Who knows much about the USFL? (1 Viewer)

[zeetes]

how much do you like to endure pain, @Madmarsha ?

you can always call to talk with bobby and deke.

 

[The Moose]

Why in the hell are people dropping Dead Falcons on this post? It’s the truth.

It’s like saying Hitler wasn’t responsible for the Nazi’s poor choices, or Jim Mora’s inability to quit Carl Smith led to wasted years in New Orleans.

It is fine.

It is kinda amazing..

The greatest part about it is the usfl was offered a ton of money at the time to stay in the spring.

What could have been if the owners were not sold a bad idea. A get rich quick scheme. A get rich off of others hard work by using lawyers.

The other thing about this nobody brings up is Walker was an underclassmen. He is the reason they are allowed to be drafted today. They allowed it because they thought they thought they needed to allow it to compete.

The usfl had exceptional bad timing. They forced issues when real tv money was on the horizon. Fox sports was founded a couple years later.

At the time the NBA bad not blown up yet. Heck MJ was a rookie and the playoffs were still being tape delayed because they had no ratings.

They took the get rich quick scheme instead of working for it.

 

[Saintman2884]

NBA in the early to mid 80s was going through a bit of a social transition, because it had suffered from a bad PR reception and a negative reaction from some markets because at the time, Moose, some people viewed the NBA as "the black man's sport". David Stern didn't become NBA Commissioner until 1984 and the league didn't have or was willing to adopt a more glitzy PR type of promotions. Stern was a master of media relations and he used the Bird vs. Magic/Boston vs. LA Lakers rivalry in the 1980s to pump some new blood and some vitality into the sport. Bird and Magic arguably helped save the NBA in the 1980s and with the arrival of MJ and the Bulls dynasty later on in the 1990s, as well as Detroit's Bad Boys Pistons teams, they made a once-boring league and boring sport, with spoiled, egotistical, selfish players exciting again. Look at Pete Maravich, Moose. He was called out as a showboat, flamboyant, egotistical ball hog by his teammates when he played in Atlanta and New Orleans Jazz a decade before MJ, Magic Johnson, Barkley, Isaiah Thomas, Bird were doing and being applauded for it. Pete Maravich was the NBA's first 21st century player when the league and it's players and it's game was stuck in the Dark Ages. He was Showtime before Showtime and he played in a league 10 years too soon. Houston Rockets great and HOF Calvin Murphy all his life essentially reiterated the same exact sentiments I am saying now, perhaps more forcefully. He always believed that the NBA of the early 70s wasn't ready for players like Maravich or Julius Earving and that Maravich probably should've reconsidered Carolina Cougars ABA offer to play there instead of signing with the Hawks. He probably would've been better treated and more appreciated there.

Another little FWIW, Moose, while CBS did actually tape-delay the 1979 NBA Finals between Seattle vs. Baltimore, by the early-to--mid 80s, because of new cable media networks like ESPN and TNT/TBS, the NBA postseason wasn't being tape-delayed anymore because ratings had improved significantly by 1983-84 they could be aired live. I'm not trying to be a intelligent arse, but I felt leaving this out would be remiss of me and irresponsible.

 

[DaveXA]

Tennessee. baltimore got the original browns. so, 4 teams.

Technically, Tennessee got the Oilers. They pretty much still have the old Oilers' team colors. I was a fan of the Saints and in the AFC it was the Oilers. Loved watching Earl Campbell run over people.

So if I'm right, the true new teams would be Jacksonville (1993), Carolina (1993), Houston (2002), and Baltimore/Cleveland.

Officially, the NFL considers the Ravens to be an expansion team, even though they inherited all of the Browns' front office, staff and players. The Browns didn't cease to exist, and it's why the Ravens' stats do not include the Browns' historical stats, but rather they started from scratch. I originally thought they included the Colts history, but apparently all those old records moved with the Colts to Indy.

So technically, the new team is the Ravens (1996) and the Browns never left, but didn't field a team again until 1999.

