I had season tix to the Philadelphia Stars at old Franklin Field. That was fun. Spring football. Weather got better each week (rather than the reverse).
The interesting idea was that each franchise had “geographic rights” to undrafted players. Consequently there where a ton of Penn State players on the Stars. Players that I had watched on the ‘83 National Championship team were still playing for the Stars.
IMHO, Donald Trump killed the league. He wasn’t on board with the vision of the league as not being competitive with the NFL. He wanted an NFL franchise and when he couldn’t get it, he started bidding wars for top college players. Other owners followed suit, and the league failed.
If the USFL had stayed with the original vision of complementing the NFL, they might have survived. We’ll never know.
Agreed. They had a good product and several of their teams were in NFL cities from the beginning. You have to have some teams in media centers to get attention or wind up like the Arena League.
A team has to exist somewhere in NY/NJ, LA and probably Chicago. If they don't, it will be largely ignored.