Lingerie Football apparently lasted for 10 years, far longer than pretty much any other league besides Arena. I checked and technically it’s still in operation but delayed due to COVID however the 2020 season had already previously been cancelled even before COVID due to financial issues and I doubt it will come out after this.
There is only one pro football league that matters and that’s NFL. There will never be a replacement. There won’t be anything even remotely as interesting. Few people can commit to watching football year-round. The closest thing that succeeded outside of regular football was arena football, because it was a different concept. But gridiron football has one season and one league.
I am in the “The USFL would have folded eventually, for pretty much the same reason WLAF/NFL Europa did; there just isn’t the support for spring or summer football, other than the intrasquad scrimmages each top level college plays in the spring (for example, Alabama’s “A-Day Game”)” camp.
When you only have one star, Herschel Walker, it’s hard to get people to watch. Remember how the USFL TV games were always New Jersey vs somebody? Much as I despise Donald, I can’t blame him for the league’s failure. MLB’s structure was never threatened after the early 1900s. The NFL absorbed the AFL, ditto the NHL and the WHL, and the NBA and ABA. There are now in my opinion more top tier franchises in sports than there needs to be, I really can’t see diluting the fan bases in such a massive way ever again.
Trump was responsible for the really big contracts to Herschel Walker and Doug Flutie, in contravention of the Dixon Plan which foresaw slower growth and a manageable salary cap. The original plan was of the MLS type: slowly grow the league, manage franchises as they fold or relocate, slowly expand, and make it a product people will want to come back to.
When Trump arrived he blew that up and caused a salary war, which the other owners couldn’t afford. That in turn destabilized the league with lots of ownership changes, relocations, and teams folding. Then he pushed to directly challenge the NFL, which was the death knell.
It was a surprisingly popular league, perhaps because of the marquee players, and had they followed the original plan it might have survived longer, but that’s just speculation. What can be said is that Trump’s actions made sure it would fail. But he didn’t care, because the goal for him wasn’t league survival, it was to force his way into the NFL, either by merger or reluctant assent from the other owners to end his challenge to the NFL. Fortunately, neither happened, because everything that guy touches dies.
They did have a number of other well-known players, including several star college players who opted to join the USFL instead of the NFL: Doug Flutie (whom @Airman_Doors_USAF mentioned), Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Anthony Carter, and Reggie White. But, yes, I agree that Walker was the league’s biggest star.
As you can probably tell from the salary structure in the displayed link box, it’s a very minor league, probably would have to be considered semi-pro - but played its thirteenth season this year.
I just listened to a podcast about the history of non-NFL sports leagues because of this topic and the hosts said from Day #1 the USFL’s entire goal was merger with the NFL though on a slower pace, which makes it seem like the league was doomed from Day 1 no matter what happened.