L. A. Plays Super Bowl Game--and Loses : Football: Sports Council did everything it could to bring the 1993 extravaganza to the Rose Bowl, but NFL broke new ground again by choosing Phoenix.

So much for the week that was in Los Angeles.

First, the Raiders announced that they are pulling up stakes and going back to Oakland.

Then the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, once the National Football League’s winter wonderland, lost a Super Bowl bid for the second time in three years, prompting speculation that the game may never return here in the city’s present condition.

Since when does Phoenix out-muscle Los Angeles under the Super Bowl boards?

Since Tuesday, when the NFL owners, in a major upset, awarded Super Bowl XXVII in 1993 to Phoenix for reasons that don’t always have to make sense.

The Los Angeles Sports Council, the nonprofit organization that put the bid together, worked overtime and spent at least $85,000 preparing this week’s proposal, which painstakingly weeded out the mistakes of 1987, when arrogance and shortsightedness may have cost Los Angeles the 25th anniversary game to Tampa in 1991.

As a business proposition, this year’s proposal was seemingly airtight, acquiescing to the NFL’s ever-increasing whims and desires.

After the Phoenix award was announced Tuesday, Philadelphia Eagle owner Norman Braman, chairman of the league’s site selection committee, told Sports Council President David Simon that his city’s bid could not have been more impressive.

So what gave?

According to sources who attended Phoenix’s proposal meeting, the owners were persuaded by Cardinal owner Bill Bidwill’s impassioned pleas of helplessness. He reportedly begged that a Super Bowl in Phoenix might be the tonic needed to save his foundering franchise.

Phoenix also agreed to pick up the entire tab for the 1992 NFL owners meetings in Phoenix, which never hurts.

The NFL also expressed a desire to spread the wealth around to some of the league’s smaller markets.

So why bother sending Los Angeles an invitation?

“Cities that want to be big-league cities are willing to do things that aren’t even on the drawing board,” Simon said. “The (NFL’s) thinking is: ‘We’re breaking new ground.’ Fine, but if you do nothing but break new ground, you discourage cities like L.A. from ever bidding. That’s not sour grapes, that’s just the way it is.”

As for Pasadena, gone are rosier days of walking into an NFL meeting with a few 8x10 aerial glossies and walking out with the keys to another Super Bowl. The Rose Bowl has played host to four games, the Coliseum two. The question remains: Will Los Angeles ever play host to another?

Before this week’s meetings, Simon agreed to discuss the inner workings of the Los Angeles proposal on the condition that the information not be used until after the site for Super Bowl XXVII was awarded.

Simon, obviously, was confident of victory. Yet, Los Angeles’ loss to Phoenix only further defines how much the Super Bowl bidding game has changed.

It actually began changing in 1987, when the Rose Bowl, for all its picture-postcard beauty and Super Bowl history, couldn’t even make the bidding finals for Super Bowl XXV, largely because it was competing against Anaheim Stadium and the Coliseum for the same game.

The Coliseum entered the race for the romance and symmetry that would have come with being host of the 25th anniversary game, having showcased the first AFC-NFC championship game in 1967. In light of the Coliseum’s bitter, multimillion-dollar antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, though, the task was not unlike asking a corporate enemy for a loan to help put the rival out of business.

Translation: Fat chance for the Coliseum playing host to the NFL’s annual party any time soon.

Meanwhile, as the three Southern Californian cities were competing with each other for the same game, Tampa rolled out the red carpet and ultimately secured the bid for Super Bowl XXV.

“They essentially knocked each other out of the box,” Simon said of the competing Los Angeles-area bids.

Tampa also changed the Super Bowl ground rules forever. In the past, the NFL could be expected to pay host cities for the usual expenses: stadium rental, team buses, room accommodations etc.

In a new twist, Tampa was offering the league its services free of charge, figuring the estimated $100 million to $150 million a Super Bowl generates in economic revenue for a community was well worth any concessions.

Easy to do if your economic impact can be targeted and shared within concise city boundaries, which isn’t exactly the case with the sprawling Los Angeles and Orange County landscapes, populated by about 11 million people.

In the new-age bidding game, the Tampa task force commissioned 30 civic leaders to lobby at the 1987 owners meetings.

Tampa’s squeaky-clean presentation couldn’t have been more complete if it used cheerleaders and pompons.

In fact, Los Angeles’s three-headed bid in 1987 for the 1991 Super Bowl was almost laughable. Ty Stroh, working for the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau at the time, first went before the NFL owners and pitched the Coliseum for Super Bowl XXVl. Stroh spoke with much bravado, then exited the room.

“An hour later,” as Simon retells the story, “Pasadena’s group walks in, and who’s with them? Good ol’ Ty Stroh. And he had a flip chart. And where ‘Coliseum’ was, he had pasted over a thing that said ‘Rose Bowl.’ He gets up and says that the Rose Bowl’s the place. It was the same speech. It’s funny to tell now, but he said it was embarrassing, and made L.A.’s bids look ludicrous.”

