With the coming of the first prime-time Republican presidential debate, “Vainest Man in America” contestant Donald Trump remains the inexplicable party frontrunner. Despite insulting wide swaths of the nation’s electorate while possessing the tact and subtlety of Joffrey Baratheon, Trump remains at the forefront of the upcoming debate.

Clearly, this can’t last. At some point, the baffling polling numbers Trump has racked up will surely fall back to earth, right?

Well, while BostInno Sports is officially neutral in these petty things you call “elections” and “democracy,” we do happen to cling to the fleeting value that an “educated electorate” is still the best when it comes to choosing a minuscule detail like the next President of the United States. With that in mind, let us remember a Donald Trump of a bygone era. It might help to illuminate some of his more notable leadership qualities.

Donald Trump, New Jersey General

Donald Trump in 1984 wasn’t dramatically different than Donald Trump in 2015. The love of money was there, surpassed only by the insatiable love of the spotlight. And while Trump’s accusatory fingers were already in many other business projects during that time, it was in sports that he truly found himself as the pompous buffoon that 24-hour news networks know and love so much today.

Unsurprisingly, his bullish methods would leave a lasting, fatal imprint on the delicately balanced ecosystem of a startup football league.

Unable to land ownership of an NFL franchise, Trump opted for the more wide open route: An expansion football league known as the United States Football League (USFL). It formed with the same purpose as any expansion league: To challenge the establishment by being more exciting. In theory, it was a perfect arena for Trump.

Purchasing the New Jersey Generals franchise, Trump promptly sold the team and repurchased them within a year (probably fulfilling some personal Trump quota for showy business deals).

The Generals, playing games at Giants Stadium, drew over 33,000 fans per game in the inaugural season of 1983, despite the team struggling to a 6-12 record. In year two, Trump had taken over the team again.

Unsurprisingly, his bullish methods would leave a lasting, fatal imprint on the delicately balanced ecosystem of a startup football league.

Spring vs. Fall

The entire success of the USFL as a viable alternative to the NFL was predicated on the fact that it wasn’t actually competing directly against NFL games. The fledgling USFL played in the spring as opposed to the established football season of the fall.

Despite concerns that fans wouldn’t accept spring football, attendance figures prove that this wasn’t fully the case. While several franchises struggled, others succeeded beyond expectation. For example, the Generals (despite possessing a losing record) drew more fans per game in 1983 than every team in baseball except for the Los Angeles Dodgers. That was significant, since the USFL was directly competing with Major League Baseball in terms of season.

Trump, who emerged as an owner during the second season (1984) was not impressed.

“If God wanted football in the spring, he wouldn’t have created baseball,” he declared with maximum hot air. In an abrasive and willfully ignorant style that is recognizably alive in his 2015 political campaign, Trump began beating the war drums to move the league from its modest spring format to competing head t0 head with the NFL in the fall.

The court decision remains the most worthless win in the history of sports law rulings.

Ramping up heat on the NFL also included his insane spending spree, where he quickly amassed an array of talented players (including eventually Doug Flutie) on the Generals, ignoring any reasonable financial model. It spurred a race to the bottom in the USFL, where teams (already struggling for money) bankrupted themselves in an effort to compete.

And all of this wasn’t even the worst thing that The Donald did to the USFL.

The Worst Lawsuit Win In Sports History

In the long and sad history of sports lawsuits, the number one spot in the category of “unmitigated foolishness” will forever be held by the USFL vs. NFL case of 1986.

Spurred on by Trump (who bullied more than he cajoled), the other owners in the USFL eventually ignored the modest (yet sure-thing) television contracts they’d been offered in favor of a fantasy-land scenario. The league, Trump promised, could make infinitely more money if they only challenged the NFL in the fall and eventually force a merger, allowing many of the USFL owners to dump their less-profitable teams, while others like the Generals survived.

The main method of winning, he reasoned, was in court. Suing the NFL in antitrust case, the USFL hoped to exploit a special stipulation: Damages in antitrust cases are tripled, meaning that the USFL could reap a massive financial payoff if it could only prove to a jury that the NFL was an unfair monopoly.

Trump was recklessly leading the charge to bet the entire league’s fate on a single court decision. He was staking thousands of people’s jobs and the league’s realistic chance at survival on one massive hand, either oblivious to the danger or simply without care for it.

The court decision remains the most worthless win in the history of sports law rulings.

Indicative of how shortsighted his decision was, the jury technically ruled in favor of the USFL. The NFL, they determined, was in fact in violation of the antitrust law. Yet that didn’t matter, because the money awarded in damages was all that Trump was really after. In that, the jury embarrassed Trump.

They awarded the USFL exactly $1 in damages. Since antitrust damages tripled, the total check cut to Trump’s football league was $3.

And that was it.

Rationalizing that Trump and the USFL had cynically chosen court as a means of forcing a business merger, they rightfully pointed out that the USFL had chosen themselves to go head-to-head with the NFL in the fall. Having turned away from its model of spring games, the USFL had no grounds for damages.

“They shot themselves in the foot,” NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle declared after the ruling.

Trump famously dismissed the ruling and the league itself as “small potatoes,” in an interview for an ESPN “30 For 30” about the USFL in 2009 (also called “Small Potatoes”). Yet it remains undeniable that he, at the very least, hastened the demise of the expansion league. He thoughtlessly moved on in his business career, immediately forgetting the utter disaster he had wrought with an uncanny selective memory that has endured through the decades.

His idiotic push to challenge the NFL and abandonment of the spring format ran the league into the ground. While the league may not have survived in the end anyway, it was surely led to a premature death by the “business acumen” of Trump himself. The USFL never played another down after the court ruling. Indeed, explaining that fact was all down to the “art of the deal.”

Featured image via Michael Vadon, CC By SA 4.0