NFL & USFL Reach Landmark Agreement

November 20, 1990

It took over 14 months to complete, and there will almost certainly be detractors on both sides who are upset by the final terms, but the NFL and USFL have come to a first-of-its-kind agreement between two professional sports leagues. Unlike earlier talks between the NFL and AFL, this is not a merger, but an agreement between two leagues which will remain independent but which will attempt not to engage in a full-on war over personnel and players. The agreement itself is complex and lengthy (over 700 pages) but we have boiled it down to its essentials for you.

TRANSFER WINDOWS

The two leagues have agreed to create two transfer windows, one during each league’s offseason and one which crosses into the preseason/camp season of each league. Only during these two 30 day periods can teams from one league negotiate with and sign players from the other league. The two periods correspond roughly to the months of January and July, with the first period extending to the 2nd week of February and the second to the 2nd week of August to fully allow those franchises who progress in each league’s playoff season to still have the option of signing players in a short window immediately following the Super Bowl or Summer Bowl. Leagues may allow internal free agency within a larger window, but cannot attempt to negotiate contracts with players whose last contract was with the other league outside of the two window.

The transfer window will also be applied to coaches, scouts, GM’s and other player personnel within both leagues, with the sole exception that any staff members who have been unemployed for 6 months become true free agents, able to sign at any time.

The expectation for this, of course, is that the USFL will largely sign players and coaches in the July-August window, while the NFL will look primarily at the February-March window. It is fully anticipated that this will lead to a lot of players in both leagues waiting until the final weeks before preseason play before agreeing in full to a new contract, in hope of obtaining a bid from the rival league during the window.

TRANSFER FEE

In addition to limiting the timing of of inter-league transfers, the two leagues agreed to a transfer fee system similar to what we see in European football (soccer). Even though the leagues may only negotiate with players whose contracts are either expired or will expire prior to the next window, it is agreed that when a player jumps from one league to the other, the receiving franchise must remit to the franchise of origin for the player a transfer fee equivalent to 10% of the transferring player’s first year under their new contract.

RESTRICTED FREE AGENCY

The creation of both transfer windows and transfer fees was not enough for both leagues, so a form of restricted free agency, or right of first refusal, was also included within the deal. This clause applies only to players ending their rookie contract with their NFL or USFL franchise. For these players the franchise which held the rookie contract has the right to match the terms of the new bidder from the rival league. In a win for the two unions, the original idea of having the matched bid automatically trump the rival bid has not made it into the final agreement. Instead, the player will have two equal bids and will have the final word on which of the two to accept. This arrangement exists only for this one group of players, those concluding their rookie contract. For all others, and here we mean veteran players, the free agency is absolute, and while any team in either league can make a bid during the free agency period or transfer window, the player can accept any bid, with no matching from their team of origin.

UNDERCLASSMEN AND THE COLLEGIATE DRAFT

Having dealt with veteran players and player personnel staff through the transfer window clauses, the remaining group, collegiate players, were the focus of a five way negotiation between both leagues, both player unions, and the NCAA, invited in as a means of avoiding the implementation of bans on school visits, scouting, and other amenities which the universities threatened to pull from both leagues. This was rumored to be the most difficult element of the agreement as there were so many parties in the room, with very diverse aims.

The NCAA conceded on the signing of student athletes after completion of their junior year, a position they all but had to accept as they have no legal recourse to prevent students from withdrawing from the universities. In trade for this concession, the NFL and USFL agreed to alter their scouting, evaluation and draft timetables. The USFL, the biggest concern for NCAA members, agreed to reschedule their draft to the first week of February. The NFL, still concerned about the ability of the USFL to sign players before the NFL had a say, would also reschedule their draft from April to the 2nd week of February, putting only 2 weeks between the two drafts and providing players and teams the opportunity to review both draft results before signing with either league.

The resulting agreement might mean the signing of several high profile juniors each year, but it allows the NCAA to complete the Bowl Season without players scrambling to sign with agents and without the USFL signing players before the big January 1 bowls were played.