Especially when each city spent an estimated $100,000 for its presentation.

Stroh, in fact, warned that unless Los Angeles changed its strategy, the area might never again be awarded a Super Bowl after staging six of the first 24 games.

Stroh suggested that the Los Angeles Sports Council, then a committee of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, lead the charge in bringing the three stadiums together to form a consolidated Super Bowl bid. Sounded good over the phone.

In reality, Anaheim, Los Angeles and Pasadena are essentially competitors in the same marketplace.

“The negative for L.A. is getting the community excited,” said Stroh, who has since moved on to the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is bidding for the 1994 Super Bowl in May. “They weren’t excited about the Olympics until the torch run. There’s so many things going on, it’s like another day. You can’t sit back and have a beer and make a bid anymore.”

So in the summer of 1987, the Sports Council began work to bring the Super Bowl, and other sporting events, back to Los Angeles.

The Sports Council incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1988 and is supported by donations from area businesses.

Simon was one of five original employees of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. He was motivated by Los Angeles’ lack of aggressiveness in attracting sportings events after the 1984 Olympic Games. Despite ready-made facilities, Los Angeles failed to attract a single qualifying event for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.

“We had a small part of the shooting trials in Chino,” Simon said. “That was as close as we came.”

The Sports Council has since won four bids, including the 1990 baseball winter meetings and 1991 U.S. Olympic Festival.

Baseball meetings don’t measure up to Super Bowls, however, and Los Angeles wanted a second crack at the NFL’s showcase event.

That meant rounding up the three rival stadium general managers for a series of strategy sessions. Representatives from the three cities were Anaheim Stadium’s Greg Smith, the Coliseum’s Joel Ralph and the Rose Bowl’s Greg Asbury. Ralph has since assumed another position in Philadelphia and was replaced by Peter Luukko.

“As you can imagine, these GMs don’t get together too often,” Simon said.

There were eight members on the Sports Council’s bid committee. Simon said that trust among the three cities developed, well, slowly.

The first breakthrough was realized in May, 1989, when the NFL announced it would accept bids for 1993 from Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and the Los Angeles area. San Francisco dropped out of the competition late last year.

“I thought that was real progress,” Simon said, “because it meant this regional approach had gotten through to them.”

This regional approach wasn’t without its politicking, though.

Simon estimated the council needed to raise between $100,000 and $150,000 for a sophisticated bid presentation: money to subsidize state-of-the art video and marketing plans and the staff’s travel expenses.

The three stadiums initially pledged $15,000 apiece toward the goal. Simon then petitioned the convention and visitors bureaus of Anaheim and Los Angeles, asking for donations of $50,000 each.

Anaheim said fine, as long as Los Angeles wasn’t involved. Los Angeles said fine, as long as Anaheim wasn’t involved.

So what of the notion of Anaheim and Los Angeles locking arms for this greater purpose?

In truth, the bureaus are intensely competitive with each other in the big-time business of luring conventions to their respective cities.

At a breakfast meeting that included Simon, L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau Chairman John Llewellyn, and Sports Council Chairman John Argue, Llewellyn agreed to take the issue to the bureau’s governing board, which heavily funded Los Angeles’ 1987 Super Bowl bid.

Two weeks later, the Sports Council had its $50,000. Anaheim didn’t contribute.

In the meantime, Anaheim Stadium and the Coliseum decided to cut their contributions from $15,000 to $7,500 apiece, having cooled somewhat on the whole idea when it appeared their venues were out of the running as far as playing host to the game itself.

The council ended up with $85,000 for its presentation and made do.

Next, the Sports Council needed to dissect the NFL’s inner circle and glean any information it could regarding what it takes to get the game--a sneak preview, so to speak. Were the other finalists--San Diego and Phoenix--up to the same tricks? Simon said he neither knew nor concerned himself with the strategies of the competing bidders.

The council turned to Ralph, the Coliseum general manager until last January. Ralph formerly was general manager of Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, where he had come to know Braman, who just happened to be acting chairman of the NFL’s three-man Super Bowl Site Selection Committee.

Simon also enlisted businessman Shell Ausman, who represented several NFL clubs with the accounting firm, Arthur Andersen and Co., before retiring last year to join The (Marvin) Davis Companies.

The Sports Council arranged for a meeting with Braman last September in Philadelphia. Braman set aside a Sunday morning before an Eagle game.

On the heels of successful and rather generous bids from Tampa and Minneapolis, which was awarded the 1992 Super Bowl, Braman was dealing with considerable clout on behalf of the league.

Explained Simon: “Tampa and Minneapolis basically gave the NFL for free everything that the NFL had been accustomed to paying for as, in a sense, a tenant. They said we’ll give it all to you because we’re Tampa and we want it. L.A. doesn’t work that way.”

