By Tim Farrell

Who killed the USFL?

What a great question. Filmmaker Mike Tollin created a short film for ESPN to help celebrate their 30th anniversary and to try and give us an answer.

The film was called Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? All this aside, I’m willing to bet that the majority of people out there have no clue what the USFL was, and how much of an impact it had on today’s professional football powerhouse, otherwise known as the National Football League.

So let’s begin with a brief history lesson.

USFL stands for United States Football League, and it was created with the basic intentions of feeding America’s love for pro football, which went beyond that of the NFL. The USFL’s seasons took place during the spring and summer months, which basically provided the fans with football all year long.

The new startup league was created by David Dixon, an antique dealer from New Orleans, who had studied the two previous failed football leagues, the American Football League AFL and the World Football League WFL, and came up with plans to provide long-term success with the USFL.

The USFL had a very promising start in 1983, including the signing of Heisman trophy winning running back, Herschel Walker, to the New York Generals. There were 12 teams in the league during the first season, including the Michigan Panthers and the Philadelphia Stars, the only two teams to win a USFL championship game (Philadelphia won 2).

However, all good things must come to an end, right? That’s where the documentary Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? comes in.

The piece centered on filmmaker Tollin and his connection with the league. He interviewed former USFL players and executives like Steve Young, Jim Kelly, and Donald Trump, and asked them how the USFL changed the face of professional football, and how it came to an end.

The consensus from former players and coaches was that the USFL came to end when it decided to challenge the NFL for football dominance. The man behind the movement for the change was none other than “The Hair,” otherwise known as Donald Trump, then-owner of the New York Generals.

The film showed how he had gained support from other team owners and executives, eventually culminating in the famous USFL v. NFL anti-trust lawsuit. The USFL had sued the NFL saying that it had a monopoly on the television stations ABC, CBS and NBC, which did not allow them to air any USFL games during the fall.

Well, the USFL did win the lawsuit, however they didn’t get exactly the dollar amount they were shooting for. Out of the $1.7 billion they went after, the jury awarded them $1.00. That one dollar was eventually tripled due to antitrust law, making the winnings $3.76, including interest during the trial. Needless to say, that check has never been cashed.

The film came to an end with Tollin interviewing Trump asking him if he had any regrets or apologies to offer to the former executives from the USFL, to which he quickly replied, “We’re done here,” and eventually called the whole interview and the movie being made “Small potatoes”- the title.

All in all, Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? really captures what went on behind the scenes of the USFL, the NFL’s biggest rival in the field of professional football.

Who knows where or how far the USFL could have gone had they remained a spring/summer league. I for one am excited at the idea of more professional football, and I think it would be safe to say that so is the majority of football fans today. With new leagues like the United Football League UFL and a planned comeback of the USFL in 2011, America could be in store for more hard hittin’ gridiron action than we can handle, but then again, there’s no such thing as too much football…