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Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?
2009 · Film · documentary · 53 min
Directed by Michael Tollin
In 1983 the upstart United States Football League (USFL) had the audacity to challenge the almighty NFL. The new league did the unthinkable by playing in the spring and plucked three straight Heisman Trophy winners away from the NFL. The 12-team USFL played before crowds that averaged 25,000, and started off with respectable TV ratings. But with success came expansion and new owners, including a certain high profile and impatient real estate baron whose vision was at odds with the league’s founders. Soon, the USFL was reduced to waging a desperate anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL, which yielded an ironic verdict that effectively forced the league out of business. Now, almost a quarter of a century later, Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning director Mike Tollin, himself once a chronicler of the league, will showcase the remarkable influence of those three years on football history and attempt to answer the question, “Who Killed the USFL?”
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It's been tried a few times... Probably the best challenge was the USFL, but they couldn't make a go of it over the long term, and that was when the NFL media machine was much less entrenched. The ESPN 30 for 30 film "Small Potatoes: Who Killed The USFL?" is pretty interesting (especially given that Trump was a key player in that drama)[1]
[1] http://espn.go.com/30for30/film?page=small-potatoes-who-killed-the-usfl