President Trump Was Involved in Mid 1980s Lawsuit Against NFL
Published on January 30th, 2025 4:23 pm ESTWritten By: Dave Manuel

In 1986, Donald Trump was the owner of the New Jersey Generals, one of the franchises in the United States Football League.
After initially signalling interest in being one of the league's first owners, Trump backed out, only to buy the Generals from J. Walter Duncan and Chuck Fairbanks a year later.
Trump spent a bunch of money on the team in its two years of operations. In fact, he tried to lure some big name coaches to lead the team, including Don Shula and Joe Gibbs.
Things didn't work out for the Generals and the rest of the league, as costs spiralled and losses mounted. The league, faced with declining ratings and attendance, was collectively losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
The USFL was on the brink of failure and decided on a last minute Hail Mary - a $1.5 billion antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.
The USFL had a couple of "smoking guns" that they presented in court, including an internal NFL memo which argued that they should push USFL teams to pay their players more, or else risk losing them to the NFL. Another piece of evidence was a report from a Harvard Business School professor, developed for the NFL, that detailed a plan to "conquer" the USFL.
The NFL, on the other hand, had a simple defense - the USFL's wounds were self-inflicted, as they had spent recklessly and had little semblance of a plan to actually take on the NFL.
The NFL also had a key witness that they were going to hammer on the stand - Donald Trump, owner of the New Jersey Generals.
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The attorney for the USFL was brash and flashy, while the NFL employed a more level-headed lawyer that would slowly chip away at the USFL's case.
Fireworks started when Donald Trump took the stand.
Trump contended that he and Commissioner Pete Rozelle were friends and that Rozelle wanted Trump to abandon his USFL team so that he could come and be a NFL owner.
Rozelle, on the other hand, was adamant that he and Trump were NOT friends, and that Trump was attempting to use the lawsuit to enact a merger between the USFL and NFL. In doing so, the value of Trump's franchise would skyrocket overnight.
Trump was on the stand for days and the questioning was frequently contentious. The NFL insisted that Trump was lying, while Trump insisted that he and Rozelle were friends and that the Commissioner wanted Trump to join the NFL as a owner.
Some of the jurors thought that Trump was clearly lying, while others weren't so sure.
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The jury eventually handed down a decision that initially shocked the sports world - they had found the NFL guilty on multiple changes. The USFL had won!
Joy turned to dismay when it was revealed that the jury had decided to award the USFL one dollar for damages. With punitive damages, this award was increased to a little over $3.
The USFL had won the battle but lost the war.
The league quickly folded, unable to sustain its heavy losses, and the NFL would grow bigger than ever.
Donald Trump would make a number of efforts to buy a NFL franchise over the years, but he was never able to actually close the deal.