August 6 - in a clueless rant even by his low standards, Trump continues to advocate a fall move for the USFL. Trump says that the move to the fall won't lead to a merger, "only" a common draft of college players which, of course, would be an antitrust nightmare. When this is pointed out to Trump, he responds with the incredibly naïve comment that the American and National Leagues in baseball have a common draft. Aside from the misplaced comparison of one common baseball league, Trump is apparently not aware that baseball has a Congressionally approved exemption to antitrust law.
August 16 - Bandits owner John Bassett sends a letter to Trump on Tampa's team stationery. Bassett accuses Trump of verbally abusing the league's commissioner and other owners every time one of them opposes his ideas. After noting that Trump's life success story suggests Trump is intelligent and accomplished, Bassett also tells Trump he is no longer going to let his insults slide by in meetings - telling Trump that he will have no second thoughts about "punching you right in the mouth" the next time Trump insults someone in a USFL meeting.
August 21 - The McKinsey Report - which cost the USFL teams $600, 000 - is presented to the owners. Sharon Patrick spends an hour laying out a success formula for the USFL. Manage your costs, stay in the spring, establish credibility and staying power - and then pounce in the fall when NFL labor strife presents a strike situation (as happened in 1987). Patrick explicitly warns them they are doomed if they move to the fall.
But before the meeting even begins, owners are greeted with story that ran the previous day in the NYT, saying "USFL Set for Fall Play in 1986." Yes - Trump did it again.
After Patrick left the room without a single question, Trump began ranting about how the league would stay in the spring without him owning a team. He said there was "great potential" in the fall. Trump's newest sycophant, Eddie Einhorn, said he had talked to TV executives who were promising the USFL $90 million to move to the fall. Which networks and which executives? Einhorn promised details later.
August 22 -
the USFL votes to move to the fall starting in 1986. This is a truly stupid move for many reasons - not the least of which is that it turns the 1985 season into a last hurrah for fans who enjoy the summer product but root for NFL teams in the fall.
There's another immediate problem - Pittsburgh Maulers owner Eddie DeBartolo Sr. wants no part of going head to head with his son Junior's highly successful San Francisco 49ers, so he's out of the league.
September 27 - Trump files a $500 million libel suit against the Chicago Tribune and its architecture critic for criticizing Trump's plan to build the world's largest skyscraper in Manhattan, an idea the critic dismissed as "architecturally lousy" and "one of the silliest things to be thrust upon New York or any city."
October 5 - the USFL votes to file an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL the following day, insisting that the NFL's three network contracts enable them unable to obtain one themselves (that is what they said).
October 18 - the lawsuit - seeking $1.69 billion - is filed in New York City by lead counsel Bill McSherry.
October 19 - McSherry is awakened by his wife and turns on "The Today Show" to see Trump announcing the lawsuit and accompanied by the infamous McCarthy-era attorney Roy Cohn. Cohn declares that a secret committee was created by the NFL to destroy the USFL. Asked for evidence, Cohn produces none but instead says he got this secret stuff from "someone on the inside." Cohn also says "you have a right to do a little concluding" but leaves his evidence concealed.
October 20 - The USFL holds it annual meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, where the key point of discussion is the upcoming lawsuit. Pete Rozelle - NFL commissioner and a PR specialist - immediately dismisses the USFL lawsuit as "baseless" and says he cannot believe that the USFL thinks it can win such a suit. Trump is in typical form, saying (this is a verbatim quote), "I predict we'll be victorious on the basis that the NFL has totally placed itself in a monopoly position," further declaring the networks all suffer from "fear of the NFL." Cohn ups the ante by invoking the gunfighter analogy of the NFL looking at the league as "a notch in their belt."
Although the networks are not initially named in the lawsuit, Cohn implies they all eventually will be. He continues his offensive with references to "the secret USFL committee" that the NFL set up. But Cohn also says that even without the existence of a committee, the USFL would still have grounds to both sue and win. Cohn even gives the name as "the USFL committee," apparently the Deep State of football in 1984. At the same time, the league's contract with ABC expires, and the network tells them they are willing to negotiate a contract for spring ball but not for fall football. Trump uses this announcement to allege "the NFL is petrified" at the prospect of the lawsuit. Rozelle responds with the short retort that "antitrust litigation has been part of the game plane of every second league in modern professional sports history."
Amazingly enough - buried in all the stories - is one lead that suggests that USFL MIGHT not make it through the weekend of October 20-21. Several owners know this is a colossally stupid move to go to fall and feel they have been misled to this point by both Trump and Einhorn, whose Chicago franchise will fold before its first game.
At the same time, the USFL begins shedding franchises to prepare for a potential merger, figuring the NFL is far more likely to absorb 8 franchises than 14.
22 October - calling it "the best meeting I ever attended," Trump declares the USFL is unanimous and unified in its lawsuit against the NFL. The fate of USFL commissioner Chet Simmons remains in limbo. The league's crown jewel on the field - the Philadelphia Stars - pack for Baltimore due to the incomprehensibility of attempting to compete with the NFL's Eagles. Ironically, the Stars' owner, Myles Tannenbaum, is the one owner who did everything according to the original plan and has been rewarded with a 35-6 record, a runner-up, a champion - and a franchise he has to move.
