Philadelphia Stars

United States Football League (1983-1984)

Tombstone

Born: May 11, 1982 – USFL founding franchise
Moved: October 1984 (Baltimore Stars)

First Game: March 6, 1983 (W 13-7 @ Denver Gold)
Final Game: July 21, 1984 (W 24-21 vs. Tampa Bay Bandits in London, England)

USFL Champions: 1984

Stadium

1983-1984: Veterans Stadium (73,200)¹
Opened: 1971
Demolished: Demolished 2004

1984: Franklin Field
Opened: 1895

Marketing

Team Colors: Crimson & Old Gold²

Ownership

Owner: Myles Tannenbaum

Attendance

Philadelphia Stars attendance records are now complete. The charts below do not include home playoff attendance for 1983 (15,684 for one date at Veterans Stadium) and 1984 (19,038 and 26,616 for two dates at Franklin Field).

Tilting your mobile device may offer better viewing.

Sources:

1984 Philadelphia Stars Media Guide (1983 Stars figures)
Oates, Bob. “USFL Shrinks, but Still Has a Large Problem: It’s Not Lack of Money or Quality of Its Players, It’s Convincing Television That There Are Fans”. The Times (Los Angeles, CA). February 4, 1985 (1983 USFL league-wide attendance figure)
Compiled by Fun While It Lasted from newspaper articles & box scores (1984 Stars figures)
Kenn.com Attendance Project (1984 USFL league-wide figure)

Background

There’s a strong case to be made that the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars of the spring season United States Football League were the greatest non-NFL professional football team of the past half century. Under the direction of Head Coach Jim Mora, the Stars appeared in all three USFL championship games from 1983 to 1985 and won two of them.

The Stars’ two seasons in Philadelphia were especially dominant. Mora’s men won 35 games against only 6 losses in 1983 and 1984, including playoffs. The team was also gaining picking up momentum at the box office. Stars atttendance jumped 10,000 fans per game in the USFL’s second season. But the league’s controversial decision to abandon spring football and move to a fall season in 1986 brought the Stars’ time in the City of Brotherly Love to an abrupt end in the fall of 1984.