1.69-Billion Reasons to Fold for the USFL

The United States Football League scored a moral and legal victory over the National Football League Tuesday.

Mathematically, it was a different story.

The USFL had been asking for $1.69 billion in damages against the NFL. The jury awarded the USFL $0.000000003 billion.

That’s three dollars, which will be divided equally among the league’s eight teams--37.5 cents each--and is believed to be the USFL’s first profits.

There are rumors that the U.S. mint, to save the USFL the embarrassment of being paid in small bills, will strike a handsome, new $3 coin, called the Herschel. One side of the coin will be inscribed “RIP, USFL,” and the flip side will feature a likeness of Pete Rozelle, winking.

But seriously . . . Tuesday’s legal decision apparently ensures the death of the United States Football League, although many experts considered the league already brain dead. The passing will be mourned, by some hard-core fans and by the young league’s employees--players, ticket takers, cheerleaders and so forth.

But basically, what we’re witnessing is the death of a silly league that never really told the truth, never really knew what it wanted to do and treated a lot of people badly. The Los Angeles franchise, for example, was run with all the honesty and class of the three-card monte games that you can play on New York street corners.

The Express wound up stiffing a long list of creditors and left behind a legacy of carpetbagging, dishonesty and incompetence, not to forget losing football. Some of the league’s franchises were no doubt run with a modicum of class and honor, but let’s face it--the USFL was never ready to play Broadway. It couldn’t even draw a crowd in Peoria.

And although the league provided employment for hundreds of football players, it also broke the hearts of thousands of others who were sucked into all-comers tryout camps that were really little more than publicity gimmicks.

The league began in 1983, financed by ultra-wealthy team owners who were prepared to ride out years of financial hardship, or so we were told. These were men of principal and daring and unlimited funds.

Still, the league was to be a sensible, honest, small-budget operation. It would not raid colleges or other pro leagues, it would play its games in the spring and it would not try to compete with the NFL. It would even save money by leaving the “S” off the end of a couple of team nicknames.

These were the league’s pledges and promises, all of which--except that last one--were quickly broken. The way it looks now is that the primary goal of the league early on became not to employ or to entertain but to hang around a few years, sue the NFL, win a lot of money, force a merger of sorts and make a handful of USFL owners even richer.

This is not an uncommon strategy in upstart sports leagues. It’s not even illegal. The American Football League and the American Basketball Assn. both did quite well by forcing themselves upon the established leagues.

But the AFL and ABA at least started out as legitimate leagues that intended to stay in business and compete against the big guys.

The USFL? It should have changed its name to the SUE-U-FL. If nothing else, Tuesday’s $3-decision will dissuade future quick-buck entrepreneurs from rushing into business with new sports leagues in order to turn fast profits, toying with the affections of fans and fringe players.

All but lost in the natural public fixation with the money involved in Tuesday’s jury ruling is the fact that the NFL actually lost the case and was found guilty of running a monopoly. This surely weighs heavily on the consciences of NFL’s team owners and the commissioner, who no doubt spent a sleepless night drowning their sorrows in champagne.

The only NFL owner who escaped with a clean conscience was Raider boss Al Davis, whose team was judged not to be part of the monopoly. This means that the Raiders won’t be asked to kick in a share of the $3 owed the USFL, and that each of the offending 27 NFL teams will have to cough up 11.1 cents, instead of 10.7 cents.

Meanwhile, the USFL owners, whoever they are, wherever they are, are celebrating their victory and praying that the NFL does not elect to appeal the verdict in an effort to have the $3-judgment overturned. It’s not much money, but when you start a league with nothing and in only four years you build your dream into a sports empire worth $0.000000003 billion, you hate to see it slip away.