'83 Chronology-Dixon Predictions

Event Date: March 25th, 1983

Event Description: Dixon Preps Franchise

Source: United Press International

A community-owned football team run by New Orleanians “of the most humble sort of background” will join the United States Football League in 1984 or 1985, said USFL founder Dave Dixon.

Dixon, who holds the rights to franchises in New Orleans and Houston, said Thursday he will sell his rights to the Houston franchise and expects a group to start an expansion team in that city by next spring.

With the proceeds from that sale, he said, he will petition league directors to allow him to create an expansion franchise in New Orleans.

“That expansion franchise will become activated only when and if we sell 40,000 season tickets, and all of those season ticket-holders will be the shareholders in the club,” he said. “This will be revolutionary in sports. It will be the first truly community-owned football team. And a guy of the most humble sort of background can be an owner of this football club.”

Public ownership of the club -- an arrangement now used on a minority basis in franchises such as the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, of which 18percent is public -- would give city residents a greater voice in controlling the team.

“Al Davis picked up and moved his Oakland team that had 13 consecutive years of sellouts and I think that's terribly unfair to the people of Oakland. The people of Oakland really got a job done on them and I think that's dreadful,” Dixon said. “That won't hapoen in New Orleans, because we will own the team ourselves.”

The 12-team USFL will expand into New Orleans, Houston and two other cities by 1984 or 1985, he said, and will include 24 squads within five or six years. Dixon said he soon will begin selling shares in the New Orleans franchise and the club could join the league by next spring if the response from fans is extensive.

Negotiations with a group of Houston investors is underway and there are other groups hoping to gain the franchise rights if that deal falls through, he said, adding  “Houston almost certainly will have a team in 1984.”

Dixon said he will fight attempts by the New Orleans Saints to control use of the Superdome by other teams, such as a USFL entry, and rejected notions that New Orleans might not support two football teams Even though the Saints often do not sell out the 71,000-seat Superdome, Dixon said their mediocre record over the years is the reason. Since the USFL plays in the spring and summer, it will fill a gap in the New Orleans sports scene, he added.

Story-(UPI)