 

[The Moose]

NBA in the early to mid 80s was going through a bit of a social transition, because it had suffered from a bad PR reception and a negative reaction from some markets because at the time, Moose, some people viewed the NBA as "the black man's sport". David Stern didn't become NBA Commissioner until 1984 and the league didn't have or was willing to adopt a more glitzy PR type of promotions. Stern was a master of media relations and he used the Bird vs. Magic/Boston vs. LA Lakers rivalry in the 1980s to pump some new blood and some vitality into the sport. Bird and Magic arguably helped save the NBA in the 1980s and with the arrival of MJ and the Bulls dynasty later on in the 1990s, as well as Detroit's Bad Boys Pistons teams, they made a once-boring league and boring sport, with spoiled, egotistical, selfish players exciting again. Look at Pete Maravich, Moose. He was called out as a showboat, flamboyant, egotistical ball hog by his teammates when he played in Atlanta and New Orleans Jazz a decade before MJ, Magic Johnson, Barkley, Isaiah Thomas, Bird were doing and being applauded for it. Pete Maravich was the NBA's first 21st century player when the league and it's players and it's game was stuck in the Dark Ages. He was Showtime before Showtime and he played in a league 10 years too soon. Houston Rockets great and HOF Calvin Murphy all his life essentially reiterated the same exact sentiments I am saying now, perhaps more forcefully. He always believed that the NBA of the early 70s wasn't ready for players like Maravich or Julius Earving and that Maravich probably should've reconsidered Carolina Cougars ABA offer to play there instead of signing with the Hawks. He probably would've been better treated and more appreciated there.

Another little FWIW, Moose, while CBS did actually tape-delay the 1979 NBA Finals between Seattle vs. Baltimore, by the early-to--mid 80s, because of new cable media networks like ESPN and TNT/TBS, the NBA postseason wasn't being tape-delayed anymore because ratings had improved significantly by 1983-84 they could be aired live. I'm not trying to be a Intelligent arse, but I felt leaving this out would be remiss of me and irresponsible.

Thanks for all that.

I remember a ton of that stuff and still think it was crazy I could not watch the news if I wanted to see the game later.

I agree they did not tape delay finals in the usfl era but they definitely did playoffs into the mid to late 80's. Can't remember exactly when was a long time ago.

I guess it just makes my point. They gave up on a the exploding tv market.

Without doing internet digging for facts I remember the usfl gave up on well over 100 million in tv deals to try the get the lawyers let us in your league thing.

Just think about that for a minute. The NBA completely blew up to a global sport because of the perfect storm of cable and mj. When the decade before the finals we're tape delayed.

 

[mdharper]

The reason the USFL failed was because they wanted to be direct competition to the NFL and they did not have the financial reserves to overcome the cash cow the NFL had become from its television revenues.

They put a lot of money in up front, but that dried up pretty quickly and they could not sustain revenues to grow or even stay afloat after the initial curiosity splash.

 

[SAINTIN NEBR]

Yep.

Trump demanded that they move the season and it went downhill after that.

I went to some breakers games and they were okay but never a big crowd.

I thought they were the Boston Breakers?

 

[DaveXA]

I thought they were the Boston Breakers?

They were in 1983, then moved to New Orleans in '84 then Portland in '85.

 

[sfidc3]

Bird and Magic arguably helped save the NBA in the 1980s and with the arrival of MJ and the Bulls dynasty later on in the 1990s, as well as Detroit's Bad Boys Pistons teams, they made a once-boring league and boring sport, with spoiled, egotistical, selfish players exciting again.

I don't think there is any argument there, to me there is no question Bird and Magic saved the NBA, in a lot of TV markets including NOLA, if games were shown at all they were tape delayed, I think I even remember the NBA finals one year in the 70's being tape delayed....that all changed when Bird and Magic entered the NBA, and MJ took it further. I don't like that Stern ultimately made the NBA about individual players (not so much teams) and I don't like the NBA much today....but they came from almost folding to internationally uber successful in fairly short order....

It's is pretty clear (like a slap in the face) that Trump was largely responsible for the USFL's demise, those that argue otherwise would probably follow him off a cliff...