Don’t Make It a Political Football : Region needs to work to attract new team

In voting to reject a move by the Los Angeles Rams to St. Louis, the National Football League--not necessarily for altruistic reasons--has handed Los Angeles and Orange counties a chance to turn a potential loss into a winning deal for both, and for the region’s tourism industry.

It would be nice if the unexpected 21-3 vote against the Rams, cast by NFL owners at their winter meetings in Phoenix, meant the team would stay in Anaheim Stadium. But too much damage has been done to the Rams’ relationship with the fans and with the City of Anaheim for that to be likely. And the deal that Rams owner Georgia Frontiere struck with the City of St. Louis--in excess of $300 million, according to some ways of figuring it--is too lucrative for her, or other NFL owners who will eventually get a share of the money, to walk away from.

So all the NFL vote portends is lawsuits, or maybe back-room deals, that will end up with the Rams in St. Louis and the NFL getting more money than Frontiere has so far been willing to offer her colleagues. While that is small consolation to Rams fans, it is not necessarily a bad thing for this region.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue says league owners and officials want to use some of the Rams money to help Los Angeles’ other pro football team, the Raiders, build a new stadium. The Raiders have made no secret of their unhappiness with the earthquake-damaged Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

For now, the most likely site for a new stadium is adjacent to Hollywood Park in Inglewood. And the proposed facility might even become the home of a second NFL team that would move here to replace the Rams--a possibility because the Fox TV network, which broadcasts most Ram games, wants a team in the nation’s second-largest TV market to compete with the Raiders, whose games are contracted to NBC. But the real clincher in the deal for this region is the NFL’s interest in making the new stadium one of the regular sites for the Super Bowl, which has become a tourist draw that surpasses many major conventions.

So even if Los Angeles and Anaheim feel some pain because publicly owned stadiums lose their pro football tenants to the new facility, that should not stand in the way of at least giving the NFL stadium plan very serious consideration.

There are sure to be many odd bounces of the ball--so to speak--before this latest legal and political wrangle in the NFL is finally settled. But at least for now there is a glimmer of hope not just for L.A.-area football fans but for local taxpayers and businesses. To make that hope a reality, local political and business leaders are going to have to focus on the interests of the entire region, rather than the parochial concerns of individual counties and cities. That means working together as a team and negotiating with a unified voice.