TV Deals

The deals with ABC and ESPN were in place before the USFL actually had a league office established. The USFL knew television was the key to its success, so they hired ESPN president Chet Simmons to be the league’s first commissioner.

ESPN was a mere infant in the sports broadcasting industry and was anxious to be named the league’s network when it commenced play in March of 1983.

Stu Evey, the founder of ESPN and author of Creating AN Empire: ESPN, wrote, “securing the rights to their games would be a major coup for ESPN.”

Before Simmons jumped from ESPN to the USFL, there was some “spirited negotiation going on,” says Steve Erhart, a former USFL executive with the league and later a general manager with the Memphis franchise.

ESPN at the time was a fledgling network compared to the powerhouse it is today. The USFL was ESPN’s foray into producing live sporting events like football. Ironically, there was competition for the rights to the league by Ted Turner’s TBS.

Evey was awakened one early morning in February of 1982 by Simmons, who was not yet named commissioner of the league, saying that Turner has come in with a higher bid on the USFL deal.

Evey was aware of the cross-promotional appeal the new league would give to ESPN, even though the network wouldn’t make money on it. “The publicity alone would be worth the price,” writes Evey. “The new league wasn’t announcing its formation until May, but the sports pages were already talking about it.”

Evey gave Simmons the okay to give the USFL the extra million without actually having the authority from the Getty Oil board of directors (ESPN was a subsidiary of the Getty Oil Company). Evey turned to Jerry Salomon -- the president of the D’Arcy McManus Agency, which represented ESPN’s largest advertiser, Anheuser-Busch. Evey asked Salomon to coax Anheuser-Busch to put up some more money into the venture of spring football. “Your announcers better mention Budweiser every five minutes during those football games,” Salomon told Evey after getting the beer company to fork over another $500,000.

Evey thought the extra million ESPN had to spend was well worth the investment in the spring league. “ There was no way I was going to let Ted Turner get the rights ahead of us,” he writes. “TBS was still the biggest cable network in terms of viewership, but we were catching up fast. Getting the USFL would get us there faster.”

The Getty Oil Company was losing money with ESPN, so when Evey approached Getty president Harold Berg – it wasn’t a slam dunk he’d approve the extra money. Evey writes: “Operating an unproven business, with steady losses at a time, when fortunes were at a low ebb did not make me the most popular man at the company."


Evey was able to get the extra money for the USFL deal as the league entered a four-year contract with ABC and a two-year contract with ESPN. The ABC agreement provided for ABC to pay the USFL $18 million for the 1983 and 1984 seasons; options exercisable by ABC at $14 million for 1985; $18 million for 1986.

ESPN would televise USFL games for two years at rights fees of $4 million for 1983 and $7 million for 1984.

The USFL began with eight of its twelve teams in the nation's top- ten television markets. The ABC contract required the USFL to field teams in the three largest television markets (New York, Los Angeles and Chicago) and in at least four of the five other top-ten television markets in which teams were originally located in Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, San Francisco/Oakland and Washington.

ABC would televise a Sunday afternoon game-of-the-week; one prime-time evening game; plus coverage of the USFL divisional playoffs and championship game. Total package calls for 21 telecasts of USFL action.

ABC felt so confident in the venture, that on December 9, 1982, ABC Radio Networks jointly announce that ABC will do 39 national broadcasts of USFL games, including two playoff games and the league's championship game. ABC agreed to cover two games per week during regular season venture.

The ratings were better than baseball at the time. When the league made its debut in March of 1983, the average attendance for the six home openers was 39,170. The national television ratings for those six games was 14.2, with a 33 share, meaning that 14.2 percent of all TV households and 33 percent of all people watching television tuned in to the USFL debut. The average television ratings for the year were 6.23 on ABC and 3.28 on ESPN.

“The USFL went on to fulfill our greatest expectations,” writes Evey. "It generated huge fan interest before the first season by signing the likes of Hesiman Trophy winner Herschel Walker. The initial season was our highest-rated series ever.”

ESPN had a great opportunity on its doorstep to show the other sports leagues that it could handle pro sports. “There’s no doubt we wanted to step-it-up,” says ESPN sportscaster Bob Ley. “We showed we could embrace, promote, report and telecast a football product.”

Although the ratings dipped a bit more in 1984 ( 5.7 on ABC and 2.8 on ESPN), ABC exercised its option to carry the USFL in the spring of 1985 at $14 million and offered a new contract of $175 million for four years in the spring beginning in 1986
ESPN was offering $ 70 million over three years. The USFL left close to $250 million on the table.

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