USFL Lawsuit: The Antitrust Case Against the NFL and $1 Verdict

The USFL’s lawsuit against the NFL was an antitrust case filed in 1984, tried in 1986, and won on paper but lost in practice: a Manhattan jury found the NFL had illegally monopolized professional football but awarded the United States Football League just one dollar in damages, automatically trebled to three dollars under federal antitrust law.¹² The USFL, already carrying more than $160 million in debt and unable to secure a network television contract for a planned fall season, folded shortly after the verdict.³

Why the USFL Sued

The USFL launched in 1983 as a spring league with television deals from ABC and ESPN and a roster that included future Hall of Famers Herschel Walker, Steve Young, Jim Kelly, and Reggie White.³ After Donald Trump bought the New Jersey Generals, he pushed the other owners to move to a fall schedule and compete head-to-head with the NFL, telling them he had “the money to get into the NFL” and “that’s where I plan on being.”⁴ The league voted to shift to fall play beginning in 1986.

On October 17, 1984, the USFL announced both the fall move and its antitrust suit. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, naming the NFL, Commissioner Pete Rozelle, and 27 of the league’s 28 clubs; the Los Angeles Raiders were not named. The USFL sued under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act and asked for $1.701 billion, the trebled figure on $567 million in estimated losses.³

The USFL called it a “television case.” Its central theory was that the NFL had locked up all three major networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — through pooled-rights deals, blocking any second league from getting a viable contract. It alleged the NFL had pressured networks not to air USFL games, threatened nonrenewal against networks that did, and used inflated rights fees to make a second football contract financially unworkable.⁵

The complaint went further. The USFL claimed the NFL had forced it into ruinous bidding wars for players to drive up costs, tried to co-opt USFL owners such as Trump and Alfred Taubman with the promise of NFL franchises, and worked with cities to undermine USFL teams in key markets. A 1973 internal memo by NFL general counsel Jay Moyer, written during ABC’s Monday Night Football renewal, warned that “an open network may well be an open invitation to formation of a new league.” USFL counsel Harvey Myerson treated it as a smoking gun and displayed it repeatedly during trial.⁶⁷

How the NFL Defended the Case

NFL lead counsel Frank Rothman of Skadden, Arps built the defense around the USFL’s own decisions. He argued the league had “dug its own grave” by abandoning spring play, chasing a merger instead of building a sustainable business, and moving franchises out of major television markets.⁸

Rothman framed the trial as “Donald versus Goliath,” casting Trump as the villain. Using internal USFL documents and Trump’s own statements, he portrayed the lawsuit as part of a “merger strategy” designed to force the NFL to absorb USFL teams, with Trump personally angling for an NFL franchise. Network executives from ABC, CBS, NBC, and ESPN testified that the NFL had never pressured them about the USFL and that their decisions rested on their own judgment that the USFL had become an “inferior product.”⁵⁸

The Trial and the $1 Verdict

Trial began on May 14, 1986, before Judge Peter K. Leisure in Manhattan and ran 48 days, producing a transcript of nearly 7,100 pages.³ Trump testified that Rozelle had offered him an NFL franchise if he would keep the USFL in the spring and drop the suit. Rozelle denied it, saying Trump had solicited an expansion franchise for himself.⁸

On July 29, 1986, the six-person jury returned a unanimous verdict that split the case in two. It found the NFL had willfully acquired and maintained monopoly power in the market for major-league professional football.¹ It rejected every other claim, finding the NFL had not monopolized the television submarket, had not conspired in restraint of trade, had not maintained unreasonable television contracts, and had not prevented the USFL from obtaining a network contract.⁵ Damages: one dollar, trebled to three.²

How the Jury Got to a Dollar

The panel deliberated 31 hours over five days and split 3-3 between jurors sympathetic to the USFL and jurors who favored the NFL.⁹ Juror Miriam Sanchez pushed for a $300 million award; Bernez Stephans started at $1 million and joined her. On the other side, Margaret Lilienfeld believed a $1 finding combined with the monopoly verdict would “leave the way open for real competition” without rewarding the USFL’s own mistakes.¹⁰

Juror Patricia Sibilia, who sympathized with the USFL but concluded the league was primarily responsible for its own collapse, described Trump as “arrogant and unlikeable” and “not believable in anything he said.”⁸ Sanchez said afterward that she had understood the judge’s instructions to mean that if the jury could not separate the USFL’s self-inflicted losses from the NFL’s anticompetitive conduct, the judge himself would set the damages. She was wrong about that, and the misunderstanding may have made the $1 compromise acceptable to jurors who wanted a much larger award.¹⁰

Post-Trial Motions and the Appeal

The USFL asked Judge Leisure for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the rejected claims and a new trial on damages, arguing the verdict reflected jury confusion. The NFL sought to overturn the monopoly finding. Leisure denied all motions and said he saw “no justification for disturbing any of the jury’s verdicts.” He also refused to consider post-trial juror statements as evidence of confusion, citing the rule that a juror cannot impeach her own verdict.¹¹

On March 10, 1988, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. The panel found that the USFL’s failure to get a network contract stemmed from the networks’ independent view of it as an “inferior product” and from the league’s “self-destructive” business strategy. The Sherman Act, the court wrote, “does not outlaw an industry structure simply because it prevents competitors from achieving immediate parity” and does not exist to “reward impatience and self-destructive conduct with a fall network contract.”⁵

In February 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case. Despite the nominal $3 damages award, the NFL was ordered to pay $5.53 million in attorney fees to the USFL’s lawyers. The Second Circuit upheld the fee award, holding that such compensation is “compulsory” once an antitrust injury is found, regardless of the damage amount, to encourage “the detection and cessation of anti-competitive behavior.”¹²

What Happened to the USFL

The USFL had scheduled eight teams for a fall 1986 season. It was cancelled after the verdict, and the league, buried under more than $160 million in debt, shut down for good.³ Many of its players moved on to the NFL — Walker, Young, Kelly, and White among them — though no formal dispersal process was arranged.¹³

A Note on the 2022 USFL

The 2022 spring football league branded “USFL,” launched by Fox Sports, is unrelated to the antitrust case. It generated its own lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California by a holding company formed by original USFL team owners, alleging trademark infringement under the Lanham Act. That case settled on confidential terms in August 2022.¹⁴¹⁵

1
The New York Times. USFL Loses in Antitrust Case; Jury Assigns Just $1 in Damages
2
The Washington Post. USFL Is Awarded $1 in Suit Against NFL
3
Berkeley Law. Sports Stories: USFL v. NFL
4
CNBC. Trump’s Ownership of USFL’s New Jersey Generals Fueled Anthem Fight With NFL
5
Second Circuit Court of Appeals. United States Football League v. National Football League, 842 F.2d 1335
6
UPI. USFL-NFL Trial Reaches Showdown
7
Professional Football Researchers Association. USFL v. NFL Antitrust Case
8
The Guardian. The Day Donald Trump’s Narcissism Killed the USFL
9
The New York Times. After Deep Divisions, Jurors Reached Compromise
10
Sun-Sentinel. Jurors’ Path to Verdict Fraught With Illness, Ill Will
11
vLex. US Football League v. National Football League, 644 F. Supp. 1040
12
Los Angeles Times. Supreme Court Declines to Review USFL-NFL Ruling
13
ESPN. Five Things to Know About Donald Trump’s USFL Experience
14
Sports Illustrated. Fox Sports Sued Over United States Football League
15
Reuters. Fox Sports Settles US Football League Trademark Fight With ’80s Team Owners