On May 24, 1982, the
United States Football League
The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...
(USFL) reached an agreement with
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
and
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
on television rights. The money for inaugural
1983 season would be a total of
$13 million: $9 million from ABC and $4 million from ESPN (roughly $1.1 million per team).
Coverage overview
ABC televised a Sunday afternoon game-of-the-week, one
prime time
Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
evening game, plus coverage of the USFL divisional playoffs and championship game. The contract required the USFL to schedule a minimum of three games on Sunday, with ABC guaranteed to broadcast one game nationally (the aforementioned, Sunday afternoon game-of-the-week) or two or more regionally. The contract included no clauses regarding "
blackouts" or "cross-feeding". In all, the total package with ABC called for 21 telecasts of USFL action. Meanwhile, ESPN generally televised two prime time games (on Saturdays and Mondays respectively) each week of the USFL season.
The first USFL games on ABC and ESPN
On Sunday, March 6, 1983 ABC televised three games. The
Los Angeles Express and
New Jersey Generals
The New Jersey Generals were a franchise of the United States Football League (USFL) established in 1982 to begin play in the spring and summer of 1983. The team played three seasons from 1983 to 1985, winning 31 regular season games and losing ...
played in the primary regional televised USFL game, with the Express winning, 20–15. ABC also televised the
Chicago Blitz
The Chicago Blitz was a professional American football team that played in the United States Football League in the mid-1980s. They played at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.
Team history
The Blitz were one of the twelve charter franchis ...
at
Washington Federals
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
and the
Philadelphia Stars at
Denver Gold
The Denver Gold was a franchise in the United States Football League, an attempt to establish a second major professional American football, football league in the United States, playing a springtime season, from 1983 to 1985. The Gold played the ...
.
On Monday, March 7, 1983 the
Michigan Panthers
The Michigan Panthers were a professional American football team based in the Detroit, Michigan area. The Panthers competed in the United States Football League (USFL) as a member of the Western Conference and Central Division. The team played i ...
opened their 1983 schedule with a 9–7 win at
Legion Field
Legion Field is an outdoor stadium in the southeastern United States in Birmingham, Alabama, primarily designed to be used as a venue for American football, but occasionally used for other large outdoor events. Opened in 1927, it is named in ho ...
in
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...
against the
Stallons. The game marked the first professional football game ever to be broadcast on
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
.
Novo Bojovic
Novo Bojovic (born November 2, 1959) is a Yugoslav-born American former placekicker. Bojovic played college football at Central Michigan before embarking on a career in professional football which lasted nine years. Bojovic graduated from Centr ...
of Serbia hit the winning field goal from 48 yards out in the waning moments to preserve the Panthers' road win.
Sponsors
ABC claimed to have made a profit from its coverage of USFL during the 1983 season. Regular season 30-second spots were priced at
$30,000; playoff spots at $35,000. Thirty-second spots for the championship game between the
Michigan Panthers
The Michigan Panthers were a professional American football team based in the Detroit, Michigan area. The Panthers competed in the United States Football League (USFL) as a member of the Western Conference and Central Division. The team played i ...
and the
Philadelphia Stars played on July 17 sold for $60,000. Major sponsors throughout the season included
Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken in Northern Italy of the Romance ...
,
Anheuser Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple glo ...
,
Buick
Buick () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General ...
,
Chevrolet
Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...
,
Dodge
Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above P ...
,
Honda
is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.
Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...
and
Miller
A miller is a person who operates a Gristmill, mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Mill (grinding), Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surname ...
.
Major USFL sponsors for ESPN in 1984 included
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
, Anheuser Busch,
American Motors
American Motors Corporation (AMC; commonly referred to as American Motors) was an American automobile manufacturing company formed by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on May 1, 1954. At the time, it was the ...
,
DuPont
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
,
GMC,
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in more ...
,
Michelin
Michelin (; ; full name: ) is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ''région'' of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world behind Bridgestone and la ...
,
Nissan
, trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...
,
Noxema
Noxzema ( ) is a brand of skin cleanser marketed by Unilever. Since 1914, it was sold in a small cobalt blue jar; but is now sold in a blue plastic jar. Noxzema contains camphor, menthol, phenol and eucalyptus, among other ingredients. Origina ...
