That's true.
Plus - and I honestly believe this - McMahon as a polarizing figure helped them at first, but really hurt them when things went south. His bravado was great to get attention early, and there were those who said "Wow, he's done great things with wrestling, if anybody can do this, he can."
And when things went south and he didn't handle them particularly well (plus...he didn't really know how to run an actual football league), he was hoisted on his own petard, by many of the same people.
And they did, and they still lost a bajillion dollars. The cost of starting up anything, plus the fact that football is a really expensive sport, took care of that.Again, as far as attendance and the ability to get multiple TV deals, I think the XFL shows that the spring is a better option than the fall. That league had to average about 25k per game, too.
There's one theory, though, and it was advanced by the USFL folks as part of the ill-fated move to the fall: That fall is when more people are thinking about and "living" football. Yeah, there's a lot of football to compete with, but they felt that if you were going to do it, at least do it when interest in football was demonstrably the highest.
Of course, the USFL was so screwed up by that point with its infighting that it wasn't healthy by the time it got to that point. We never did get to see what would have happened in the fall of 1986.
Plus, they put games on the absolute worst night of the week to draw the demographic they were seeking.You're right, though, you can't count on primetime ratings on network TV to carry a minor league.
That they did. NBC promoted it relentlessly, gave it big-league treatment. The ratings weren't a lot, but their attendance did get a boost. In the end, it didn't help them.That was a flawed business plan from the start, no matter who's doing the marketing. We could also probably throw in Arena Football. Their overspending led them down a dark road, but fans showed an interest in watching it in the spring.
As for the UFL, they should be so lucky as to find out what will happen in the fall of 2011. I feel that when their TV deals run out, if they're still drawing 10-12,000 a game, they're toast.
