Bills Aimed at Limiting Moves by Pro Teams

Professional sports teams would be forbidden to move from city to city unless the franchises are losing money or playing in inadequate arenas, under two bills introduced today in Congress.

One would restore football teams to Baltimore and Oakland, and both would prevent threatened moves by other professional football and basketball teams.

Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) are chief sponsors of a bill that would force the National Football League to expand by two teams in 1988 and put one of those teams in Baltimore. By 1990, the bill says, the league must expand by two teams again--and one must be located in Oakland.

The Mikulski-Gorton bill, introduced in both the House and Senate, would apply to big-league football, baseball, basketball and hockey.

Meanwhile, Missouri Sens. Thomas Eagleton, a Democrat, and John Danforth, a Republican, are sponsoring legislation that would apply to franchise shifts involving professional football, hockey, basketball and soccer. It would not affect baseball clubs, which the two senators say are well-regulated by their own leagues.

Under their proposal, owners of a sports franchise must obtain approval of a move from their league. The measure was prompted by reports that the football Cardinals might leave St. Louis and that the Kansas City Kings might move to Sacramento.

The Eagleton-Danforth bill spells out standards by which leagues could make their decisions, including the adequacy of a team’s stadium and other facilities, the willingness of a community to correct deficiencies, and the amount of fan support, as measured by ticket sales.