The USFL had no hard salary cap, and because of this, some teams quickly escalated player payrolls to unsustainable levels despite pledges to keep costs under control.

As part of this strategy, the USFL filed an antitrust lawsuit against the National Football League in 1986, and a jury ruled that the NFL had violated anti-monopoly laws.

Additionally, the USFL also lured in NFL starters, including a handful in the prime of their careers including 1980 NFL MVP, Cleveland Browns' quarterback Brian Sipe, Buffalo Bills' three-time Pro Bowl running back Joe Cribbs and Kansas City Chiefs' three-time Pro Bowl safety Gary Barbaro.

For many decades after its inception, American football was widely regarded as a second-tier sport behind baseball which was long-regarded as America's national pastime.

Jim Joseph, a real estate developer who had lost out to friend Tad Taube for the USFL's San Francisco Bay Area franchise, had thought he would be content to be a part-owner of the Oakland Invaders.

The owners of the USFL's San Diego franchise, cable television moguls Bill Daniels and Alan Harmon, were denied a lease for Jack Murphy Stadium.

There were plans to establish four franchises in Canada prior to the inaugural season, located in Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal and the Toronto/Hamilton metroplex (with the last of these to play at Ivor Wynne Stadium).

Rather than backing off spending, recommitting to a firmer salary cap, and dispersing some of the larger contracts to expansion teams to alleviate the problem, the league sought other options to take on revenue to cover increased costs overruns.

Additionally, the league was so determined to appear to put a credible product on the field that on some occasions, it set aside its own vetting procedures–all of which backfired disastrously.

[25][26] In San Antonio, the league was so enamored at Manges' apparent oil wealth that it not only did not closely vet his application, but did not require him to make an initial capital investment.

However, in June 1984, investigations by the FBI, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal revealed that the man who made waves by signing a roster of high-priced young talent did not have even a fraction of the money to buy the team.

Despite the protests of many of the league's "old guard", who wanted to stay with the original plan of playing football in the spring months, on August 22, 1984 the owners voted to move to the fall starting in 1986.

Tampa Bay Bandits owner John F. Bassett, who had registered one of the two "nay" votes, declared his intention to pull his team out of the USFL and organize a new spring football league.

[28][29] However, failing health (he died from cancer in May 1986) forced Bassett to abandon his plans and sell the Bandits to minor partner Lee Scarfone, who agreed to keep the franchise in the USFL.

As a direct result of this decision, the Pittsburgh Maulers folded rather than compete with the Pittsburgh Steelers, the sale of the struggling Washington Federals to Weiser's Miami-based ownership group collapsed, the New Orleans Breakers and 1984 champion Philadelphia Stars had to relocate, and the 1983 champion Michigan Panthers surprised the commissioner with an announcement that they would not be playing in the Detroit area for the 1985 season.

[citation needed] After the 1985 season, more plans were announced to accommodate the fall schedule, pool financial resources and avoid costly head-to-head competition with NFL teams.

Both the Gold and Gamblers had seen their attendance plummet to unsustainable levels, as their fanbases were not willing to abandon the Denver Broncos and Houston Oilers, respectively.

Al Davis, owner of the then-Los Angeles Raiders, was a major witness for the USFL and his team had been excluded from the lawsuit in exchange for his testimony.

Furthermore, the switch to a fall schedule caused the loss of five major markets (Philadelphia, Denver, Houston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, the Bay Area) and derailed a move to a sixth (Miami).

The jury also made note of a memo Tad Taube wrote about the dispute, which quoted the comic strip Pogo: "we have met the enemy and he is us."

In essence, the jury felt that while the USFL was harmed by the NFL's de facto monopolization of pro football in the United States, most of its problems were due to its own mismanagement.

The USFL had essentially staked its future on winning the suit, hoping to finance the move to the fall by forcing the NFL to pay a substantial settlement.

Five days after the verdict, the Tampa Bay Bandits were effectively shut down when a judge placed a lien on the franchise to satisfy back pay owed to former player Bret Clark.

Other cities that did not get NFL franchises, such as Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando, and San Antonio, would receive teams in numerous short-lived or international pro football leagues in the years that have followed, such as the WLAF, CFL, the first XFL, UFL, and AAF.

The Bills, as a small-market NFL franchise, were particularly hard-hit by the USFL; as its players from the moderately successful early 1980s era aged, the team was unable to find quality replacements for them on the free agent market, as the USFL was drawing away much of pro football's top talent (including Bills running back Joe Cribbs and the team's planned franchise quarterback of the future, Jim Kelly).

With subpar talent, the Bills went 4–28 over the course of 1984 and 1985, and average attendance at Rich Stadium plummeted to under 30,000 fans per game, putting the team's long-term viability in jeopardy.

In 2014, after founding owner Ralph Wilson died, Trump tried to purchase the Bills, but was largely rebuffed in favor of Terry Pegula, who bid $400 million more for the team.

Unlike other American professional football leagues (but like the NCAA then and the CFL), the USFL allowed the usage of a small, plastic "tee" for extra point and field goal attempts.

After the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars won the final USFL championship in 1985, General Manager Carl Peterson kept the trophy, and donated it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018.

Dan Marino and Jerry Rice chose to play in the NFL, where they were also picked in the first round by the Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers, respectively, and each went on to have Hall of Fame careers.