Who is dumber…. Trump and the USFL going toe to toe with the NFL, Vince McMahon and XFL going against the NFL, or college football going toe to toe with the NFL?
I mean seriously… they knew they were going to get shelled today but they still chose SMU over Bama, USCe, and Ole Miss against the NFL mega Saturday of the year
The (first) XFL didn't go head-to-head with the NFL and was an attempt to build a football league closer to his wrestling product, a gamble that failed if you will. Had it worked, well, it wouldn't have replaced the NFL, but it might have lasted a few years.
CFB should just have chosen some nights during the week or a time when they'd show a bowl game for their playoff games. It's like this was done with zero foresight, but this can be remedied.
Donald Trump's driving over the cliff with the USFL contra the league's original founding purpose was the kind of thing a screenplay writer would do but is by far the worst. Had the USFL simply stayed as a spring football league (which was the original intent) with controlled costs, a regional only draft, and been either a reserve league for NFL clubs (holding players for them to prevent free agency) or a place where washed up veterans could go make less but still play a few years, it could have stayed around awhile.
Think about this: when Trump decided to drive over the cliff, he put the Birmingham Stallions' owner (Marvin Warner) in the unenviable position of:
- we can't play Saturday in the fall or we'll get clobbered by Alabama, Auburn, and Tennessee
- we can't play Sunday, not only because the NFL will clobber us, but at the time it was illegal to sell alcohol in most Southern states on Sunday
Other owners had the unenviable task of being the alternative to NFL teams and no access to NFL stadiums, but none of that mattered to Trump.
That's why his was worst.
