On Flutie's Wing, and a Prayer

By Janice Castro

As the United States Football League's scrappy new hero, Doug Flutie has been cast in the role of David trying to lift Goliath. After losing $100 million in its first two years, the league is pinning its latest hopes on the star power of Flutie, Boston College's miracle missile launcher and now New Jersey's , littlest General. But the U.S.F.L. started its third season last week long on pricey players, short on revenues and looking down the barrel of its own decision to take on the towering National Football League with a switch to a fall schedule in 1986. Even so, new U.S.F.L. Commissioner Harry Usher, fresh from his triumphs as second-in-command of last summer's Olympics, insists that "the state of the league has never been more positive than it is now." Looking back, he may be right.

Last year's Official U.S.F.L. Guide was a collector's item for trivia buffs before the season was out. Of the 18 teams listed in 1984, 14 are still functioning, and three of those only marginally. Just for starters, the 1983 champion Michigan Panthers have merged into the Oakland Invaders, and the Arizona Wranglers have combined with the Oklahoma Outlaws as the new Arizona Outlaws. The Philadelphia Stars, last year's champs, subsumed the Pittsburgh Maulers and emerged, farther south, as the new Baltimore Stars.

Other teams relocated in hopes of attracting more interest: 1984's Washington Federals are 1985's Orlando Renegades, while the New Orleans Breakers, who had just finished moving down from Boston, packed up again and are now playing in Portland, Ore. The Chicago Blitz is a paper franchise, having suspended play for this season and dealt out its squad like so many cards to other U.S.F.L. teams. While a few U.S.F.L. franchises are catching on, none of them are breaking even. Indeed, the L.A. Express played its opener last Sunday on welfare, so deep in the red that it is currently being supported by the other teams.

Can this league be saved? "I don't know," says Tampa Bay Bandits Owner John Bassett. "It's like being in a canoe and rowing like hell against a wind and tide moving 200 m.p.h. You have to wonder." That from a man whose team has enjoyed good attendance by U.S.F.L. standards, an average of 36,900 spectators in 1984.

What most worries Bassett and some of his fellow owners is the U.S.F.L.'s plan to move to the fall in its fourth year. Says he: "I don't like it at all. We've done well. But the league decided, and we have to go along." Critics thought that the spectacle of 100 degrees football weather and electric fans to cool players on the sidelines gave the league the look of a fish out of water. "If you want to play big-time football, you have to play it in its natural environment," says Myles Tanenbaum, co-owner of the Stars. "Trying to convince fans otherwise has been futile."

And expensive. The league spiritedly went out and signed top college talent, including the last three Heisman winners (Flutie and Running Backs Mike Rozier and Herschel Walker), as well as Quarterback Steve Young and Runner Marcus Dupree. Precious prizes--more than $1 million a year each--and not easy to afford. While the N.F.L.'s $420 million-a-year contract with the three networks provides 60% of its revenues, the U.S.F.L., with only $35 million in TV contracts at ABC and the ESPN cable network this year, must still rely on the gate for most of its income. That does not add up to much, with attendance figures averaging 27,000 a game. Last year's total at the turnstile was only $49 million.

So the U.S.F.L. has concluded that the bigger audiences and television contracts of the "real" football season are its only chance. Says Usher: "We can't survive without the networks." But abandoning the spring- forward experiment may not bring a fall-back solution. ABC is not interested in carrying U.S.F.L. games in the autumn, nor is CBS or NBC. Says Jim Spence, ABC's senior vice president for sports: "There are not enough advertising dollars out there to support another fall football package. The pie is already sliced too thin." To the U.S.F.L., that kind of talk smacks of monopoly, and it has brought a $1.32 billion antitrust suit against the N.F.L. Says Chicago Blitz Owner Eddie Einhorn, who quit his job as television negotiator for the U.S.F.L. two weeks ago: "It doesn't make sense that we'd be totally turned down by the networks, as we have been, unless the 'fix' is in." Two antitrust suits by earlier N.F.L. rivals failed, however.

Though Usher's contract includes a bonus if he succeeds in merging his league into the N.F.L., that path too seems unlikely. Wishful comparisons with the successful insurgency of the American Football League in the '60s overlook the fact that the N.F.L. was smaller then, and two of the networks were hungry for football. Now even the N.F.L. TV audiences are down by as much as 16%. Other sports are suffering. Professional soccer, a relative newcomer at the network trough, posted tepid ratings and lost its contract three years ago; since then, the number of teams has dwindled from 21 to four. There are rumors that in the next few weeks the North American Soccer League will decide to suspend operations.

U.S.F.L. hopes of avoiding a similar fate seem to boil down to the impossible dream-making reputations of Flutie and Usher. NBC Sports' Steve Griffith says the network might change its mind if "something extraordinary" happens. But anything less may not do. There is much talk around the league that after the ownership shake-outs, the survivors are a "tenacious" bunch who are in for the long haul. But the first season cost the owners some $37 million, the second $63 million more. If this year is no better--and season- ticket sales so far are flat--the league might not even get to its first season of fall play.

With reporting by Gil Klein/Tampa and Thomas McCarroll/New York, with other bureaus