head-on with an NFL team in the same city. Still, things are looking up. The cable network ESPN drops professional wrestling from its lineup in favor of USFL games. Still, no broadcast network will carry any game except the USFL championship, held in early July. In its second season, the league rides the wave of patriotism that surrounds the successful conclusion of the Gulf War. The USFL championship game is played the week of July 4 amidst a red, white and blue spectacular. Ratings are up, and more players seem to be choosing the USFL instead of the NFL. Still, the USFL has a long way to go.

By the late '90s, the USFL is competing directly with baseball's early regular-season games. Collegiate players go to the league that pays the most, which is which depends on the team that has the pick. The NFL, after initially resistant to adopting the rules of its sister league, allowed the 2-point conversion beginning in 1995 and created an instant replay system that went into effect beginning in 1998.

With the USFL to compete with, there simply isn't room for the NFL to expand as it did in OTL. The Rams never move to St. Louis from Los Angeles, but the Raiders move back to Oakland. The Oilers stay in Houston, and there are no Texans. Neither are there Jaguars, and the Baltimore Ravens never come about because the Browns never leave Cleveland. The Carolina Panthers exist as the sole NFL expansion team after the USFL's creation.

The ability of players to choose between the USFL and NFL drives player salaries higher than OTL, with the NFL minimum annual salary standing at $400,000, and first-round draft picks regularly getting +$20 million contracts.

The USFL is forced to offer comparable salaries if it wants to compete. With 18 USFL teams playing from mid-February to late July, and the NFL has 28 teams playing a 16-week schedule from Labor Day week to the end of January, when the Super Bowl is held. The USFL still has a smaller fanbase, and is somewhat less profitable, due to the smaller number of fans and the need to pay players the same. Team owners make far less money than OTL, which is part of the reason there are fewer NFL teams than in OTL.

How about that?
 
The 1998 realignment has some problems. You should move Seattle to the AFC Federal, KC Chiefs to the AFC Union, and Baltimore to the AFC Continental. Slotting teams across time zones into the same division is a bad idea, and should only be done when there's no other way, or were there is an unusually strong tradition (Dallas in the East, Detroit with the other Great Lakes teams).
 

Xen

Banned
Tom Veil said:
The 1998 realignment has some problems. You should move Seattle to the AFC Federal, KC Chiefs to the AFC Union, and Baltimore to the AFC Continental. Slotting teams across time zones into the same division is a bad idea, and should only be done when there's no other way, or were there is an unusually strong tradition (Dallas in the East, Detroit with the other Great Lakes teams).

Which is why the Kansas City Chiefs are in the same division as the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Raiders, they have a major rivalry with both teams, and a minor one with the San Diego Chargers.
 
I honestly don't think there's enough time for the USFL to develop to be seen as worthy of a merger. The best the USFL can hope for is to lure away some of the NFL's talent and become a worthy competitor sometime in our future, with the first step to a merger being an ultimate championship game between the USFL's champ and the NFL's champ.
 
Scared Straight and USFL alt. history

This had me laughing my ass off.....

How would Mr. Phillips and Mr. Leaf turn into good citizens, be put into some intense, scary "Scared Straight" program by the organizations who drafted them that involved boot camp duty under Army Drill Sergeants and being banished to the Amazon to learn to survive for 30 days or something? That is the only thing that would turn them around.

As for the USFL, if they didn't listen to Donald Trump and Eddie Einhorn, the owner of the Chicago Blitz, they would have never decided to go to playing in the fall. Trump wanted to force a merger with the NFL by playing head-to-head, and he sold other owners on the fact that a merger would triple or quadruple their cash investment. When they went along with that, that destroyed the USFL in several cities, like Philly, Pittsburgh, and the potential team that Miami was going to get.

In that lawsuit, it was determined that, while the NFL did have a defacto monopoly, the USFL brought a lot of their problems onto themselves. That is why they were only awarded 1 dollar, which was tripled to three dollars under antitrust law.

