Did you know trump had a stint in american football and even had a team and a league?


5 things to know about Donald Trump's foray into doomed USFL


Jul 14, 2015
Arash Markazi
ESPN Senior Writer

The final game in United States Football League history, a 28-24 victory by the Baltimore Stars over the Oakland Invaders, was played 30 years ago on July 14. The 1985 USFL championship game was held at Giants Stadium, home of the New Jersey Generals, who were owned by future presidential candidate Donald Trump. And it was Trump's strategy for the league that is widely considered to have led to its demise.

Since the USFL folded after the 1985 season, Trump has tried to get back into sports with mixed results. He held several big fights at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City before it shut down. He also operates 17 golf courses around the world, but the PGA of America won't hold its Grand Slam of Golf at Trump National in Los Angeles after Trump's recent controversial comments about Mexican immigrants. The golf club in Puerto Rico bearing his name filed for bankruptcy this week. Last year, Trump tried to get back into football by buying the Buffalo Bills, but Sabres owner Terry Pegula landed the franchise for $1.4 billion. In fact, one reason Trump bought a USFL team to begin with was that he saw it as an opening into the NFL by way of a merger.

Let's take this anniversary as a chance to look back at five memorable aspects of Trump's short tenure as a pro sports owner.

1. Trump is widely blamed for the demise of the USFL
Soon after Trump bought the Generals after the USFL's inaugural season, which was played in the spring of 1983, he started pushing his fellow owners to move the league's games to the fall and go head-to-head with the NFL. "If God wanted football in the spring," Trump once said, "he wouldn't have created baseball." After the league's third season, the owners agreed to move to a fall schedule in 1986.

"I think it was a big mistake," said Dr. Ted Diethrich, one of the league's original owners. "When that decision was made, the course for this was charted, and it was going to be a wreck."

Several teams were having financial difficulties at the time, and the league lacked the fall TV contracts that supported the NFL. The USFL instead tried to take on the NFL in the courts by filing an antitrust lawsuit. The hope was that the USFL would either merge with the established league or win a sizable settlement. The merger never happened, and despite winning the lawsuit, the USFL was ultimately awarded only $3 for its troubles. The league soon folded, and Trump's push for the fall schedule and a lawsuit against the NFL is generally cited as the main reason.

2. The Generals were pretty good under Trump
Trump will never be remembered as a great owner. It's hard to be associated with helping to destroy a league and be considered a good owner at the same time. That said, the Generals were better during Trump's two seasons as owner than they were in their inaugural season in 1983. Oklahoma oil magnate J. Walter Duncan was the team's first owner, and he brought former Oklahoma and New England Patriots coach Chuck Fairbanks in as the head coach, general manager and minority partner. The Generals went 6-12 in their first season.

Duncan didn't like being an absentee owner living in Oklahoma and sold the team to Trump, who was 37 years old when he bought the Generals. Trump fired Fairbanks and brought in former New York Jets coach Walt Michaels. Trump also made a splash by signing several former NFL players, including quarterback Brian Sipe, safety Gary Barbaro and linebacker Jim LeClair. The Generals went 14-4 in their second season and 11-7 in their third and final season. Both seasons under Trump ended with first-round playoff losses.

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I watched a documentary on this matter some years ago....and to be frank, the mistake trump made is outlined in reason number one...he moved the USFL to compete with the NFL....in the fall/winter.

Ideally he should have kept the season in the spring.