,
Timex and
A.C. Delco.
Ratings
According to an ABC spokesman, the network averaged a 6.0
rating
A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality, quantity, or some combination of both.
Rating or ratings may also refer to:
Business and economics
* Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness of an individual, c ...
for their first USFL season. This was slightly better than the network's coverage of the first
American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...
football season back in
1960
It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism.
Events
January
* Ja ...
. In its second year, AFL games on ABC averaged a 6.1 rating, and in 1962, the third year, a 6.5. The coverage was nonetheless quite low for a
Big Three television network, with a June 17 prime-time regular season game between Chicago and Birmingham finishing as the lowest-rated prime time broadcast of the week, with a 4.8 rating.
Overall, ESPN averaged a 3.3 rating for its USFL coverage, a 3.0 for Saturday games and a 3.5 for the Monday night coverage. "We are pretty pleased with the results", said an ESPN spokesman, who noted that the network's overall USFL rating average was almost 50
% higher than its prime time average for their entire fourth quarter of 1982.
The end of the USFL itself
ABC offered the USFL a 4-year, $175 million TV deal to play in the spring in 1986. ESPN offered $70M over 3 years, regardless of the time of year. By this point, the league had driven out most of the owners who would have been willing to accept those terms. The owners in the league walked away from what averaged out to $67 million per year starting in 1986 to pursue their big picture—merger with the NFL.
In 1984, the league began discussing the possibility of competing head-to-head with the NFL by playing its games in the fall beginning in 1986. The idea was to force a merger in which the NFL would be forced to admit some USFL teams. Despite the protests of many of the league's "old guard," who wanted to stay with the original plan of playing football in the spring months, the voices of incoming Chicago owner
Eddie Einhorn Eddie Einhorn (January 3, 1936 – February 24, 2016) was minority owner and vice chairman of the Chicago White Sox.
Biography
Einhorn grew up in a Jewish family in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Mae (née Lippman) and Harold B. Einhorn and resi ...
(who would never field his team in the league and did not even plan on doing so in 1986) and Generals owner
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
and others would eventually prevail. Trump sold a majority of the other owners on the gamble that if a merger did occur, their teams would instantly be worth the $70 million or so NFL franchises were worth at that time --- tripling, quadrupling, or more their cash investment.
On August 22, 1984, the league's owners voted to go along with Einhorn and Trump's idea and begin playing a fall season in 1986. The fourteen remaining owners reiterated this intention in a second vote on April 30, 1985. The spring advocates had lost and the fall advocates would accept nothing less than victory vs. the NFL, either by forcing a merger or winning a sizeable settlement and securing a TV network for fall broadcasts. Spring football had been replaced with an incredibly risky gamble for a huge return. The spring football advocates promptly threatened to leave the league (among them the
Pittsburgh Maulers Pittsburgh Maulers may refer to:
* Pittsburgh Maulers (1984), United States Football League team
* Pittsburgh Maulers (2022)
The Pittsburgh Maulers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Maulers compet ...
, who immediately folded, the
Tampa Bay Bandits
The Tampa Bay Bandits were a professional American football team in the United States Football League (USFL) which was based in Tampa, Florida. The Bandits were a charter member of the USFL and was the only franchise to have the same principal o ...
, who intended to continue in the spring without the USFL, and the
Denver Gold
The Denver Gold was a franchise in the United States Football League, an attempt to establish a second major professional American football, football league in the United States, playing a springtime season, from 1983 to 1985. The Gold played the ...
, who were considering joining the Bandits but had not yet made a firm commitment). The illness and death of the Bandits' owner derailed the efforts to maintain a presence of professional football in the spring. Others that were sharing markets with the NFL (such as the
New Orleans Breakers and
Philadelphia Stars) were forced to relocate, which combined with the smaller markets that had received USFL teams in 1984 but had no other major league franchises at the time (Jacksonville, Birmingham, Memphis and Oklahoma) undermined the league's contention that it was a major league and discouraged the major networks from carrying their games.
The other major factor in the networks' lack of interest in the USFL was the
College Football Association The College Football Association (CFA) was a group formed by many of the American colleges with top-level college football programs in order to negotiate contracts with TV networks to televise football games. It was formed in 1977 by 63 schools from ...
