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===Stumbles before play begins=== Like almost all startup pro football leagues, the USFL had some off-the-field factors that prevented the league from starting out with their preferred membership. The problems started when the original owner of the Los Angeles franchise, [[Alex Spanos]], pulled out and instead became a minority owner (and eventually majority owner) of the NFL's [[Los Angeles Chargers|San Diego Chargers]]. 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]]. When the potentially more lucrative Los Angeles franchise became available, Joseph snapped up the rights to the area. 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]]. While this was in part due to pressure from the Chargers, the main opposition came from [[Major League Baseball]]'s [[San Diego Padres|Padres]] who held the lease to the stadium at the time and did not want to see football played at the facility throughout the baseball season. Los Angeles was seen as critical to the league's success, and Dixon and Simmons felt that two cable moguls would be better suited to head the league's efforts there. Joseph was forced to move his operation. The team opened play in [[Phoenix, Arizona]], where it became the [[Arizona Wranglers]]. Daniels and Harmon's team became the [[Los Angeles Express (USFL)|Los Angeles Express]]. The League's [[Boston]] franchise, the [[Portland Breakers|Breakers]], also had stadium problems. The Boston ownership group wanted to play in [[Harvard Stadium]], but were unable to close a deal with the university; [[Sullivan Stadium]] was owned by the [[New England Patriots]], who were unwilling to share their venue with a rival, while [[Fenway Park]] was being used in the spring by the [[Boston Red Sox]] and was also unavailable, and [[Alumni Stadium]] on the campus of [[Boston College]], for reasons never made public, also declined. Finally they were able to negotiate a lease to play at [[Nickerson Field]] on the campus of [[Boston University]], a facility that seated only 21,000 people. There were plans to establish four franchises in Canada prior to the inaugural season, located in [[Vancouver]], [[Edmonton]], [[Montreal]] and [[Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area|the Toronto/Hamilton metroplex]] (with the last of these to play at [[Ivor Wynne Stadium]]).<ref>{{cite news|title=Alternative to Tiger-Cats: Bassett sees Hamilton in USFL|date=1983-03-22|first=Marty|last=York|newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]]}}</ref> The proposal was pushed by [[John F. Bassett]], the Canadian who would go on to own the [[Tampa Bay Bandits]] USFL team. However, [[Senate of Canada|Senator]] [[Keith Davey]] warned that the Canadian government would act to protect the [[Canadian Football League]] (the league in which all four of the aforementioned Canadian cities had teams in) from competition. The [[Canadian Football Act]] had been proposed, but not approved, when Bassett had tried to establish the [[Toronto Northmen]] in the [[World Football League]] in 1974. Such legislation would have banned US football leagues from playing in Canada. In particular, Montreal's CFL team, the [[Montreal Alouettes|Concordes]], was on precarious financial ground, having just been established to replace the recently folded Alouettes. This led Bassett to drop the idea.<ref>{{cite news|title=USFL thwarted by Davey|date=1983-02-02|first=Marty|last=York|newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]]}}</ref> Once play actually started, the league experienced the same kind of franchise instability, relocation, and closures that almost all pro football leagues, including the NFL, experienced in their early years.
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