Silverman: Despite Ruining USFL, Trump Wants To Tackle The Presidency
By Steve Silverman
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Donald Trump could be the Republican candidate for president.
No, this is not a joke. It's reality, and way too much of it.
Say this about Trump: He has no filter. Nearly everything that comes out of his mouth finds the headlines, and he doesn't apologize no matter how stupid his remarks.
"I like people who weren't captured," Trump said about Republican John McCain.
McCain's record during the Vietnam War is beyond heroic. Captured by the North Vietnamese and tortured by his captors throughout his five-plus years as a prisoner of war, McCain endured life-altering injuries after getting shot down as a Navy pilot.
He did this in service to his country while Trump took advantage of his student deferment and made his money off of his daddy's real estate business.
Trump has had his business successes, but he has also had his share of failures.
Trump's involvement in professional football with the long-departed United States Football League was regrettable, at best.
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The USFL was a long shot to be successful when play began in 1983. The league's founders were smart enough not to take on the NFL in any head-to-head manner, as the USFL was interested in playing its schedule during the spring and not in the fall.
It made sense. Professional football's growth was simply dynamic and the idea of taking on Major League Baseball seemed like a smarter venture than trying to do battle with Pete Rozelle's NFL.
This was not 1960, when the American Football League came into existence. The AFL had a chance because the NFL didn't have a foothold in cities like Boston, Buffalo, Denver, San Diego and Houston. That league went through several challenging years before Lamar Hunt and Al Davis helped it become successful as a business and find superiority on the field. (If you don't think that last statement is accurate, I refer you to Super Bowls III and IV.)
If the USFL was ever going to be successful and take on the NFL, it would have to do it with baby steps.
The league attracted attention in its first year, and while there were several struggling franchises, the overall quality of the football was surprisingly high.
The league was able to sign three consecutive Heisman Trophy winners in Herschel Walker, Mike Rozier and Doug Flutie, and fans were starting to accept the product.
Both ABC and ESPN, which televised the USFL, were happy with the product and there were thoughts that the league could make it.
However, that changed prior to the 1985 season. Player costs were increasing as salary wars with the NFL led to cost escalation. The USFL would've had a hard time surviving this, but the death-blow came when the league decided it would play its 1986 season in the fall.
The league was struggling to establish itself and pay rising salaries, but it was going to take on the NFL without the benefit of having secured itself.
This idea was the brainchild of Trump, who had become the owner of the New Jersey Generals in 1984. "If God wanted football in the spring," Trump said, "he wouldn't have created baseball."
Trump basically bullied the idea through the other USFL owners, who hoped that the league would merge with the NFL.
Except nobody in the NFL even gave that idea a second thought. The USFL was struggling financially, so it filed an antitrust suit against the NFL.
If Trump thought the NFL would shake in its boots because of the lawsuit, he was completely wrong. The USFL could not prove that it would have succeeded on its own in the long run, so there was no reason for the courts to give it a huge award.
The USFL sued the NFL for $567 million in damages, and if it had been successful, the actual amount would have been trebled to reach $1.7 billion.
Instead, the league was awarded $1 in damages and that was trebled $3.
That was the death-blow to the USFL, and it left Trump with a huge defeat.
He had pushed hard for the USFL to battle the NFL in the fall when it was not ready, and that move killed the league.
The USFL probably would have endured a slow death even if it had not tried to take on the NFL, but Trump's move ensured its demise.
Trump was just another 30-something businessman prior to his affiliation with the USFL. He has been in the spotlight ever since, and now wants to take his ego to the White House.
Based on what he has said about McCain and what he did to the USFL, it says here that he's completely unqualified.