Braman wasn’t shedding any tears over Los Angeles, however. In fact, the savvy owner recited an NFL laundry list for Los Angeles that sounded very much like Tampa’s bid.

“He said we want this free and that free,” Simon said. “And we’re saying, ‘Where’s the revenue left over?’ His answer is: Your community gets $150 million in economic impact.”

Braman also said the Rose Bowl was the only acceptable venue for the game, which didn’t comfort the Coliseum’s Ralph.

“(Braman) said ‘You know what our demands are,’ ” Simon remembered. “His last words were: ‘Make your best offer.’ ”

The Sports Council’s efforts appeared doomed. With its three-city proposition, there seemed no way it could match the sweetheart deals offered Tampa and Minneapolis.

Pasadena, for example, has only 1,500 available hotel rooms in the city, so how could it give the Super Bowl away for nothing and recoup its losses? In the three-city concept, Los Angeles benefits economically by housing a majority of the visitors. Anaheim and Orange County would accommodate the participating teams and media.

Simon figured it would take about $1 million from the NFL to make it work for Pasadena. But the NFL wasn’t budging.

A major turning point came last December in New York, when the Sports Council met privately with Jim Steeg, the NFL’s Director of Special Events, who suggested the league sell 1,500 tickets back to the Sports Council, which could package the seats for maximum profits.

On Feb. 20, 1990, members of the Sports Council were called back to New York to meet again with Braman, who asked the group to detail what Los Angeles couldn’t offer the NFL free.

Simon informed Braman the council didn’t have the money to provide such items as free team buses, team hotel rooms or NFL staff accommodations.

Braman wondered if Los Angeles could make it work if the league sold the Council a total of 2,500 tickets. Simon said yes, and Braman said, “Do it.”

The idea was this: The Sports Council would buy the 2,500 tickets from the league at face value, say, $125, then package them for $1,000 apiece, offering purchasers, presumably corporations, a deal that would include a good seat, preferred parking, day-of-game brunch, postgame meal, maybe a club membership and other perks.

With the net revenue from these ticket sales, which might be expected to exceed $1 million, the council could repay Pasadena for monies lost in stadium rental fees and other concessions to the NFL.

The council would also set aside a certain amount, not less than $100,000 for each city, to be used specifically for capital improvements at Anaheim Stadium, the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl.

Los Angeles could now provide the NFL with all the freebies it requested and not lose its shirt. Suddenly, there was hope.

At another New York meeting near the end of February, Braman demanded, among other things, guaranteed rates at the press hotels and caps on limousine prices in the city. The Council agreed.

Braman wanted to know what assurances the council could give that the Rose Bowl’s press box would be remodeled, as promised, with 272 new “Flex-box” seats and additional 1,272 luxury “Club Seats” beneath the press box.

“How do we know you won’t renege?” Braman reportedly told the council. “We don’t even have a resolution from your city council.”

On Feb. 27, Braman got his resolution when the Pasadena Board of Directors approved in concept an $8.2-million Rose Bowl renovation proposal.

Braman, at last, was impressed.

Simon liked his city’s chances, considering the Rose Bowl’s superior seating capacity and the obvious implications. Each NFL owner receives 1% of the tickets at each Super Bowl, which translates to 300 more tickets per owner at the Rose Bowl.

With 100,000 seats priced at $125 each, the NFL would clear about $12.5 million in gate receipts alone.

The Los Angeles bid also provided the NFL, among other things, the following:

--Exclusive and free use of the stadium for two weeks before the Super Bowl.

--Exclusive and free use on game day, including expenses of up to $211,416.

--Exclusive and free use of 34 luxury boxes and a club lounge.

--Right to have only NFL Properties merchandise sold in the stadium.

--Right to approve final pricing of all items sold within the stadium.

--Free use of practice sites.

--Free use of two sites for the Commissioner’s Friday Night party, either the Sports Arena or the Pasadena Center.

--Free team hotels, buses and NFL staff rooms.

Los Angeles offered the NFL the its choice of practice sites--Cal State Fullerton, Orange Coast College, Rams Park in Anaheim or UC Irvine. If preferred, practice facilities closer to the Rose Bowl were available at either USC or UCLA.

The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau committed in writing 13,480 quality hotel rooms in the area, with written assurances that they will not charge more than its “published 1993 rack rate.”

A pretty good deal for the NFL?

“In fairness, yes, they’re asking for the moon,” Simon said. “And they’re accustomed now to getting it. We went in not knowing how we were going to pay for it. But it’s a win-win situation for everybody. We have made it possible for them to consider coming back here.”

After Tuesday’s vote, Braman encouraged Los Angeles to bid again someday. The NFL, however, has already committed the 1994 game to a city in the Southeast, meaning the soonest opening won’t come until 1995. And that’s assuming the league will offer Los Angeles a bid for that game. And that’s assuming Los Angeles wants to spend the money to try again.

“We’ll probably be dormant for a while,” Simon conceded.