Coliseum Plan Promising More Seats Is Misleading : Stadium: Spectacor says renovation to yield 40,000 seats between goal posts. Actual total is under 35,000.

While the private managers of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum have reason to herald their plans for the upcoming renovation, a Times review has found their boast of providing more seats between the goal posts to be misleading and exaggerated by thousands.

Using their own definition of what constitutes seats “between the goal posts,” Spectacor officials have said the privately financed renovation will add 18,000 of those seats for all Raider and USC football games. However, a count of those seats and a study of the renovation plan shows that Spectacor has underreported the number of those seats that exist and has overestimated the number they will be able to provide.

The review was undertaken in the wake of Spectacor’s recent announcement of their club seatprogram, which costs $3,600 a year and includes one priority seat and various amenities for all USC and Raider football games. Yet some of those seats--which will cost about $225 a game--will extend beyond the end zone, a point not mentioned by Spectacor at the time of its announcement.

There is other misleading information:

--Spectacor says there are 22,000 seats now between the goal posts, counting both sides of the Coliseum. The Times counted 28,856. By excluding the 10 bottom rows of seats that are used only at Raider sellouts, there are 24,572. The Coliseum lists 28,000 seats, although a 1982 memo says there are 32,500.

--Spectacor has said there will be 40,000 seats between the goal posts in the new stadium.Spectacor’s architect said there will be between 37,000 and 40,000. But the design plan announced to the media could yield only 30,412. Later, upon questioning, Spectacor offered another plan that in a best-case scenario would yield only 34,062.

Seemingly, the main reason for these differences is in the definition of “between the goal posts.” The numbers reached in The Times count presume that those seats are between two imaginary parallel lines drawn through the goal posts from the Coliseum’s north to south rims (120 yards).

Spectacor uses another definition. Peter Luukko, Spectacor’s regional vice president, and Terry Miller, an architect with the Kansas City firm of HNTB that is designing the new facility, said they would count a “wedge” of seats set an angle outside the goal posts as long as the field of vision was satisfactory.

But Rick Nafe, current president of the National Stadium Managers Assn. and manager of the Tampa Stadium, said it would be “misleading” to count any seats as between the goal posts that were outside the imaginary parallel lines, even if they were set at an angle so that a viewer’s vision would pass to the inside of one of the goal posts.

“Regardless which way seats are askewed, those outside the lines are outside the goal posts,” he said.

Luukko and Miller believe that since the new Coliseum design calls for lowering the field and moving the seats 40 feet closer it is only fair that “we can extend seats an additional wedge and call it between the goal posts,” Miller said.

Miller says Nafe’s definition cannot apply to the Coliseum, because of its radial configuration. “Our design has focused on the best way to provide the most people with the best sightlines,” he said.

Still, Luukko concedes that both club seats and luxury box seats might extend beyond even his definition of between the goal posts.

When the renovation plan was announced, Spectacor indicated that it was subject to change, but that the Coliseum probably would remain about 79 rows. The new configuration would reduce the capacity from 92,500 to 70,000 for Raider games and 85,000 for major USC games.

Spectacor said that about 27,000 reserved seats for the general public would be located in a 33-row lower deck and a 19-row upper deck. In between, 25 rows would be allocated for the 10,000 seat club program. There also would be luxury box seating. Luukko said that more than two-thirds of the seats between the goal posts in the new stadium would be for sale to the general public.

But the numbers didn’t add up to projections. Spectacor, while acknowledging that there is some discrepancy in the numbers, says the design work is incomplete and the number of rows in the new stadium remains uncertain. Luukko now says that no definite figures can be given.

Yet on at least seven occasions, Spectacor either announced or said in interviews that its renovation plan would increase the number of seats between the goal posts from 22,000 to 40,000. In a statement issued Tuesday, Spectacor stood behind these numbers, but no longer referred to these seats as being between the goal posts. Instead, Miller said the 40,000 seats would have “comparable sightlines to other modern stadiums in the United States.”

Luukko said that Spectacor is committed to accommodating current Raider and USC season-ticket holders with seats between the goal posts that are not elite. The season seats would be in the upper deck or in the deck below the club seats, with the remaining seats available for USC and the Raiders to sell as additional season seats or to the general public on a per-game basis.

“We want to say a season-ticket holder will be able to renew his season ticket in a location with comparable sightlines,” Luukko said. “These sightlines will be outstanding.”

But the elite seating appears to be the real money maker. Under NFL rules, the home team gets 60% of the gate and the visiting team 40%. However, certain seating--such as the club seats and luxury boxes--can be designated as special seating, of which the bulk of the money is not shared.

The Raiders would be required to place a relative value on the club and luxury seats based on location, not amenities. According to NFL sources, the price would probably be in the $30 range, which would be subject to the 60-40 split. The remainder of money--which for the club seats would be about $195 per seat--would go directly to Spectacor and the Coliseum clients.

The revenue from the club seating would be $36 million per year, most of which wouldn’t have to be shared. The split between Spectacor, the Raiders and USC is unknown as Spectacor maintains the contract is private and has refused to release details.

Several members of the Cardinal & Gold, a donor group at USC, voiced concern over what effect this club seat program might have on their coveted priority seats. Cardinal and Gold members (USC’s colors) pay $1,500 each for the right to buy priority season seats (between the goal posts) for USC games at the Coliseum. Members then pay extra for the actual tickets.

But USC associate athletic director Don Winston said the club seating would have no effect on the members. “In fact, the new seating will net us 5,000 more seats to sell between the goal lines and increase the Cardinal and Gold membership,” Winston said.

An announcement by Spectacor of marketing plans for luxury boxes is expected soon.