. The CFA had successfully sued the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
in the lawsuit ''
NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
''NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma'', 468 U.S. 85 (1984), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) television plan violated the Sherman and Cla ...
'', gaining control of its member colleges' television rights. Whereas the NCAA handed its exclusive rights to one network (CBS in 1983), the CFA offered packages to both CBS and ABC, and ABC also acquired rights to the
Pacific-10
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division ...
and
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
s. With ABC now once again having college football to air on Saturdays, and the network reluctant to give up weeknight prime time, they no longer needed the USFL.
In another effort to keep themselves afloat while at the same time attacking the more established
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
, the USFL filed an
antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
against the older league, claiming it had established a
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
with respect to television broadcasting rights, and in some cases, to access of stadium venues.
The USFL claimed that the NFL had bullied ABC,
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
and
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
into not televising USFL games in the fall. It also claimed that the NFL had a specific plan to eliminate the USFL, the "Porter Presentation." In particular, the USFL claimed the NFL conspired to ruin the Invaders and Generals. The USFL sought
damages
At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
of $567 million, which would have been
tripled to $1.7 billion under
antitrust law
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust ...
. It hoped to void the NFL's contracts with the three major networks. The USFL proposed two remedies: either force the NFL to negotiate new television contracts with only two networks, or force the NFL to split into two competing 14-team leagues, each limited to a contract with one major network.
Lack of an over-the-air broadcast partner aside, ESPN still offered to carry 22 USFL games on its channel for the fall
1986 season: a
game of the week on Sunday nights, three playoff games and the championship. ESPN's contract had an escape clause that would have allowed the network to cancel its contract with the league if membership dropped below 12 active teams (only eight teams were scheduled to play that year), but ESPN chose not to exercise the clause in 1986.
[Anonymous, "A merger of USFL teams in Jacksonville, Orlando and...," upi.com, July 6, 1985. Retrieved December 15, 2018]
/ref> In 1987, ESPN gave this time slot to the NFL, establishing that league's first cable presence.
Franchises most affected by the television coverage
ABC's contract with the league required that, at the very least, there had to be franchises in the Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, and New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
markets. Not coincidentally, these markets were home to ABC's best-performing owned-and-operated stations--WLS-TV
WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North State S ...
in Chicago, WABC-TV
WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Lincoln Square neighbor ...
in New York and KABC-TV
KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains stud ...
in Los Angeles.
Chicago Blitz
Before the end of the 1984 season, it was announced that the Blitz would be shut down. Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...
part-owner Eddie Einhorn Eddie Einhorn (January 3, 1936 – February 24, 2016) was minority owner and vice chairman of the Chicago White Sox.
Biography
Einhorn grew up in a Jewish family in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Mae (née Lippman) and Harold B. Einhorn and resi ...
was awarded a new Chicago franchise. While it was stressed that this new franchise was not the Blitz, Einhorn retained all player contracts. A strong proponent of the USFL's planned move to the fall in 1986, he opted not to field a team in 1985. ABC had no objections to this move, probably due to the USFL's anemic ratings in Chicago.
Denver Gold
Just after Mouse Davis
Darrel "Mouse" Davis (born September 6, 1932) is a retired American football coach and former player. A veteran coach at the high school, college, and professional levels, he last coached with Jerry Glanville at Portland State and with June Jones ...
took over as head coach, the USFL announced that it would switch to a fall schedule for the 1986 season. Local support for the Gold practically vanished. While the Gold had been one of the USFL's attendance leaders, fans in the Denver area were not about to abandon the Broncos
A bucking horse is any breed or either gender of horse with a propensity to buck. They have been, and still are, referred to by various names, including bronco, broncho, and roughstock.
The harder they buck, the more desirable they are for rod ...
(especially with quarterback John Elway
John Albert Elway Jr. (born June 28, 1960) is an American professional football executive and former quarterback who is the president of football operations for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL).
