Return of the USFL

[TheFugitive]

The United States Football league has relaunched.  Sort of.

I may be one of the few on this board who is old enough to remember the original USFL which played from 1983-85.  I actually really enjoyed it because I'm not much of a basketball fan and it gave me a sports TV option at that time of year.  It folded after Donald Trump acquired the New Jersey Generals franchise and convinced the other owners to move to a fall schedule, head-to-head with the NFL.  That created stadium conflicts which Trump reasoned would form the basis of an antitrust suit which could be used to force a merger.  The league did in fact sue the NFL and won on the merits, but the jury decided to only award $1 in damages (which under the law was tripled to $3).  That wasn't enough to force the NFL to negotiate a merger so the league folded.

The new USFL is entirely owned by Fox Sports.  They are playing all of their games in Birmingham, Alabama and not in the team designated cities (the playoffs have actually been moved to Canton, Ohio due to a scheduling conflict).  It seems this is simply the TSL Spring League that has existed for the past few years that's been rebranded with the old USFL team names and logos.

One of the franchises is the Pittsburgh Maulers.  People here in Pittsburgh find this highly disappointing since the Maulers won't actually be playing any games here.  The original Maulers are still fondly remembered here, despite the fact that they only existed for one season and only won 3 games during that time (a bit of trivia, the Maulers were the only team in pro football history to have an equal number of head coaches and wins).

The league kicked-off over Easter weekend.  I was out of town visiting family and did not get the chance to check it out.  Think I'll do that this weekend.