Memphis food manufacturer
Logan Young was awarded an expansion franchise for Memphis on July 17, 1983. The team name was selected on August 14 via fan contest in
The Commercial Appeal. "Showboats", a reference to
the floating theaters and
Memphis' music history, was suggested by 45 of the 21,052 submissions. It was one of three finalists alongside "Hound Dogs" and "Mudcats". However, soon after hiring Memphis native and former college coach
Pepper Rodgers as head coach and signing a lease to play in the
Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium, Young discovered that most of his assets were tied up in a trust fund that he couldn't access. Ultimately, he was forced to take on limited partners, then sell controlling interest to cotton magnate
William Dunavant, remaining as team president. Despite White's play, the Showboats finished fourth in the Southern Division and missed the playoffs. Like the rest of the division, they were left far behind by the
Birmingham Stallions and
Tampa Bay Bandits. However, like most of the USFL's other Southern teams, they were a runaway hit at the box office. Indeed, they were one of the few teams whose crowds actually grew as the season progressed. The Showboats broke through in 1985, finishing fourth in the East and earning a playoff berth. They should have traveled to
Denver's
Mile High Stadium to face the
Denver Gold. However, the Gold were forced to travel to Memphis under pressure from
ABC Sports. The Gold's local support had all but vanished due to the USFL's planned move to the fall, and ABC did not want the embarrassment of showing a half-empty stadium. It forced Commissioner
Harry Usher to give Memphis home-field advantage in the first round, since the Showboats had been among the league's attendance leaders once again. ABC had an outsize influence on the USFL due to the structure of the league's television contract. The Showboats thrashed the Gold 48–7 before losing to the
Oakland Invaders 28–19 in the semifinals. The Showboats represented a serious attempt to form a viable professional football organization, and seemed to have a realistic chance to have been a viable business if the overall management of the USFL had been more realistic and financially sound. Indeed, like the
World Football League's
Memphis Southmen before them, the Showboats appeared to be on more solid footing than the league as a whole. The Showboats' attendance figures made Dunavant a supporter of the USFL's move to the fall. Although Memphis was only a medium-sized market (while Memphis proper had 650,000 people, the surrounding suburbs and rural areas are not much larger than the city itself), Dunavant believed his team's popularity would have made it very attractive to the NFL in the event of a merger. After the USFL's antitrust lawsuit failed, the Showboats threw their support behind
Charlie Finley's proposal to convince the
Canadian Football League to expand into the U.S. market; the CFL rejected the plan, bringing the Showboats' operations to an end. ==Legacy==