Wonderful World of the NFL

To the football world’s complete astonishment, the lower appellate branch of the federal district branch of the state U.S. Supreme branch of the legal executive judicial marsupial courtroom branch has ruled that the National Football League has never done anything wrong in its life.

A New York judge ruled this week that not only did the NFL not interfere with the network television contract of United States Football League games, but volunteered to air USFL highlights at halftime of “Monday Night Football” telecasts, provided someone could prove that there had ever been any such thing as a USFL highlight.

Furthermore, during the very same week, a San Francisco court handed down a verdict in the 107-year-old dispute between the Los Angeles Raiders and the city of Oakland, ruling that the football franchise must be returned to that city, when pigs and John Madden fly.

Precedent also was established when the San Francisco jury overturned a settlement of $34.6 million awarded to Al Davis and the Raiders that resulted from the NFL’s attempted blockade of their move from Oakland to Los Angeles.

“I think that figure is a little too high,” the jury foreman said.

“Well, what figure did you have in mind?” the judge asked.

“Zero,” the foreman said.

Thus, in a single, bold stroke, this jury fortified the suspicions of American football lovers everywhere that millions of dollars mean absolutely nothing anymore, and that if the Raiders never see a penny of that $34.6 million, they will laugh and shrug it off because they carry that much around with them daily as pocket money.

The most important thing, of course, was restoring respectability and credibility to the NFL, which would never do anything wrong deliberately and which, in fact, would never do anything wrong, period. This week’s Supreme Court decision flatly stated that the NFL “is made up of a bunch of really nice guys who shouldn’t be bothered with petty matters like lawsuits.”

The NFL’s attorneys, D. Seetful Lee and Ruth Leslie, clearly proved in court this week that the league had only the public’s best interests at heart when it stuck its nose into Al Davis’ business. While it was true that an original antitrust verdict had awarded the Raiders $11.55 million in damages, then tripled it, the NFL attorneys successfully argued that, “It doesn’t matter, because nobody in America understood this case back then, just as nobody understands it now.”

A Gallup poll later revealed that 51% of the U.S. population did not understand the NFL-Raiders case or care how it was resolved, that 48% had never heard of the NFL-Raiders case, and that 1% had never heard of Gallup.

The fact that this story was splashed across the front pages of dozens of American newspapers proved nothing more, the attorneys argued, than the fact that crossword puzzles, box scores and Peanuts comic strips were the only things worth reading in American newspapers, and could easily be found without bothering with the front page at all.

In the meantime, in New York, final arguments were made in the NFL-USFL courtroom struggle, in which the USFL contended that it could not play football if the games were not on television, because everybody knows you cannot play football if your games are not on television.

Without a network contract, testified one USFL owner, Eddie Tinhorn, there will be no way to engage NFL teams in the battle for high-priced amateur athletes. Football standouts coming out of college would not be able to insist upon $40 million without ever playing a professional down. At best, Tinhorn said, the USFL would be able to offer top prospects no more than $3.20 an hour, plus meals.

Herschel Runner, the most celebrated player in the USFL’s brief history, gave sworn testimony that the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL had approached him illegally with the threat: “Play for us, or we’ll make sure your games will be televised at 3 a.m. on the Playboy Channel, right after ‘Dueling For Playmates.’ ”

On the witness stand, NFL and major network executives reiterated that not once had they conspired to keep USFL games off television. The president of ABC-TV testified that the only reason he dropped the USFL from his programming schedule was that he had 22 made-for-TV movies about misunderstood teen-agers to air, and no room for anything else.

One NFL executive said he thought that the USFL’s biggest problem was that, even though the league was made up of one franchise from Jersey and 27 franchises from Florida, it insisted upon a coast-to-coast television schedule.

“And furthermore, they insisted that the only reason we refused to run USFL games was because the NFL was afraid of the USFL,” he said. “Right. The Chicago Bears and Pittsburgh Steelers are afraid of the Fort Lauderdale Crabs and the Orlando Cepedas, or whatever those teams are called.”

The case was finally resolved when the NFL vowed to appeal any verdict against it until the 22nd Century. Briefcases, opened in court by NFL attorneys, contained many billions of dollars, some of which promptly were used by NFL executives to light cigars.

“We are big and powerful,” an NFL attorney told the jury. “Really big. Really powerful. I’m serious.”

“Case dismissed,” the judge said.