L.A GOES FOURTH AND LOOOOOOOONG : Every Answer to Every Question About the Future of Pro Football in L.A.

It is 1976. Lunch is to be served at Dodger Stadium and football, as Los Angeles has known it, is about to take a hike.

Walter O’Malley, owner of the Dodgers, has invited Carroll Rosenbloom, owner of the Rams, to dine and tour his baseball stadium. Rosenbloom, who is unhappy with the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, is dazzled by the majesty of Chavez Ravine and the inviting atmosphere of the stadium.

“You could see Carroll thinking, ‘Boy, would this be nice,’ ” recalls Don Klosterman, Ram general manager at the time. “We’re walking through the stadium and Carroll said, ‘My God, this wouldn’t be a bad football stadium.’ And Walter says, ‘No it wouldn’t.’

“But O’Malley didn’t want to take money away from the city, county or state: He didn’t want to hurt the Coliseum. Carroll said, ‘What about building a stadium over there,’ and he pointed to a spot toward the L.A. police academy. And Walter said, ‘No, it wouldn’t be a bad site, but I don’t want to be involved with a lease.’ ”

The tour continued, and as Klosterman recalls it, Rosenbloom became increasingly agitated remembering how history had favored the Dodgers. Residents had been evicted from this tree-lined Elysian Park land to make way for federally funded housing, a project that was later killed. The city bought the land from the federal government and in 1958 agreed to trade it to O’Malley for Wrigley Field downtown, which became a city park. O’Malley then began construction on Dodger Stadium.

“I remember we’re walking out of Dodger Stadium, and Carroll says, ‘This man has the most beautiful facility in the area, maybe in all of sports, and the Rams didn’t get anything, not even a practice facility from the city. Well, we’ll show them,’ ” Klosterman recalls. Rosenbloom’s pleas for attention from the city had gone unheeded, leaving the Rams stuck in a rambling facility with poor sight lines.

“He wanted to show [the city of L.A.] he could cut a deal,” Klosterman adds. “That’s what he did in moving to Anaheim.”

It is now late in 1995, and if the departure of professional football from Los Angeles began at Dodger Stadium almost 20 years ago, the man currently sitting behind the president’s desk, adorned with 17 baseballs from a variety of international sites and a crystal paperweight in the shape of an official NFL Wilson football, might bring about its return.

Just like Rosenbloom, Peter O’Malley--Walter’s son and current Dodger president--has raised his hand and pointed over yonder toward the Los Angeles Police Academy. Experts have already been hired to investigate the financial feasibility of constructing a “state-of-the-art” football facility, and O’Malley has asked his staff for information exploring how the Dodgers would co-exist with football.

“I think we have an excellent chance of being selected by the NFL,” O’Malley says. “Los Angeles deserves and needs a state-of-the-art football stadium.”

*

Super Bowl XXX will be played today without the Rams or Raiders, and although that was predictable, there was no way of knowing how Los Angeles would react to life without the National Football League for the first time since 1945, after the departure last year of both the Rams (for St. Louis) and the Raiders (for Oakland).

But whether Los Angeles is interested or not, plenty of people across the country believe the city must have football. They don’t know when it will return or how, but return it must.

“I think Los Angeles is a priority, has been a priority and will continue to be a priority,” says Paul Tagliabue, the NFL commissioner. “I don’t see anything detracting from Los Angeles.”

A cast of characters including a strait-laced baseball owner, a horseman with a Texas drawl and Mickey Mouse’s boss have already assembled, and like an Oklahoma land rush, they wait, ready to stake their claim to the return of professional football. To the winner goes huge profits, as evidenced by the $25 million that Rams owner Georgia Frontiere is expected to earn this year.

The NFL, which has been powerless to date to keep its ranks in order, has tried to show some muscle in Los Angeles, decreeing that all existing venues, including the venerable Coliseum, are unworthy, and demanding the construction of a modern football stadium. The NFL says it will also determine the process--either through expansion or relocation--of who plays in the new stadium. That stadium, it says, would then host a Super Bowl every three or four years.

“Having a pro football team is an important piece of the mosaic called Los Angeles,” says Richard Riordan, mayor of Los Angeles. “I don’t think the direct economic benefit is sufficient enough to put taxpayer money, which could be used for safety issues, into a new stadium. But I do believe a football team makes our city more appealing, particularly to businesses locating here.”

But the current unsettled state of the NFL, which includes franchise mutiny and no plans for expansion, coupled with the L.A. area’s seemingly uninterested fans and the city’s unwillingness to open the city coffers, raises a tremendous number of questions about the future of football in Los Angeles:

*

Doesn’t the NFL need a football team in L.A. more than L.A. needs a team? What do falling TV ratings for NFL games say about L.A.’s desire for a team?

