L.A. Finds Another Davis, But Can It Get Another NFL Team?

We are in conversation with a distinguished son of the Green Bay Packers, Mr. Willie Davis, whose calling in life right now is twofold.

First, he is a radio entrepreneur, operating two stations in Milwaukee, two in Denver and one in Los Angeles. This displaces his former profession of distributing Schlitz, Coors, Strohs and Heileman to a thankful public.

If it was the mission of Jonas Salk to eradicate pestilence, it was the goal of Willie Davis to wipe out thirst. But Willie knew when to say when. He chucked the beer business in 1988 and entered radio.

His second assignment today is chairman of a committee just appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to find a professional football team to replace the departing Raiders.

Bradley’s committee, you presume, will be competing against one that City Councilman John Ferraro says he will appoint.

Either the two committees pursuing a team will bid against each other, or they will enter a playoff from which one will be eliminated.

If there is no elimination, the possibility exists that two teams will be brought to Los Angeles to replace the Raiders.

“The first thing we have to explore,” says Davis, speaking for the Bradley committee, “is the validity of the Raider contract with Oakland. If, for some reason, Oakland can’t produce what it promised, we want to make every effort to hold on to the team.”

Irwindale, you’ll recall, cut a clean deal with the Raiders, even slipped them $10 million. The trouble there didn’t start until after the handshake.

And, to make a short story succinct, Irwindale today is short $10 million and is quite without a football team.

“If it develops that the deal with Oakland is solid,” continues Willie Davis, “we will turn next to improving the Los Angeles Coliseum, with the idea of attracting a team.”

“Would that team be existing or expansion?” he is asked.

“There aren’t too many existing teams loose,” he answers.

“And do you realize,” he is reminded, by a disseminator of sunshine, “that if the NFL expands, it may ask $150 million for a new territory?”

“I might realize that,” he responds. “But I also feel that among all the egos sitting out there in Los Angeles, there must be one willing to put up the money.”

Unlike baseball, football doesn’t permit corporate ownership, meaning the Tribune Co. can buy the Chicago Cubs but can’t buy an expansion territory in the NFL.

It is felt one day that pro football will change this rule, mainly to run up the value of the franchises. If, for instance, Mitsubishi would be willing to spend $150 million for a team, standards would be changed throughout the industry.

A cursory study of the lease situation throughout the National Football League reveals that Washington is the only team that will be contractually loose within the immediate future.

The Redskins signed a 30-year agreement with Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in 1960. The owner of the Redskins, Jack Kent Cooke, isn’t enamored of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. Jack has been clamoring for something new.

How the stadium problem will be resolved in those precincts isn’t known, but it always is assumed the Redskins wouldn’t dare leave Washington even if they were asked to play in Rock Creek Park.

This assumption stems from intimidation by Congress, the idea hinted that if the Redskins pulled out of the capital, the NFL offices in New York might be visited by the First Airborne Division.

Jack Cooke has done nothing to indicate he wants to leave the Washington area, but the mere idea of congressional intimidation kind of offends one.

Congress is there to protect the populace from intimidation, not institute it.

Since it was decided in federal court that it is all right for the Raiders to leave Oakland for Los Angeles, and vice versa; for the Colts to leave Baltimore for Indianapolis, for the Cardinals to leave St. Louis for Phoenix, no cause for worry should be there if a team decides to leave Washington.

If Cooke makes the decision that he will not be intimidated, he has full support here, along with the promise we will visit him regularly at Lompoc.

Would Cooke deal with the Coliseum Commission in Los Angeles? The last time he dealt with that august body, he moved his Lakers from the Sports Arena.

President of the Coliseum Commission at the time was a Pontiac dealer named Ab England. Discussing Cooke’s complaints with his colleagues, Ab winked.

“Where is he going?” he asked, with a knowing smile. The inference was that the commission had the only arena in town.

Jack showed them where he was going. He took his Lakers--and his new Kings--to Inglewood, where he built his own arena.

But, as chairman of Bradley’s committee to capture a football team for Los Angeles, Willie Davis, a Hall of Famer, can’t occupy himself with old defeats.

What Willie must worry about is (a) finding a replacement and (b) bagging it ahead of the committee appointed by Ferraro.