Another baseball season approaches, and the national pastime
continues to demonstrate its genius for self-inflicted wounds.
The latest steroid scandal involved superstar Alex Rodriguez and
only lengthened the shadow cast by past revelations about Roger
Clemens, Barry Bonds, and others. A fan could be forgiven for
throwing his hands up and walking away, but to where?
Starting next year, there may be another option: pro football.
The United States Football League, defunct since the 1980s, is
planning to relaunch in
February 2010.
Michael Dwyer, the new league’s founder, is busy organizing
teams, securing stadiums, attracting backers and supporters, and
getting the word out. Like many of us restless souls who came of
age in the eighties, Dwyer loved the USFL — its underdog status,
its opening to cities unserved by the NFL, the generally high
quality of play, and the chances it offered to players to build
or extend careers. The USFL was probably the most impressive
upstart sports league in history: it had an innovative concept, a
network TV contract with ABC, a cable deal with ESPN (then still
establishing itself), and some big-name coaches (George Allen,
Red Miller). Its players were a mix of top college prospects
bypassing the NFL (Herschel Walker, Steve Young, Jim Kelly),
former NFL stalwarts (Joe Cribbs, Brian Sipe, Greg Landry), and
homegrown stars (Bobby Hebert, Reggie White). And the team names
were good: Michigan Panthers, Birmingham Stallions, Memphis
Showboats, Oklahoma Outlaws, New Jersey Generals.
Most of all, the USFL had that spring thing. Here was America’s
most popular sport now available during the football fan’s quiet
time of the year. Now, when one was flipping the channels on a
10-2 baseball game, he had somewhere else to go. Of course, he
could also try reading a book, going for a walk, or having a
conversation, but if more people were interested in such things,
there never would have been a USFL in the first place.
Critics tend to remember the league as a failed experiment, but
spring football proved viable, on the whole. The league held on
to its ABC and ESPN contracts. USFL teams in Sun Belt cities
without NFL teams, like Birmingham, Memphis, and Jacksonville
(which eventually got the NFL’s Jaguars) packed stadiums, as did
those in cities with NFL teams, like Tampa — not surprisingly,
given the pitiful state of the NFL Buccaneers back then — and
even Denver (more surprising, given the Broncos’ popularity). To
be sure, teams in some cities flopped in attendance (notably Los
Angeles and Chicago), and others languished.
What killed the original USFL were two things: overspending on
players and a disastrous, hubristic attempt to compete with the
NFL in the fall. Teams didn’t stick to their salary caps,
focusing increasingly on NFL stars or blue-chip college players,
and the league fell further into the red. Any expansion league is
predicated on operating at a loss for several years, but once the
USFL owners began to run amok with spending, any chance of
stabilizing the league’s finances became hopeless. Eager for more
revenue, the league added new teams too quickly, exacerbating the
problem and confusing fans as franchises switched cities and in
one case swapped teams.
The decision to move to fall play, pushed by owners like the New
Jersey Generals’ Donald Trump (no surprise), set the league up
for an antitrust suit against the NFL. The USFL lost the suit,
effectively anyway (it was awarded a few dollars in settlement),
and folded. Frequently the butt of jokes from front-running
sportswriters, the league drifted into history, but it lives on
in the memories of
its devoted fans. Now those fans have a chance at a reprise.
Dwyer says the league will start with 12 teams, though specifics
are still hard to come by, and the league’s website is sparse.
Like its predecessor, the new USFL promises innovations on the
field, some reasonable (4 points for field goals 51 yards or
longer) and some strange (4 points for a safety). It also looks
to do things differently off the field, like allowing fans in
each city to buy stock in teams in the manner of the Green Bay
Packers. Dwyer promises economics and atmosphere more akin to
minor league baseball than NFL football, and that would be a
major accomplishment in itself. Minor league baseball is the best
sports buy around.
Dwyer also pledges not to repeat the mistakes of the old league.
He promises that salaries won’t get out of control, and that
he’ll resist a bidding war with the NFL. Of course, all such
promises, like generals’ battle plans, are tested once action
begins. It’s hard to persuade ambitious men who like buying
sports teams to have a sense of proportion.
(Curiously enough, the new USFL arrives when another new football
league is trying to start up: the UFL plans on starting play
this fall, a suicidal vision that never seems to lose its
attraction.)
The greatest obstacle for the new USFL, though, is the deepening
recession and mounting economic uncertainty. Certainly there are
better environments in which to launch a new sports league,
unless Dwyer can get some stimulus money from Washington (which
really would create jobs). The recession could yet work in the
league’s favor, though. Americans out looking for work may
finally get fed up reading about baseball players holding out for
$50 million contracts, and may finally conclude that pro sports’
ticket prices, concession costs, and relentless war on their
wallets and common courtesy have finally gone too far. If so, we
may see stock buying pick up again soon — at least in spring
football teams.