*

“There is a feeling around the country that the NFL must have a team in Los Angeles,” says Pat Haden, sports TV commentator and former Ram quarterback. “You see it mentioned on the TV pregame shows, you read it wherever you go, you hear about all these teams moving here.

“But it seems like people here have gone about their lives rather normally since football left. This isn’t New York or Philadelphia, where people are rabid about their professional sports. I haven’t felt this great void. I was sad to see the Rams go because I played for them . . . it’s no big loss, though.”

Fans in Los Angeles who wished to remain loyal to the Rams needed a full tank of gas to get to Orange County after Rosenbloom’s 1978 announcement that the team would begin play in 1980 in Anaheim. And fans who sided with the Raiders after their move to the L.A. Coliseum from Oakland in 1982 faced the rowdy crowds at the Coliseum.

What’s readily apparent is that big money has fueled the mad dash by teams to new locations. The people of St. Louis got the Rams, but it cost them $75 million in expenses and a $260-million domed stadium. Oakland had to pay $2 million to the Raiders when preseason ticket sales, which the city had guaranteed, fell short. The city has also begun a $100-million renovation of Oakland Alameda County Coliseum for the team. Meanwhile, Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams signed a $292-million deal with Nashville, while legislators in Maryland set aside $200 million for the construction of a rent-free stadium to lure the Cleveland Browns. And to prevent its team, the Chargers, from jumping ship, the San Diego City Council recently approved $66.6 million for an upgrading of Jack Murphy Stadium.

“The game has changed for fans,” Haden observes. “Everyone is a free agent: owners, players. It may be good for the players and owners to move because they make more money, but it’s not good for me and my kid. My kid takes a liking to Marcus Allen, No. 32, and he buys a jersey and wears it around town, and the next year No. 32 is gone to another town. I think everyone is chipping away at what made this game so good, the passion and loyalty to teams. I will be curious to see if the people in St. Louis think they have a good deal two years from now.”

While it may have been good riddance to the Rams and Raiders, the price tag for the return of football to Los Angeles will be higher because of their departure. “It’s infinitely easier to preserve a local team than to go through the process of attracting another one, and the costs are much more reasonable to keep one than to attract one,” says Leigh Steinberg, an Orange County sports agent who fought to keep the Rams in Anaheim. “The smartest thing was not to let the Rams and Raiders out of Los Angeles without a plan to replace them. Now would we support a franchise if brought here? Yes. Will people move heaven and earth to bring it here? I don’t think so.”

Los Angeles fans might have no choice about the return of football. Declining TV ratings in the country’s No. 2 market might compel the NFL to force a speedy resolution. Ratings for this year’s Sunday games on NBC--in comparison to last season--dropped 30%, and they dropped 21% for the games broadcast on Fox.

“Listen,” says Steinberg, “I would not like to be the executive walking into Rupert Murdoch (Fox TV owner) explaining how the presence of Jacksonville, the 55th-largest TV market; Charlotte, the 28th; Baltimore, the 23rd; Nashville, the 33rd, and St. Louis, the 20th, are more desirable than L.A., the second-largest market. It’s more justifiable in a TV sense to have two teams in L.A. than one in Jacksonville.”

The NFL has a different set of TV numbers that paint a more positive picture of life in football-less L.A., which received an additional game each week with the departure of the Raiders and Rams. While the ratings points, which reflect the number of households that tuned into a particular telecast, did drop, the gross number of households that turned on Sunday football stayed the same as a year ago, says Joe Ferreira, NFL director of broadcasting research. Los Angeles was still watching, it just wasn’t watching as many games as before.

NBC and FOX executives, who will be entering negotiations on a new TV pact with the NFL for the 1998 season, declined comment.

“Secretly, a lot of the networks will tell you it’s better for us because we’re not blacked out there anymore,” says Pat Bowlen, Denver Broncos owner and chairman of the NFL’s TV Committee, referring to the practice of blacking out local coverage during the many times when the Coliseum or Anaheim Stadium didn’t sell out. “If you got Dick Ebersol [president of NBC] in a private conversation, I’m sure he would tell you that. They can show any game they want in that market and get ratings.

“In the next go-around with the networks I don’t know what’s going to be the driving force. If there is no competition for the TV packages, then you’re going to hear a lot of whining about the L.A. situation. If there is competition, like CBS jumping in, then you’re not going to hear a peep about L.A.”

*

So who’s who in the rush to bring football back to L.A.? Who has the best chance?

*

The Walt Disney Co.: It has so much going for it and so much going against it. Disney’s marketing genius would be a boon to NFL Properties, especially in its plans to expand internationally with broadcasting and merchandising and perhaps even franchises. The company’s success in merchandising and selling tickets for the National Hockey League’s Mighty Ducks further enhances Disney’s resume.

