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On Sunday, the Philadelphia Stars will play for the USFL championship, just as they did more than 30 years ago (albeit representing Baltimore) in the final season finale of the doomed 1980s version of the league. They will face the Birmingham Stallions to close out the inaugural season of this second version of the USFL.
New sports leagues are risky ventures, but the USFL has had good success, due in large part to the fact that it has strictly avoided politics and culture wars.
Fox executive Mike Mulvihill said of the USFL experiment: “All we wanted to do is demonstrate that spring football can have an audience at the Premier League, NHL regular season, Formula 1, or MLS levels. … We want to show that we belong in that category, and I think that’s what happened.” A big part of the recipe for ratings was that the USFL was really football for football’s sake. And in sports these days, that’s a lot rarer than it should be. Fox renewed coverage for the next year.
In recent years we’ve seen Major League Baseball remove Georgia’s All Star Game over a bill that ended up leading to record attendance, we’ve seen Black Lives Matter logos plastered across the courts of the NBA, ESPN, which was once the home of sports now often resembles left-wing cable news with a few scores rolling in occasionally.
USFL MAKES BIG POINTS WITH VISITORS IN INAUGURAL SEASON
But when the USFL started this spring, there was already a backlash against nonstop politicking in professional sports. It might have been tempting two years ago for the fledgling league to try to make a splash of social justice, but instead, they stuck to the field. And the fans responded.
If anything, the USFL’s appeal has been that it takes viewers even deeper into the sport of football than NFL or college games. We hear plays from coach to quarterback, see how receiver routes play out, analyze great plays with the players who made them in real-time interviews. Not all the tricks worked, the helmet cameras are a little wobbly, but overall it’s a new look under the hood of pro football.
An example of how well the USFL handled, or rather ignored, cultural issues was the hiring of Steve Strimling as head of refereeing. Strimling is openly gay, and a handful of stories about his role have appeared in LGB&T stores. But the league didn’t make much of it. They hired the best person for the job who happens to be gay. Isn’t this real progress rather than performative progressivism?
Going forward, the league must follow its apolitical schedule. This year all games were played in the same stadium in Birmingham, next year this expands to all 8 teams playing in 2-4 markets and eventually each team in their own city. These can be big family events that fans can escape to, but only if the focus remains on football and fun.
As the stars and studs clash on Sunday night, Americans seem more curious than convinced about the USFL. He has a long way to go to create the kind of passionate team loyalty essential in the sports business and, like his predecessor, will fight to compete for the best talent with the power of the NFL. But even the latter is an opportunity.
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Much of the awakening in sports comes from its stars, millionaires like LeBron James and Steve Kerr, always quick with a left wing joke. But for the USFL, as is the case with other small leagues like Major League Soccer, the team and fans can be at the center of the franchise’s culture. If the USFL can do that, there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to thrive.
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So, may the best team win Sunday night and may America find it attractive. The USFL has gambled wisely on politics and millions of Americans are grateful.
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David Marcus is a New York based columnist and author of “Charade: The Covid Lies That Crushed A Nation”.
