Trump had already attempted to purchase the Baltimore Colts before the NFL franchise moved to Indianapolis in 1984.
He then turned down the opportunity to purchase the Dallas Cowboys for $50 million in 1984, instead purchasing the Generals for $9 million.
“I feel bad for the poor guy who wants to buy the Dallas Cowboys,” he told the New York Times.
Jerry Jones became the owner of the Cowboys in 1989. ‘America’s Team’ won three Super Bowls in the ’90s and is now the world’s most valuable sports team, worth $10.1 billion (£7.5 billion)., external
After the USFL disbanded, Trump withdrew from discussions to purchase the New England Patriots, who won six Super Bowls in 1988 under current owner Robert Kraft.
Trump focused on other businesses and became a reality TV star on The Apprentice until the Buffalo Bills were put up for sale in 2014.
Trump claimed to have bid $1 billion in cash, but Terry Pegula, who already owned the NHL’s Buffalo Sabers, ended up buying the Bills for $1.4 billion.
The bidding process was mentioned in the fraud trial against Trump, who denied all charges in 2024, before his $500m (£372m) fine was overturned last week.
His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, used it as an example of how to inflate Trump’s assets, in this case claiming a net worth of $8 billion to secure loans to buy bills.
The documents show that Trump refused to provide financial statements to the Bills’ bankers, one of whom testified that Trump “gave us the Forbes list of highest-paid celebrities.”
ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith has repeatedly claimed that NFL team owners received a call from Trump in October 2014 before approving Pegula’s acquisition:
Eight months later, Trump announced that he was doing just that. He later said: “If I had bought that team, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”
