Sacked!

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The real aim of the U.S.F.L. owners may have been not to beat their N.F.L. rivals but to join them. At the very least, figured some U.S.F.L. owners, the older league might be persuaded to take in the most prosperous franchises or even agree to a merger that would sweep in the whole U.S.F.L. There was precedent, after all: the N.F.L. in 1950 absorbed the best teams in the fledgling All-America Football Conference and then in 1966 merged outright with the arrivistes of the American Football League.

The key to survival was winning television money. At first the new league had modest success, starting with $18 million from ABC and an additional $8 million from ESPN cable. But U.S.F.L. fans never showed up in force. The average game attendance dropped by 3,000 last season, to 27,000. More ominous, TV ratings fell almost 30%. By the end of its third season, the league had dwindled to eight clubs, with total losses of around $200 million.

In the business equivalent of throwing the bomb on fourth and long, the U.S.F.L. switched seasons to go head to head this fall with the N.F.L. The networks, however, were not buying. ABC did not renew. NBC and CBS, which, like ABC, have a five-year contract to rotate N.F.L. coverage, also would not touch the struggling league.

The courts were the league's last hope. In 1984 U.S.F.L. Commissioner Harry Usher and his owners had filed an antitrust suit. Though major-league baseball has been exempt from antitrust laws ever since a 1922 Supreme Court decision, other pro sports are not. Alleging that the N.F.L. had "willfully acquired and maintained a monopoly," the U.S.F.L. charged the older league with trying to drive it out of business, principally by leaning on the networks to withhold television contracts.

The trial, which finally began last May and lasted 2 1/2 months, brought a parade of more than 40 witnesses, whose testimony amounted to a morass of contradictions. Supercaster Howard Cosell, for example, testified that ABC Executive Roone Arledge had confided to him that N.F.L. Commissioner Pete Rozelle was "all over me" to drop U.S.F.L. coverage. But Arledge countered under oath that he had said no such thing. Trump testified that Rozelle had promised him a franchise if he agreed not to sue. But Rozelle testified that Trump had begged him for a franchise, promising to "find some stiff" to buy the Generals.

When the testimony ended, Judge Peter Leisure sent the jury out with 155 pages of instructions, containing 61 questions of fact for them to resolve. Juror Margaret Lilienfeld, a retired foundation aide, admitted that at first "there was some confusion." In fact, Juror Miriam Sanchez was so confused by the instructions that she reportedly told news people after the verdict that she had wanted an award of $300 million but had agreed to $1 because she believed Judge Leisure could amend it upward to a proper sum. She was mistaken: though judges often lower damages if they are not warranted by the evidence, they cannot increase them.