With franchises on the move, the USFL now has a completely different problem - how can you possibly be desirable for a TV contract when you have no teams in Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, or most of the other non-NYC venues? Eddie Einhorn - well-versed in the selling of snake oil - basically says he can't play in the spring because he can't compete with his own MLB Chicago White Sox. And oh yeah, he'll be back to negotiate the new TV deal after next season, he promises.
23 October - just days after getting all the USFL owners together to impose a "gag rule" designed allegedly to ensure unity, Trump addresses the media by saying that the coming lawsuit is "an absolute winner" and says "the league's chances of winning are 100 percent." Trump further predicts the lawsuit loss will put the NFL out of business, and he boasts about Cohn recently winning a $72 million judgement in Trump's favor for a years old tax abatement case.
26 October - one news organization reports that Trump has exaggerated the size of the crowd at his press conference. When attendees are asked how many actually attended, the general consensus is somewhere between 30 and 40. Asked how many were there, it comes out that Trump has said, "Over 400 people were there."
29 October - NFL beat writer Larry Felser refers to the USFL's lawsuit as "the death rattle before the death rattle." He also expresses amusement that the loudest silence of the first half of an incredibly exciting 1984 NFL season is the utter silence of Donald Trump on NFL halftime shows.
5 November - Howard Balzer, another football columnist for "The Sporting News," spells out the entire plan as Trump's plan. But he also goes after the USFL by noting that if there's a conspiracy, it's actually one hatched by the USFL to pretend to be some sort of spring alternative in the first place. Balzer reports the existence of an emergency fund for the USFL teams that was recently set up to avoid implosion. He further impugns Trump, noting that Trump both wants to play in Shea Stadium AND wants a new stadium built in Manhattan where he just happens to sit on the board of a bunch of people wanting a new stadium and he both does and doesn't want a merger. Following Trump is getting incredibly confusing even for smart people. In the same issue, TSN writes an editorial "Our Opinion" to cover the basics of the case. TSN sees the suit as little more than an attempt to harass the NFL into either paying money over to sustain the league or forcing a merger. TSN also notes the NFL is then in the courts with a possible antitrust problem with Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis over his move from Oakland in 1982. TSN also notes the lack of stability in the league - only 4 franchises have their original owner less than 3 years into the plan.
November - it becomes obvious that Doug Flutie is a sure thing to win the Heisman, so the inevitable discussions heat up regarding whether Flutie at 5'9" can be an NFL quarterback or whether he should go to the USFL to work on his game for a future shot as an NFL backup at best. Flutie says he wants to give the NFL a shot first.
Trump also circulates that he'd like to see the league reduced from 14 to 12 teams.
At the same time, Cohn throws out yet another allegation, claiming the NFL teams are going to cities with both teams and persuading them to not do business with the USFL. Cohn says he has sent a 21-page interrogation document to the NFL attorneys and will file an injunction if the NFL doesn't stop bad faith negotiating.
20 November - the Michigan Panthers, an operation run by Vince Lombardi Jr, flees the league, doing so according to owner Alfred Taubman, "Out of respect for the Lions."
November 23 - Doug Flutie beats Miami with a Hail Mary to his roommate, Gerard Phelan, the most talked about finish in college football in many years. If Flutie had not already won the Heisman before this, he clinched it with the bomb to beat Miami.
Donald Trump makes no secret of his desire to sign Flutie - so much so that the USFL jiggers their rules a bit and makes Boston College a New Jersey Generals "territorial school," which means in their fake draft that Flutie is automatically a General. The issue will be the contract. At the same time, the NFL makes no secret of the fact Flutie is by no stretch of the imagination an NFL prospect. If he ever plays in the NFL, Flutie will be the shortest quarterback in NFL history.
December 1 - Doug Flutie discloses he received a letter on New England Patriots stationery informing him the club is not interested in signing him to an NFL contract. BC assistant coach Barry Gallup says he suspects it was sent as a negotiating ploy to lower Flutie's leverage. Patriots GM Patrick Sullivan says that there are way too many people that have access to Patriots stationery to even speculate who may have done it. The suspicion is that it was sent by a former NFL employee now in the employ of the USFL.
Trump is back in the news, basically taking the position that getting Doug Flutie is somehow going to draw big TV contracts. In an interview, Trump says he wishes he could be involved in the pending nuclear issues discussions with the Soviet Union, declaring that he could solve the problem in one hour. And oh btw, he's now worth $400 million.
And oh btw, Flutie wins the Heisman on this day as well.
December 11 - Trump proposes an 80,000-seat domed stadium be built in Queens using private money (or so he says) for his USFL team.
December 19 - it emerges that Trump had submitted a bid to buy the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team from the Galbreath family. Trump wanted to purchase the Pirates and move them to New Jersey, only to be told the Pirates were locked into an unbreakable and long lease with Three Rivers Stadium, and the Galbreath family had no intention of selling the team to anyone who would move it. The Twins had been sold to Carl Pohland on August 16 despite Trump being the highest bidder. A similar circumstance appears to have occurred here.
Trump ends 1984 as - in all honesty - one of the best-known people in the United States, a guy who probably had more news stories written about him than anyone or anything except the Presidential campaign and maybe the Los Angeles-based Olympics that were boycotted by the Soviet Union. But we are also seeing the very same patterns of behavior evident throughout his life and on into the White House, too.
