DES PLAINES, Ill. -- Chicago Blitz coach George Allen Monday called for a halt in any planned expansion in the next two years for the fledgling U.S. Football League.
'Should the planned expansion calling for two more teams in 1984 and four in 1985 became a fact of life, it could decimate teams like the Blitz,' Allen said at a news conference. 'It is my firm belief that expansion at this time or in the next two years would not only hurt the Blitz but every other team.'
Allen said falling attendance at USFL games around the country do not indicate that the league will fail.
'The fact that the attendance was down overall this past week, particularly in Chicago, is not indicative of fans reaction to our brand of football,' he said.
'We had a market study done before the league was founded and we learned that people will support professional football if we give them a good product. Since Chicago seems to have bad weather in the spring, it was to their credit that more than 10,000 fans showed up Sunday and nearly 22,000 the week before.'
Allen said that in order for the league's owners to break even, attendance has to be at least 35,000 each week, which he said is 'not an insurmountable problem.'
The territorial draft puts the Blitz at a disadvantage, Allen said.
'We are in a bad situation as far as the territorial draft is concerned since we have to pick players from places such as Northwestern, Western Illinois and Northern Illinois and at the University of Illinois, where football has been down until this last season.
'Notre Dame turns out a lot of really fine football players, but many of them opt to go on to medical and law school and pass up football,' he said. 'Since we don't have the luxury of an Oklahoma or Michigan, the territorial draft does not really work for us.'
