However, league founder David Dixon persuaded Duncan to take on ownership of the New York City franchise–which became the New Jersey Generals–after its original owner, Donald Trump, pulled out.

[1] With Duncan's withdrawal, legendary NFL coach George Allen and Southern California developer Willard Vernon Harris, Jr. applied for the vacant Chicago franchise.

A search for capital led them to renowned heart surgeon Dr. Ted Diethrich, who had originally expressed interest in a franchise for his hometown of Phoenix.

Although he, like most of the other owners, knew that he could expect years of losses until the USFL established itself, he soon tired of flying between his home in Phoenix (he was the founder of the Arizona Heart Institute) and Chicago.

Indeed, he had actually sought a team in Phoenix when the USFL initially took shape, but backed out when he could not hammer out a stadium deal.

Years later, he said that spending three days a week in Chicago or wherever the Blitz were playing made it difficult to continue his heart research, and led him to conclude he could not be an absentee owner in the long run.

The most notable exception was that Wrangler quarterback Alan Risher stayed in Arizona to back up Greg Landry.

As soon as the deal closed, Allen sent virtually everything of value at Blitz headquarters in Des Plaines to Phoenix, including typewriters and mirrors.

However, Hoffman claimed that he would not have even considered buying the team had he been required to keep the expensive player contracts.

Evans signed in November 1983 to a 4-year, $5 million deal in spite of owning a rather unimpressive 57.31 QB rating in seven previous NFL seasons.

However, it subsequently emerged that USFL officials had largely dispensed with these procedures after Hoffman made an offer for the Blitz.

They had been so desperate to get an apparently solid owner in the nation's third-largest market that they never took a close look at Hoffman's finances.

[2] When Hoffman realized that he had grossly underestimated the cost of running a professional football team, he scrambled to find minority investors, but not before falling behind in paying several bills.

[1] After the second preseason game, Hoffman abruptly walked away [2] and nominally left the team in the hands of his minority partners.

However, Hoffman's now-former partners returned the franchise to the league soon afterward when they could not even begin to secure the financing needed to take the field.

They managed consecutive wins over Washington and San Antonio, but won only three more times after that, finishing with the third-worst record in the league.

With their promotional efforts derailed by the firing of the front office staff the Blitz attracted only 7,500 people per game, the second-lowest average gate in the league.

Einhorn was a strong proponent of the USFL's planned move to the fall in 1986 (so as not to compete with his own White Sox or their crosstown rivals the Chicago Cubs for fans), and focused his efforts on getting a new television deal for the team.

[1] It wound up being academic when the USFL suspended operations after only winning three dollars in damages in an antitrust suit against the NFL.

Some of them were Vince Evans, Tim Spencer, Trumaine Johnson, Greg Landry, Jeff Gossett, Vagas Ferguson, Richard Holland, Joe Ehrmann, Tim Wrightman, Larry Canada, Tom Thayer, Frank Minnifield, Jim Fahnhorst, Marc May, Brian Glasgow, Walter Easley, Luther Bradley, Troy Thomas, Robert Cobb, Ed Smith, Stan White, Eddie Brown, Kevin Long, and Mark Keel.