May be fueling Trump’s NFL fire
know the truth, and I think it’s disgraceful.”
Is Trump’s all-out NFL sniping a result of his failed USFL trial in 1986 and subsequent failed attempts to buy a team in the NFL?
The NFL and Trump have had a contentious relationship that goes way back to the USFL days. Most recently, Trump was outbid in 2014 by Terry and Kim Pegula for the Buffalo Bills. Trump offered $1 billion but the Pegulas were selected by the estate of the late Ralph Wilson with a winning bid of $1.4 billion.
On the campaign trail last year, he admitted that if he bought the Bills, “I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.” He said he was glad he didn’t get the team because running for President was “much more important.”
Forbes recently listed the Bills’ worth at $1.6 billion, last in the 32-team league, but still a $200 million increase over the purchase price three years ago.
Trump’s biggest failure in what was once an obsession to own an NFL team started when he purchased the USFL New Jersey Generals for $5 million following their first season of spring football in 1983.
Three years later, he was the driving force when the USFL announced it would play its fourth season in 1986 from the spring to the fall and was also filing a $1.69 billion antitrust suit against the NFL.
Trump’s plan was transparent: He wanted into the NFL. He was hoping to bring the NFL to its knees with a huge jury award, forcing a merger that would include his Generals. He was trying to turn his $5 million investment in the Generals into an NFL franchise, which were then valued at close to $100 million. If he had been successful, the Generals would be worth over $3 billion today.
The court result was humiliating. When the jury read the verdict after a trial that took months, it found the NFL guilty of the most serious of the nine charges: Operating as a monopoly. The league never denied it was a monopoly but had argued the USFL’s wounds were self-inflicted.
The future president was seated in Room 318 in U.S. District Court on judgment day on July 29, 1986. His eyes got big when the guilty verdict was read and he was already making plans to build a stadium in Manhattan for the Generals to compete with the Giants and Jets in New Jersey. The NFL was extremely nervous. Trump had a big smile on his face until the jury foreman announced it was awarding the USFL damages of just $1. Trebled under anti-trust law, it became $3.
Trump stood up, walked to the back of the courtroom and departed before hearing the NFL was found not guilty on the other eight counts. Trump’s plan had backfired. He killed the USFL. Instead of remaining in the spring as it should have, the league folded.
“Do you want me to pay you now?” NFL attorney Frank Rotham said to USFL attorney Harvey Myerson as he pulled out his wallet on the way out of Room 318.
Trump previously had tried to buy the Baltimore Colts in 1982 but said the price was too high. He was interested in the Patriots in 1988 but passed because the $104 million in debt he would have had to absorb was a deal-breaker.
Despite Trump’s history with the NFL, nine of the league’s owners, including his close friend, New England’s Robert Kraft, contributed a total of over $7 million to his campaign or inauguration. Kraft said he was “deeply disappointed” by Trump’s comments in Alabama.
That’s when Trump said: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects the flag, to say, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!” Trump has a vendetta against the NFL because of past run-ins. That may be influencing the venom now coming out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.