Elway played college f ...
in the midst of his Hall of Fame career) in favor of the Gold. Despite finally getting into the playoffs with an 11–7 record, the Gold's attendance crashed to 14,400 fans per game. As a result, despite finishing second in the Western Conference, they were forced to play on the road against the lower-seeded Memphis Showboats
The Memphis Showboats were an American football franchise in the United States Football League. They entered the league in its expansion in 1984 and made the 1985 playoffs, losing in the semifinal round to the Oakland Invaders. Perhaps the mo ...
under pressure from ABC. The network, who had considerable influence over the USFL due to the structuring of the league's television contract, did not want the embarrassment of having a game played in a near-empty Mile High Stadium
Mile High Stadium (originally Bears Stadium until 1968) was an outdoor multi-purpose stadium located in Denver, Colorado from 1948 to 2001.
The stadium was built in 1948 to accommodate the Denver Bears baseball team, which was a member of the ...
.
Los Angeles Express
The Express never drew well at the cavernous Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (also known as the L.A. Coliseum) is a multi-purpose stadium in the Exposition Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Conceived as a hallmark of civic pride, the Coliseum was commissioned in 1921 as a mem ...
, even in their breakthrough 1984 season. The low attendance figures began to prove very embarrassing and frustrating both to the league and ABC, which had hoped for a more credible product to emanate from the nation's second-largest media market. The team had to play its last home game at John Shepard Stadium on the campus of Pierce College
Pierce College may refer to:
* Pierce College (Washington)
* Los Angeles Pierce College
** Pierce College station
See also
* Peirce College
* Franklin Pierce University
Franklin Pierce University is a private university in Rindge, New Hampshi ...
, a small junior college
A junior college (sometimes referred to colloquially as a juco, JuCo or JC) is a post-secondary educational institution offering vocational training designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations and workers in su ...
in the San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
.
The Arizona Wranglers
The Arizona Wranglers were a professional American Football team in the United States Football League that, name-wise, existed from late 1982 to mid-1985. They played at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, a su ...
, despite having the worse record of the two participating teams, got to host the 1984 Western Conference championship game because the Coliseum was being prepared for the 1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...
. To accommodate Arizona's oppressive summer heat, as well as the ABC Sports
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
television schedule, the game kicked off at 8:30 p.m. local time, 11:30 p.m. Eastern time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small port ...
.
The league took over the team for the 1985 season, which was an unmitigated disaster. The team had to continue operating due to the contract's stipulation that there had to be a team in Los Angeles. In one of ABC's biggest blunders, the network declined to air a matchup between the Express and the Houston Gamblers
The Houston Gamblers were an American football team that competed in the United States Football League in 1984 and 1985. The Gamblers were coached by veteran NFL head coach Jack Pardee in both their seasons. They were noteworthy for introducing ...
, a game that featured two future Hall of Fame quarterbacks against each other with Gamblers' Jim Kelly
James Edward Kelly (born February 14, 1960) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons with the Buffalo Bills. He also spent two seasons with the Houston Gamblers of the United State ...
rallying to win 34–33 against Steve Young
Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccane ...
's Express. ABC instead aired Doug Flutie
Douglas Richard Flutie (born October 23, 1962) is an American former football quarterback whose professional career spanned 21 seasons. He played 12 seasons in the National Football League (NFL), eight seasons in the Canadian Football League (CF ...
's debut for the New Jersey Generals
The New Jersey Generals were a franchise of the United States Football League (USFL) established in 1982 to begin play in the spring and summer of 1983. The team played three seasons from 1983 to 1985, winning 31 regular season games and losing ...
, resulting in the Gamblers-Express game being nicknamed "The Greatest Game No One Saw." Young and Kelly would eventually face each other in 1992 in the No Punt Game
The No Punt Game is the nickname given to a National Football League game held between the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers on September 13, 1992 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, San Francisco, California. The game is notable for being ...
—which, coincidentally, would follow a similar pattern with Kelly's Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...
rallying to beat Young's San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...
34–31 but, because the 49ers and Bills were both Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
contenders, received extensive national television carriage.
Unable to find a new owner, the USFL announced that the Express would suspend operations for the first fall season in 1986, a factor in the league not securing a broadcast contract for that season.
Announcers
ABC
# Keith Jackson
Keith Max Jackson (October 18, 1928 – January 12, 2018) was an American sports commentator, journalist, author, and radio personality, known for his career with ABC Sports (1966–2006). While he covered a variety of sports over his career ...
