L.A. Emerges as ’93 Super Bowl Favorite of Owners : Football: Rose Bowl’s 30,000-seat advantage seen as the deciding factor. Cities will present arguments to the NFL today.

Several National Football League owners, including Alex Spanos of the San Diego Chargers, said Monday that Los Angeles is the clear favorite to be chosen as host of the 1993 Super Bowl game.

If the San Diego delegation, led by Mayor Maureen O’Connor, persuades the 28 owners here today that it can best accommodate the January, 1993 event--thought to be worth $200 million to the host city’s economy--it would be, in the words of one owner, an “eleventh-hour victory and a definite upset.”

Representatives from San Diego, Los Angeles and Phoenix go before the league’s ownership this afternoon, at an exotic resort on the shores of Hawaii’s “big island,” to argue their city’s selling points for the final time. Almost all the owners, speaking on or off the record, gave the nod to Los Angeles--specifically, the 101,000 seats of Pasadena’s Rose Bowl.

“Place your bet on L.A.,” said Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

“I like L.A.,” said New York Giants owner Wellington Mara.

Jones, Mara and even Spanos say the Rose Bowl’s 30,000 extra seats--contrasted with the 73,300 Super Bowl capacity of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium--give Los Angeles the big advantage in getting the game.

“It’s obvious that L.A. is the favorite,” Spanos said. “I’ve heard from our people (the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force) that we have a 50-50 chance. Well, based on what I’ve heard and seen, L.A.’s is better than 50-50.

“This comes at a tough time, us putting in a bid. The big issue here (at the league’s winter meetings) is revenue. That’s all anybody’s talking about. Somehow, we have to convince them that the revenue incentive of having 30,000 extra seats won’t be that big a factor. I don’t think we can do it.”

To try to make sure San Diego’s bid is defeated, a two-person contingent from the city’s African-American Organizing Project showed up and were interviewed by almost every major media organization in the country.

Greg Akili, head of the group and a longtime activist in San Diego, said the city is undeserving of the Super Bowl because of its racist record in opposing “a proper tribute” to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Akili said that San Diego had “institutionalized its bigotry” by changing the name of Martin Luther King Way back to Market Street and then refusing to name the new bay front Convention Center after the slain civil rights leader.

Such racial issues are germane to this conference, since NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has advocated pulling the ’93 Super Bowl out of Phoenix, after Arizona voters rejected a state holiday in honor of King last November. Super Bowl XXVII was originally awarded to Phoenix in March, 1990.

Tagliabue said Monday that his position remains firm, although it was unclear whether enough owners supported him. The commissioner said he had not decided whether to make the vote on Phoenix a simple majority or go with the customary “three-quarters process.” In the latter case, if eight owners decide to keep the game in Phoenix, it would stay there, since 21 votes out of 28 would be needed for three-quarters.

Several owners said that, if Tagliabue requires only a simple majority, it would mean the game would be taken away from Phoenix but that the commissioner--who took the post in 1989--would have suffered an embarrassing political defeat.

While Akili was being interviewed on why the game should not go to San Diego, City Councilman Wes Pratt was offering an alternative viewpoint just a few feet away. Pratt, who is black, acknowledged that he was recruited by the Super Bowl Task Force to give it a political advantage against Los Angeles and Phoenix.

“I disagree with Greg’s position--philosophically and factually,” Pratt said in front of one television minicam, while another was taping Akili. “The fact that San Diego failed to name a street after Dr. King is not a significant issue.

“The night I was elected (in 1987) was the same night the referendum passed, changing Martin Luther King Way back to Market Street. If San Diego was such a racist place, then why did I get elected?

“The truth is, the city had a holiday for Dr. King two years before the state did. I find Akili’s position a paradox.

“And, if people in the southern half of San Diego had voted as heavily as people in the northern half, then the street would still be called Martin Luther King Way. King’s legacy was not about a street or a building; it was about equal opportunity and economic development for minorities, and we’ll enhance that process by getting the Super Bowl.”

Both Pratt and Bob Payne, chairman of the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force, said the league’s owners were “intrigued” in private meetings Monday to hear of the group’s “minority-enhancement” package. Pratt said minority-owned businesses could expect to be awarded--at a minimum--20% of construction contracts, 10% of vendor contracts and 12% of consulting fees.

Task force member Peg Nugent said the standards for women-owned businesses were set forth as 7% for construction, 10% for vendors and 3% for consulting.

Payne said neither of the city’s competitors--Los Angeles or Phoenix--had offered a comparable package. He said the city had been asked to “fine-tune” certain aspects of its bid, mostly having to do with potential conflicts of interest on the part of corporate donors. It may involve some free “incentives” the city has offered, such as hotel rooms and transportation.

Payne declined to elaborate but said that “Los Angeles has a bigger problem in this regard.”

Asked if was the favorite, as many owners seem to think, Payne said, “Until the whole story is disclosed, I really can’t say. But I remain very confident.”

He declined to elaborate about what he meant by “the whole story.”

Payne said he did not intend to make an issue out of the vicious beating of a black man by Los Angeles police on March 3. However, one member of the task force, who asked not to be quoted by name, said, “I think we should bring it up. I think it’s relevant to what’s happening here.”

Joe Rhein, executive vice president of the Phoenix Cardinals, said his city’s task force would bring up both San Diego’s Martin Luther King-related controversies and the L.A. police beating.

“The league’s Site Selection Committee takes the position that San Diego’s black marks in regard to the King issue are OK,” Rhein said. “The savage beating of a black man by L.A. police is OK. But our vote in Arizona is not OK. Maybe we should play the game on the moon, assuming they don’t have any racial problems up there.”

At an afternoon press conference, Commissioner Tagliabue was defensive about why San Diego and Los Angeles were far preferable to Phoenix as sites for Super Bowl XXVII.

Asked if the police beating should be a factor in the league’s decision, Tagliabue said, “No. Phoenix’s problems were statewide and national issues, and I don’t see the police beating in L.A. emerging as a concern of ours any more than I see subway stabbings in New York figuring in where we should play the Super Bowl.”

Norman Braman, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles and chairman of the Site Selection Committee (and L.A.’s biggest backer, according to several other owners) said it would be a “catastrophe” if the game were not removed from Arizona.

Braman may have offered a clue about today’s vote by saying, “Those 30,000 extra seats in the Rose Bowl? That’s the best thing Los Angeles has going for it. It’s a great place to have a Super Bowl, don’t you think?”