Both the NFL and USFL Draft would be reduced to 9 rounds, with the USFL opting to retain 2 rounds of Territorial Picks and 7 rounds of Open Picks. The USFL will also reduce the number of territorial schools to 2 for each franchise, essentially diminishing the T-Draft to a point where only those who have all but guaranteed they will sign with their USFL team will be drafted. This will put far greater weight on the Open Draft within the USFL. The NFL will retain its purely open draft format, but with only 9 rounds, there will be a far greater pool of undrafted rookie free agents for both leagues.

SCHEDULING

The creation of the two transfer windows, along with the alterations to both the NFL and USFL drafts all but required adjustments to the two league schedules. Alteration of the USFL schedule was already on the table for the spring league as they have often had concerns about harsh weather during the opening weeks of the season. The new USFL schedule will begin on the fourth weekend in March, rather than the 2nd, which will push their Championship to the first weekend of August. This essentially handicaps the ability for teams in the Championship Game to sign NFL talent, although, with one full week of window left, those teams would be able to send player personnel to negotiate contracts and could have all but the signatures in place until the day after the Championship game.

A similar situation exists with the NFL, which will now move the start of its season to the first weekend after Labor Day, typically the 2nd week of September. This means that the regular season will now end (in most years) on either Christmas Weekend or in the dates between Christmas and New Year. The Super Bowl would now be scheduled for the first weekend in February, although the league could decide to reduce the gap between their Conference Championships and the Super Bowl to 1 week from 2, and this would allow for a late January (or very early February) Super Bowl in most years.

The shift most likely benefits the USFL in that their opening weeks, now towards the end of March are less likely to face intense cold or blizzard conditions in most locations, while the NFL will now have to expect some bad weather games truly impacting the final weeks of the year, although having a season finale during the heart of the Christmas season essentially guarantees that the weeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year are dominated by NFL football.

OUR THOUGHTS

The main aspects of this agreement will shape the 1991 NFL Season and the 1992 USFL season as the first Transfer Window will be the July 1991 window. The first drafts impacted will be the 1992 USFL and NFL drafts, now both scheduled for February 1992. Looking at the deal as a whole there is a lot for USFL fans to be excited about. First off, we should not expect a repeat of the Jim Mora situation, although a coach could still resign just prior to the Transfer Window, but what we should not see are coaches resigning because they have already been in touch with teams outside of the window.

The Transfer Fee may prove a deterrent for inter-league movement even more than the Transfer Windows themselves, though we anticipate that what we will see is a lot of backloaded contracts with lower pay in the first season directly reducing the transfer fee. Why pay a player $1M each year, when you can pay $500K in their first year and add the remaining $500K to the remaining years to avoid paying double the transfer fee?

Perhaps the most problematic shift, primarily impacting the USFL, is the delay of the rookie draft until February. This gives the league approximately 6 weeks to sign players, get them into camp, introduce them to the playbook and gameplans, hope they can get some reps in the league’s 2 game preseason and then play for real at the end of March. What we might expect to see are more rookies entering their team’s starting lineups midseason, after they get up to speed. This may be less dramatic for positions like HB and CB which are more instinctive and can be rushed into games, but for the quarterbacks, linemen, and linebackers, this may have to be the way players are acclimated to the pro game.

We may miss the “Wild West” nature of the battles between the two leagues, but fans who have watched USFL stars like Steve Young, Bobby Hebert, Anthony Carter or Craig James suddenly snatched from their teams, the idea of both a limited transfer window and a financial disincentive, along with the right of first refusal for young stars, has to be seen as a positive. Just the fact that the NFL was once again forced to essentially treat the USFL as an equal, or at least a true competitor, and not dismiss it as a 2nd tier imitation, is music to the ears of USFL owners, officials, and fans. With this agreement in place, we may just see a stabilization of relationships, and while true cooperation may still be a long ways off, in small ways the two leagues are finding their ground, both expecting to be around for a long time.