However, if the teams would have stuck to the Dixon Plan(named after league founder David Dixon), kept costs low, not try to chase all the NFL players, and don't go over Dixon's original plan to only expand to four teams in 1984 instead of six.

Let's say that they do, and the league expands to 16 instead of 18 in 1984(with no Oklahoma or San Antonio team). Here is what it could have been like:

*new expansion teams

USFL Eastern conference:
Atlantic Division:
New Jersey Generals
Philadelphia Stars
*Pittsburgh Maulers
Washington Federals

Southern Division:
Birmingham Stallions
*Jacksonville Bulls
*Memphis Showboats
Tampa Bay Bandits

Western Conference
Central Division:
Chicago Blitz
*Houston Gamblers
Michigan Panthers
New Orleans Breakers

Pacific Division:
Arizona Wranglers
Denver Gold
L.A. Express
Oakland Invaders

The next year, Washington moves to Miami to become the Renegades, but the league stays basically the same for the next two years. By 1987, however, there are rumblings and discord. Donald Trump and Eddie Einhorn are upset at Dixon because their Fall plan didn't happen, and they sell their teams. But, since those teams are in markets with NFL teams, they fold. And, when Bill Bidwill makes overtures to Arizona in 88, the Wranglers file a lawsuit, blocking his move. That forces him to stay in St. Louis for a few more years before the Cardinals finally announce plans for a new open-air football stadium to open for the 1993 season.

By the end of the 88 season, the league decides that they want a merger. As they negotiate terms with the NFL, the owners of the Invaders and the Express decided to merge teams. The team would keep the Invader name, and play in Oakland or LA, depending upon the discussions with Al Davis and the league. After these discussions, Al Davis decides to move the Raiders back to Oakland, and the LA Invaders are one of the four teams that are merged in, along with the Stars(they move to Baltimore before the 88 season in anticipation of a merger), the Arizona Wranglers, and the fourth team comes down to the Jacksonville Bulls, Memphis Showboats, and the Houston Gamblers. The LA owners come up with stadium proposals, and move into a new Hollywood Park Stadium by 1993.

Finally, the Houston owner, Jerry Argovitz, decides to move his team to San Antonio if admitted to the NFL as part of the agreement. They become the San Antonio Gunslingers. The merger begins in 1990 with this new, realigned NFL:

AFC

East: Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, BALTIMORE STARS, New England Patriots, New York Jets, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Central: Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Oilers
West: Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, Kansas City Chiefs, San Diego Chargers, LA INVADERS

NFC
East: Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Atlanta Falcons, Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, SAN ANTONIO GUNSLINGERS
Central: Chicago Bears, St. Louis Cardinals, Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers
West: Los Angeles Rams, New Orleans Saints, ARIZONA WRANGLERS, Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers

In this realignment, they correct some mistakes of the 70 merger, like having the Falcons in the West division and the Colts in the East when they should have been in the Central. Also, Tampa Bay and Seattle, the 76 expansion teams, go back to their original conferences. Those teams are put in the divisions that they should have been in since their inception. Also, teams like the Cardinals, Gunslingers, and Invaders are placed in divisions where they can have new rivalries(like the Invaders and Raiders or the Gunslingers and Cowboys).

Because of the USFL staying longer, it butterflies away the Walker deal because Herschel is playing with the Generals. Eventually, he plays with Dallas, and they keep him rather than trade him. Also, Jim Kelly doesn't play with Buffalo, which butterflies their 4 SB run away, and the Oilers end up going to a few SB's and stay in Houston(they should have, anyway).

By 95, Art Modell is influenced by the league to sell to Al Lerner, and the Browns don't leave Cleveland. And since St. Louis is taken, Georgia Frontiere stays in Los Angeles, and they get a new stadium that opens by the year 2000 in Orange County. Also, she changes the team name to the Anaheim Rams, and the team gets new blue and gold unis with AH for Anaheim Rams on the sleeves.
 
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