Politicians Take to the 1993 Super Bowl Field : NFL: League will determine whether L.A. or San Diego will inherit host’s role from Phoenix.

The years since San Diego started playing big league football and baseball against Los Angeles have brought an inter-urban rivalry to Southern California that was missing in the sleepy old days.

And if, as expected, the NFL formally votes down Phoenix as a Super Bowl city, it will intensify when Los Angeles and San Diego enter the delayed final round of a long fight for a multimillion-dollar bounty.

The prize is Super Bowl XXVII, which will be played Jan. 31, 1993.

The NFL identifies Los Angeles and San Diego as the only remaining 1993 finalists. There are only two possible sites, the Rose Bowl and San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium. And the choice will be made at Kona, Hawaii, by the NFL’s 28 club owners, whose annual meeting begins today.

“We have demonstrated over the years that if you want a successful major event, we have the place for it,” Mayor Tom Bradley said the other day.

“Our hospitality potential is unmatched--we give our visitors a good time. And the Rose Bowl seats 20,000 more spectators than any other Super Bowl facility.”

At $150 per ticket, that’s $3 million in additional receipts at the Rose Bowl, which seats nearly 103,000, emphasizing the big-business aspect of the NFL championship game. The Super Bowl has become a playground for big spenders, who leave an estimated $150 million behind for the locals.

“These days, more often than not, Super Bowl spectators are corporate presidents and other executives,” San Diego coordinator Peg Nugent said. “They make the decisions about future conventions and meetings. If they like your city, they’ll be back--with all their friends.”

That means millions more in revenues down the road, Nugent said.

San Diego or Los Angeles: Who will win?

David Simon, president of the Los Angeles Sports Council and the executive who put the bidding package together here, said: “We expect a close vote.”

Simon and bidding committee chairman Sheldon I. Ausman have been working with representatives from Anaheim and Pasadena in what is a cooperative three-city effort to get the game.

Mayor Bradley will lead the delegation to Hawaii.

The San Diego delegation will be led by Mayor Maureen O’Connor.

And still there will be a third group from Phoenix as the NFL resumes a contest that had been won seemingly, though conditionally, by Phoenix last spring.

The condition was support for a paid state holiday for slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

When an Arizona majority voted against the paid holiday last fall, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue promptly announced that he would urge the league’s owners to pull the game out of Phoenix.

There has been no dissent.

“That doesn’t mean we won’t give Phoenix a chance to speak to the issues,” said Norman Braman, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles and chairman of the league’s Super Bowl committee. “We’ve invited their (representatives) to the meeting, and we’ll hear what they have to say.”

After the Phoenix issue is resolved, the Los Angeles and San Diego delegations will make their presentations, then the owners will vote.

An NFL spokesman said there is no way to tell if the voting will be affected by two extrinsic factors:

--In San Diego last year, protesters compared their city’s civil rights record to Arizona’s and petitioned the NFL to keep the game out on grounds that San Diego’s citizenry had voted to change the name of Martin Luther King Boulevard back to Market Street.

--In Los Angeles this year, four police officers have been indicted in the beating of a black motorist.

NFL Vice President Joe Browne, commenting on the Los Angeles incident, said: “It is obviously very unfortunate, but no one can speculate as to its effect on (28) voters.”

Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and president of the American Football Conference, made a distinction between the Phoenix and Los Angeles controversies.

“(The beating) was distasteful in the extreme. But you can’t condemn the entire city for the actions of a senseless few--any more than you can condemn Dallas for the senseless assassination of President Kennedy.

“We’ll vote . . . on merits. Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix--all three are attractive cities.”

Mike McCaskey, president of the Chicago Bears, said: “My feeling is that (because) the Super Bowl is a unique and special event, the only real consideration will be how it did last time in L.A. and San Diego and how it (projects next) time.”

One possible result of the police incident in Los Angeles is to defuse the civil rights controversy in San Diego as a factor in NFL calculations.

“Our (problem) began when one organization tried to speak for the entire African-American community,” said San Diego City Councilman Wes Pratt, who is black.

Pratt, a member of his city’s delegation to Hawaii, said the members of the protesting organization, the African-American Organizing Project, were a “very small percentage” of the black population.

“Rescinding the name of (King) street was an embarrassment, certainly,” Pratt said. “But the city has named the $18-million parkway along the (harbor) Martin Luther King Promenade.”

Pratt and other minority leaders have the support of the San Diego Urban League.

Noting that the National Urban League Conference will meet in San Diego next year, Ibrahim Naaem, president and chief executive officer of the local chapter, said in a letter to Tagliabue:

“I and the vast majority in the African-American community fully support the Super Bowl’s coming to San Diego in 1993.”

Whatever else San Diego offers, Los Angeles is always first in attendance.

“The L.A. area gets the Super Bowl’s only 100,000 crowds,” said City Council President John Ferraro, a former USC football star who is in the local delegation with Bradley, Simon, Ausman, attorney John C. Argue, businessman Willie Davis, Pasadena Mayor Jess Hughston, Rose Bowl General Manager Greg Asbury and others.

Asbury said of the Rose Bowl: “We’re in the process of installing luxury boxes, along with a new press box, and the net gain is 416 seats. So we’ll set a new (Super Bowl) attendance record next time.”

In a novel $8.3-million renovation project, architects and builders are arranging a luxury-box setting that can be reconfigured for different kinds of events.

“For the Super Bowl, we’ll have 30 luxury (suites),” Asbury said, noting that there will be at least one for each club owner.

The Los Angeles delegation sees that as a major selling point. At former games in Pasadena, many owners and their friends have sat in the crowd.

The Los Angeles-area delegation, in its presentation next week, will give the NFL several options.

“In the first option, the teams would practice at USC and UCLA,” Simon said. “The Century Plaza would be the media-NFL headquarters hotel.”

In keeping with recent Super Bowl traditions, Simon added, there will be a Los Angeles-area host committee this time, chaired by Ausman. With a budget of $3.9 million, the committee will provide the NFL with free buses, free hotel rooms for both teams and other amenities.

But who deserves the game?

--”Los Angeles,” said Simon. “San Diego has had it more recently (1988) than we have (1987).”

--”San Diego,” said Peg Nugent. “L.A. has had it six times.”

San Diego has only had it once, and, as they are saying in Los Angeles and Orange counties, once is enough.