Donald Trump filed an antitrust and monopoly suit against the NFL seeking over $1.69 billion. Trump hoped that the USFL would become as large as the NFL, and would push the NFL into a merger. The jury ruled that the NFL didn’t have a monopoly and also, felt that the USFL contributed to its own demise, due to overspending. At the end, the jury awarded the USFL $3 dollars in damages ending the league’s life, and it never played again.The USFL ultimately lost over $163 millions dollars during its venture.
“More than 30 years ago, Donald Trump bought a franchise in the upstart United States Football League. He then led his fellow owners to sue the NFL in a high-stakes antitrust case. The head-on challenge and his ownership of the New Jersey Generals was an early testing ground for the swashbuckling approach that the celebrity businessman-turned-Republican presidential candidate has brought to his 2016 campaign.”
“Donald was the big, crazy-spending owner, and the NFL guys were scared to death of him.”, said Bill Tatham Jr., an owner of the USFL’s Arizona Outlaws who came to admire Trump’s tactics.”
“Trump, in an interview Friday with The Associated Press, said his involvement with the league helped it stay alive longer than it would have otherwise, and that his involvement with the team raised his profile.” – Reported by Jeff Horwitz
More on this: How a young, brash Donald Trump took on the NFL
