Event Date: October 11th, 1982
Event Description: USFL Commissioner Optimistic
Source: United Press International
If the NFL players strike drags on it could provide a bit of a lift for the businessmen who are investing $100 million in the United States Football League, Commissioner Chester R. Simmons concedes.
He says a prolonged strike could make the fans hungry for pro football come March when the USFL launches its 20-game season and could induce some college players to sign with teams in the new league instead of holding out for jobs in the older league.
Simmons does not, however, expect the strike's impact on the new league's fortunes to be big in any case.
The major question is whether the fans will go for football from March through early July.
Frank M. Magid Associates, Inc., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a major broadcast research firm, did the marketing survey for the promoters of the league and concluded most fans think the present pro football season is too short compared with the 162-game baseball season and the 82-game pro basketball season. Simmons said officials and clubowners of the new league are betting on success where the World Football League failed after two seasons.
It is not, of course, competing seasonally with the NFL.
“In addition, our clubs are much better financed,” he said. “John Bassett, the Canadian multimillonaire who had the Memphis club in the WFL and has the Tampa Bay club in our league, says he was the richest man in the WFL but is the poorest owner in the USFL.”
Simmons said the WFL never got real television money. The USFL has a two-year contract with ABC and a cable contract with Entertainment & Sports Network, Inc., which can pipe the games into 16.5 million homes.
The WFL raided NFL player rosters and got into a salary war with the older league. The USFL will avoid that trap, Simmons said. Since its rosters will necessarily be composed of very young players, its average salaries in the first season may be almost 50 percent less than those in the NFL, he said.
Simmons said there are plenty of players available and high-priced players don't necessarily mean interesting football games. “We've all seen a lot of bad football played by teams with a lot of expensive stars.” Ticket prices will be about $2 less than NFL prices, Simmons said.
He doesn't expect the majority of the USFL's 12 teams to break even the first season. For that, a team would have to gross about $6 million between gate receipts and broadcast and cable revenue share.
Simmons sees no possibility of players performing in both leagues even though their playing seasons do not overlap. A player's contract runs for 12 months. That creates a valid legal and technical overlap in his opinion. A few NFL players whose options had run out already have signed with USFL clubs.
Ten of the 12 cities in the USFL also are in the NFL and will use the same stadiums as NFL teams, thus providing additional revenues to the municipalities that own the stadiums. The other two are Birmingham and Phoenix.
Since the USFL will be taking players who may not have graduated, although their college eligibility has run out, the USFL teams will give them scholarships to return to college in the fall and a bonus for earning a degree.
(Story-UPI)
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