Whole New League, Whole New Season

As for owners, the USFL seems well stocked with the kind of blue-ribbon high rollers of which the WFL had entirely too few. The co-owner of the USFL team in Tampa is John Bassett, the Toronto motion picture producer who raided the Miami Dolphins to obtain Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield for his Memphis WFL team. Of the difference between now and then, Bassett says, "In the WFL, I was the richest guy in the league. Here I'm the poorest." The USFL roster of ownership includes a variety of magnates: The New York owner is Walter Duncan, 61, a grandfatherly Oklahoma City oilman said to be worth considerably more than $100 million; the Birmingham owner is a native of that city, Marvin Warner, also 61, a financier and thoroughbred owner now living in Cincinnati, who was ambassador to Switzerland during the Carter Administration and gave a memorable dinner party at the embassy featuring hot dogs, popcorn and beer; the San Diego owner is Bill Daniels, 62, an erstwhile Wyoming insurance agent who wired the town of Casper for cable TV in 1952 and from that beginning built an 11-state cable operation worth about $150 million; the San Francisco principal owner is Tad Taube, 50, a real estate developer who, the night before the USFL was unveiled, flipped a coin with the Los Angeles principal, another real estate developer, Jim Joseph, 46, to decide who would get San Francisco and who L.A.

And what of the players? Will this be a league of NFL has-beens and never-weres? No way, the owners say. But neither will the league try the old Bassett method of outbidding the NFL for its stars. Says Dixon, "I've said from the very start that the best way for us to operate is not to go after the NFL's veterans and superstars. We will not try to sign a Bradshaw, a Campbell, a Payton. The price is too high, the risk is too high. Our first-year payroll is going to be full of first-year players or their equivalent. No retreads, no rejects. We're going to create our own stars."

What will prevent the NFL from continuing to have its way with all of the best college talent? Probably nothing. Even the most rabid USFL backer wouldn't claim there will be true competition for the cream of the college crop for some years. Says Dixon, "We'll have troubles in the first and second round of the draft, sure. But once we get to the third, fourth, fifth rounds—there we'll be real competitive. We'll offer things the NFL wouldn't think of giving, such as three-year, no-cut contracts to the top rookies and a promise that a player will stay in the territory where he was a college star."

For now the USFL will tackle the problem of not having the most famous players by hiring "name" coaches. Two former Denver Bronco coaches, Lou Saban and John Ralston, were conspicuous at "21" last week, and it was broadly hinted that they would be coaching in the USFL next year. A third prospect is yet another ex-Bronco coach, Red Miller. Apparently the USFL considers Denver the cradle of coaches.

There do seem to be ways such a league could survive, possibly even prosper someday. In fact, for a number of reasons the timing is propitious for the new league. The onrush of cable television and pay-per-view technology all but assures the league of all-important national TV exposure, regardless of what the major networks decide. The WFL gladly would have given its 1975 championship game—free—to any TV outlet, network or whatever, that would take it, but without cable or subscription outlets there was simply no slot for it. Furthermore, if the USFL can survive for five years it will have a big jump on the NFL in the cable field, because Rozelle has sealed his league into a networks-only contract through 1986.

Another very positive bit of timing by the USFL—an element that the league founders claim they never consciously planned to cash in on, but surely would—is the threat of a long NFL players strike. If the 1982 NFL season should be truncated or—dare we say it?—canceled because of a labor dispute, the USFL would provide sustenance to a football-starved nation by next March.

And one more example of good timing: Because the Oakland Raider-L.A. Coliseum lawsuit has made the NFL so sensitive about its status vis-à-vis antitrust laws, Pete Rozelle's cohorts are probably less likely to fight the USFL—either in court or through public denunciations—than they might once have been. For openers, the NFL clubs may not go to court to enforce stadium exclusivity clauses where they exist.

Indeed, the birth of the USFL raises almost as many questions about the future of the NFL as it does about the USFL itself. For example: Might a second league ease the antitrust troubles of the NFL by putting it in a competitive situation? Would it affect the progress through Congress of the antitrust exemption the NFL is having such difficulty getting to the floor of the House? Would a USFL plan to share revenues with players—a definite possibility—push the NFL in the same direction? Would such a policy unleash a rush of NFL players to the USFL? Might more pro football mean over-saturation and a loss of popularity for the high-riding NFL?

No one knows. But whatever the answers, the founders of the USFL face a plethora of problems now. At the top of the list: to convince the skeptics and detractors that the league is a viable, valuable addition to sport.