Denver Gold Pinback Button

This round pinback button is gold and black with the team name "Denver Gold" and a Denver Gold helmet. The Denver Gold were a United States Football League (USFL) team from 1983-1985. The USFL was created as a second major professional league for American football in the United States, playing a spring schedule to avoid direct competition with the more established National Football League (NFL). The USFL would eventually switch to a fall schedule killing attendance, further damaging profits and eventually causing the league to fold. The Denver Gold were originally owned by Denver real estate mogul Ron Blanding. Blanding looked to create buzz around the Gold by employing former Denver Broncos such as Red Miller and Craig Morton to work for the team. Blanding kept a tight budget on the team, turning a profit in his first season as owner. Blanding would sell the team after that season to auto dealer Doug Spedding for $10 million. By many accounts Blanding was the only investor/owner to make a profit off the shortly lived USFL. The Gold would draw one of the USFL's highest average attendances (40,000 in 1983) but after the move to a fall schedule in 1985, attendance would plummet to about 14,000 per game. Shortly after the end of the 1985, Spedding would cut a deal to merge the Gold with the Jacksonville Bulls and the USFL would fold shortly after.

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