Denver Gold
Status: Defunct
Sport: Football
City: Denver
Venue: Mile High Stadium
Seasons: 1983 to 1985
League: United States Football League
Owners: Ron Blanding (1983 to 1984)
Doug Spedding (1984 to 1985)
Head Coaches: Red Miller (1983)
Charley Armey (interim) (1983)
Craig Morton (1983 to 1984)
Mouse Davis (1985)
A Brief History
When the United States Football League was first announced on May 11, 1982, league officials identified Denver as a critical market. However, they had a difficult time finding an owner. Ultimately, local real estate magnate Ron Blanding agreed to sign on.
Blanding was easily the poorest owner in the new league and held fast to USFL founder David Dixon's original blueprint for the league, keeping tight controls on expenses (including player salaries) while heavily marketing the team in the Rockies.
The Gold's original coach was Red Miller, who had led the Denver Broncos to their first-ever Super Bowl and had known Blanding for several years. He hired his former starting quarterback with the Broncos, Craig Morton, as his offensive coordinator. Morton became head coach after Blanding fired Miller in the middle of the 1983 season. Charley Armey coached for one game before Craig Morton stepped into the head coach position. Despite one of the toughest defenses in the league, a weak offense kept the Gold out of the playoffs in 1983. Blanding, however, was more satisfied with the fact that he actually turned a profit. He was also happy that the Gold led the league in attendance, with almost 42,000 fans per game. In part because of this, the league chose Denver to be the host of the inaugural USFL Championship Game.
During the 1984 season Blanding put the Gold on the market. Unwilling to join his fellow owners in reckless spending, Blanding sold the team to auto dealer Doug Spedding for $10 million in April 1984. By some accounts, Blanding was the only USFL owner who got a net positive return on his investment. Spedding shared Blanding's frugal approach to running the team if not even more cost-conscious than Blanding. He ran the Gold out of one of his dealerships.
In hopes of finally getting into the playoffs, Spedding hired Houston Gamblers offensive coordinator Mouse Davis as head coach in 1985. Unfortunately, just after Davis took over the USFL announced that it would switch to a fall schedule for the 1986 season. Spedding and Tampa Bay Bandits owner John F. Bassett were the only votes to stay on a spring schedule, knowing that the Gold could not even begin to go head-to-head with the Broncos. His guess proved right. While the Gold had been one of the USFL's attendance leaders, fans in the Denver area were not about to abandon the Broncos. Despite finally getting into the playoffs with an 11–7 record, the Gold's attendance crashed from over 20,000 to 14,400 fans per game.
In hopes of finding a way out of a bad situation, Spedding announced in November 1985 that he planned to move the Gold to Portland, Oregon to take the place of the departed Portland Breakers. However, just three months later, Spedding sold the Gold's player contracts to the Jacksonville Bulls. Although the move was billed as a merger, Spedding retained the Gold's intellectual properties. He seriously considered joining Bassett's proposed spring football league before Bassett's failing health prevented that league from launching.
The USFL's high-stakes anti-trust suit against the NFL ended in an award of only $3.00 to the USFL. The jury cited the league's abandonment of Denver and several other major markets as one reason why it awarded the USFL only nominal damages. With no new funds to cover its high spending, the USFL cancelled the 1986 season and folded.
Season Won Lost Tied Finish
1983 7 11 0 3rd in Pacific Division
1984 9 9 0 3rd in Pacific Division
1985 11 8 0 2nd in Western Conference; lost in quarterfinals
United States Football League logo
Denver Gold logo used in 1985
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