Owners Delay Decision : NFL: They fail to reach consensus on which two cities will get an expansion franchise. Announcement might not come for two weeks.

The NFL, expected to name two new franchises on Tuesday, dawdled through procedural matters and delayed making a decision.

Joe Browne, the NFL’s vice president for communications, did not say when an announcement will be made.

However, several sources said an announcement might not come for two weeks.

One problem concerns the voting process in which both expansion groups must receive 21 votes from the 28 club owners. One league official, who spoke on the condition he not be identified, said that requirement could delay the process.

Another problem concerns the St. Louis group. Sources said the owners want more time to investigate the outfit’s financial leadership.

So while favorites St. Louis and Charlotte, N.C., along with Baltimore, Memphis, Tenn., and Jacksonville, Fla., await a decision, the owners, as is their custom, continue to haggle.

The two teams eventually selected will pay an entry fee of $140 million and begin play in 1995. The last time the NFL added new teams was Seattle and Tampa Bay for the 1976 season.

Representatives of the five finalists began trooping before the owners in mid-afternoon, about an hour later than scheduled.

“We didn’t really get asked anything new but I think we clarified some things,” said Jerry Richardson, representing the Charlotte-based Carolina Panthers.

But William Dunavant, who heads the Memphis group, had a surprise for the owners. He told them that if selected he would pay $116,375,000 to the league at closing in mid-November. The league requires only $42 million down payment at that point.

That might extend the selection process even longer given the snag over the St. Louis entry, which on Monday unveiled a new ownership group headed by Stan Kroenke, a shopping center developer said to be worth $500 million.

Several league sources said that some owners wanted to know more about Kroenke, who replaces a group headed by beer distributor Jerry Clinton. While Richardson, a former wide receiver for the Baltimore Colts, has been known to owners and league officials for six years, Kroenke is still an unknown commodity.

The lobby at the O’Hare Airport hotel where the meetings are being held was jammed not only with cameras and reporters from the five cities but supporters clad in sweat shirts of the prospective teams. The most colorful is the Memphis Hound Dogs--Elvis Presley’s estate is part of the ownership group.

One source said the owners would like a little more time to check out Kroenke and his group, although those checks have been under way for about three weeks. Moreover, Fran Murray, a member of the original St. Louis ownership group, insisted he is very much involved.

Murray’s group included Walter Payton, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. Payton, however, reportedly has been assured he also would be included in the Kroenke group once legal matters are straightened out.

These meetings are taking place at the same hotel where owners convened in July of 1989, ostensibly to rubber stamp a committee’s recommendation of Jim Finks as the commissioner to succeed Pete Rozelle. Four months later, after numerous stalemates, they finally elected Paul Tagliabue.

There is other business on the agenda at these meetings and many participants expect to leave Wednesday, like Richardson, who has to get back to North Carolina.

That would likely necessitate another meeting in two weeks, either in Chicago or Dallas, the NFL’s two favorite meeting places.

* SUPER BID: NFL owners today will consider a bid from Pasadena and Los Angeles for the 1998 Super Bowl. A1