/Lynn Swann
Lynn Curtis Swann (born March 7, 1952) is an American former football player, broadcaster, politician, and athletic director, best known for his association with the University of Southern California and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He served on the ...
# Jim Lampley
James Lampley (born April 8, 1949) is an American sportscaster, news anchor, film producer, and restaurant owner. He was best known as a blow-by-blow announcer on ''HBO World Championship Boxing'' for 30 years. He also had covered a record 14 O ...
/Lee Corso
Lee Richard Corso (born August 7, 1935) is an American sports broadcaster and football analyst for ESPN and a former coach. He has been a featured analyst on ESPN's '' College GameDay'' program since its inception in 1987. Corso served as the he ...
(Lee Corso was also an analyst for ESPN's USFL coverage)
# Tim Brant
Tim Brant (born February 26, 1949) is a retired American sportscaster. Brant most recently worked for Raycom Sports and was formerly Vice President, Sports for WJLA-TV in Washington, DC. He has spent more than forty years covering sports nationa ...
/Lee Grosscup
{{Infobox NFL biography
, name = Lee Grosscup
, image = Lee Grosscup 1958.jpeg
, alt =
, caption = Grosscup, circa 1958
, birth_date = {{Birth date, 1936, 12, 27, mf=y
, birth_place = Santa Monica, California
, death_date = {{Death date an ...
# Bill Flemming
William Norman Flemming (September 3, 1926 – July 20, 2007) was an American television sports journalist who was one of the original announcers for the ABC Sports show '' Wide World of Sports''.
Biography
Early life
Born in Chicago, Illin ...
/Ron Mix
Ronald Jack Mix (born March 10, 1938) is an American former professional football player who was an offensive tackle. He is a member of the American Football League (AFL) All-Time Team, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 19 ...
# Corey McPherrin Corey B. McPherrin (born March 10, 1955), known professionally as Corey McPherrin, is the evening news anchor for WFLD-TV in Chicago.
Biography
Early life and education
A native of Markham, Illinois, McPherrin graduated from Hillcrest High Scho ...
/ Kevin Kiley
ABC used Frank Gifford
Francis Newton Gifford (August 16, 1930 – August 9, 2015) was an American football player, actor, and television sports commentator. After a 12-year playing career as a halfback and flanker for the New York Giants of the National Foo ...
as the studio anchor and Mike Adamle
Michael David Adamle (born October 4, 1949) is a former American football player and sports broadcaster.
Adamle was a sports anchor at other Chicago television stations, including WLS-TV from 1982 to 1989 before hosting '' American Gladiators'', ...
as a sideline reporter.[ Another play-by-play man that ABC used was ]Curt Gowdy
Curtis Edward Gowdy (July 31, 1919 – February 20, 2006) was an American sportscaster. He called Boston Red Sox games on radio and TV for 15 years, and then covered many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC Sp ...
.
Championship game announcers
ESPN
# Jim SimpsonTo listen to an MP3 file of Jim Simpson doing play-by-play when the lights went out in Alamo Stadium, click here.
/ref>/Paul Maguire
Paul Leo Maguire (born August 22, 1938) is a former American professional football player and television sportscaster.
Early sports career
Maguire attended Ursuline High School in Youngstown, Ohio where he was an All State wide receiver and ...
(Mondays)
# Tom Kelly/Don Heinrich
Donald Alan Heinrich (September 19, 1930 – February 29, 1992) was an American football player, coach, and announcer. He played professionally as a quarterback in National Football League (NFL) for the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys, and in ...
(Saturdays)
ESPN used Tom Mees
Thomas E. Mees (October 13, 1949 – August 14, 1996) was an American sportscaster best known for his role in hosting professional and collegiate ice hockey and for being a prominent personality on ESPN during that network's early years.
Early ...
as a studio anchor.
Local coverage
See also
* United States Football League#USFL v. NFL lawsuit
References
Sources
United States Football League Broadcasters (1983-1985)
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20070928000729/http://www.usfl.info/
The USFL Uniform Database
1984
1985
{{MNF
1983 American television series debuts
1985 American television series endings
Television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
ABC Sports
ESPN original programming
Monday Night Football
American Broadcasting Company original programming
History of sports broadcasting
American football on television