USC, Saying It’s Mistreated, Offers to Buy Sports Arena

The University of Southern California Tuesday offered to buy the Sports Arena from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission.

The arena, which is near the Coliseum, is home to the Trojan and Los Angeles Clipper basketball teams and also hosts such events as circuses, ice shows, boxing and wrestling.

USC President James Zumberge told the Coliseum Commission in a letter that, pending negotiations with the university, the commission should not jeopardize USC’s position by talking with anyone else about leasing or selling the facility.

In an interview, Zumberge said USC is anxious to buy the Sports Arena because it believes the commission has given the school’s basketball team poor service and has reneged on many commitments to improve the facility.

Zumberge did not name a price that USC would be willing to pay, nor did he say anything about repaying more than $4 million in bonds issued by the Coliseum Commission years ago for the improvement of the arena. He said all such questions would have to be settled in negotiations.

The Coliseum’s new general manager, Joel Ralph, reacted coolly to the USC proposal.

Ralph said he doubts that USC’s purchase offer would be given priority. “We’re taking on all comers,” he said. “There are a lot of people interested in leasing or buying the Sports Arena.”

Among these, he said, are the Clippers professional basketball team and several others.

Ralph said that USC’s proposal and others made to the commission would be discussed at the commission’s regular monthly meeting today. The commission has never expressed interest publicly in selling the arena.

Raiders’ Move a Trigger

In the wake of the announcement by the Los Angeles Raiders professional football team that it plans to leave the Coliseum for a new stadium in Irwindale, there have been several proposals from politicians, including Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky and County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mike Antonovich, that the Coliseum and Sports Arena be leased to a private corporation to manage.

Talks have already begun with prospective bidders, and that proposal also is expected to be discussed today.

Zumberge said USC is concerned that such a lease to an outside firm could further jeopardize its position in the Sports Arena, where, he noted, the basketball team has been bounced from some scheduled home playing dates in recent years and forced to play elsewhere at USC expense.

The USC president said he believes the school has been taken for granted at the Sports Arena, despite the fact that its basketball team is one of the facility’s oldest tenants.

He said there have been no such problems at the Coliseum, where USC has played home football games for more than 60 years, and that at this time the school is not seeking to buy the Coliseum.

Ralph denied that the Coliseum Commission takes either the USC football tenancy at the Coliseum or the basketball tenancy at the Sports Arena for granted.

Statement to Board

But in his letter, Zumberge declared:

“For more than two years, officials of USC have participated actively and constructively in seeking resolution to major issues and concerns involving improvements to the Coliseum and the Sports Arena. At the same time, we have repeatedly pressed our case for priority scheduling in the Sports Arena for our basketball program.

“Categorically, no action has been taken by the commission to address the university’s urgent request for priority scheduling and Sports Arena improvements,” he said.

In the interview, he said that if USC is able to buy the Sports Arena, it would use it for both its men’s and women’s basketball games and for their practices, as well as leasing it out to others.