“You have to understand the history of Disney to understand its strategy,” says a former employee. “When Walt wanted to build Disneyland in 1955, he didn’t have enough money and could only buy 450 acres in Anaheim, and so he lost control of the economic and aesthetic situations around Disneyland.

“Disney vowed that would not happen again, and so when it came to Disney World in Orlando, it bought 28,000 acres. It’s all about critical mass, having everything in one place for its customers so they get every one of those vacation dollars.

“You see it happening in Anaheim now with Disney’s investment in the Ducks and the Angels, and I would expect an announcement on basketball. I can see them adding football, but their preference would be Anaheim--that critical mass again.”

Disney has expressed an interest in 47 acres of land in El Segundo near LAX. But the NFL believes Disney will ultimately push for Anaheim, and it has no interest in returning to Los Angeles via the Orange County site.

Disney also is known as a value hunter, and the NFL doesn’t like dealing with hard-liners when it comes to passing out franchises. The NFL demanded a $140-million expansion fee--and got it--when it approved the expansion Jaguars in Jacksonville, Fla., and the Carolina Panthers, who will play in Charlotte, N.C. It then divided the fee among the team owners.

Disney also runs contrary to the NFL’s rules prohibiting corporate ownership, although Michael Eisner or Michael Ovitz could put the team in their names. “Will someone let Disney buy a team? No, it will not happen,” Bowlen says. “A 25% interest in a team, however, might be a reasonable rule change and earn a favorable response from ownership.”

Disney spokesman Ken Green bristles at the suggestion of making Eisner available to comment on football, saying he is too busy for such matters. (Hopefully, Deion Sanders will get through if Disney ever owns a team.)

Ideally, the NFL would like Disney to get cozy with O’Malley in Los Angeles. The two have already talked, and if compatible, the NFL would undoubtedly don blinders and ignore all other efforts in Los Angeles.

*

O’Malley: It began with a last-ditch effort to keep the Raiders from moving to Oakland.

Businessman Steve Soboroff, vice chairman of Riordan’s Football L.A. Task Force, paid $850 to rent a helicopter and search greater L.A. for a stadium site. The helicopter passed over Van Nuys, Long Beach, El Segundo, the Coliseum and Dodger Stadium.

“I saw this land around Dodger Stadium and said let’s run a title report and see who owns it,” Soboroff says. “The Dodgers owned it. I thought it was park property, and if it was park property no one would support it. Let me tell you, you don’t have to have the vision of Ray Bradbury to see another stadium sitting up there.”

O’Malley now shares that vision. No one approached him about saving the Raiders, but when it became clear that Los Angeles would no longer have professional football, Soboroff pulled out the photos he had taken on his helicopter ride and alerted Mayor Riordan. Riordan placed a call for help to O’Malley, and O’Malley became intrigued.

Intrigue graduated to enthusiasm, and now O’Malley finds himself challenged by the prospect of building the world’s finest football stadium and securing an expansion franchise. He is also cautious, because he does not wish to wage war with the neighborhood surrounding Dodger Stadium.

Area residents have already written and called local media expressing their dismay with O’Malley’s plans. They are concerned about the potential for increased traffic and crowds, the possibility of more crime and how new construction might affect the Elysian Park hillsides that help buffer the sound coming from Dodger Stadium on game days.

“You have no control how this venue will be used in the future,” says Sallie W. Neubauer, an Elysian Park resident who spoke at two public hearings on the viability of a stadium. “We know for a fact that big football stadiums are very popular for big rock concerts and for other large things. The mayor has even talked about a convention center in conjunction with it, while the NFL has talked about having a store and a museum in conjunction with it.

“We don’t want any of that. That property should be left as open space, as a buffer to the park and to the community for the activities that go on there now. We don’t want a stadium.”

Neighborhood fights focusing on Dodger Stadium, of course, are nothing new. A similar controversy marked the city’s decision to allow Walter O’Malley to build Dodger Stadium in the late ‘50s.

“There was all this talk at the time, but look at Dodger Stadium, it’s one of the most successful things in this community over the past 30 years,” says Rosalind Wyman, who was on the City Council at the time. “I wanted O’Malley to own that land because he couldn’t pack up his bags and go away. When you have that kind of investment in the community, you don’t leave.

“It’s just good business for a city to have major sports. You’re talking about building a stadium for nothing and yet it will do things for airports, for hotels, for who knows what. Talk to Baltimore, talk to Cleveland and what it means to their cities.”

O’Malley, who has kept Riordan’s telephone message on his desk, insists he will proceed only if “it can be done right, and with the enthusiasm of this city and its people.

“We were called and asked to help,” O’Malley says. “We were not interested in doing anything that would harm the Coliseum. The NFL has indicated it is not interested in the Coliseum. If that is the case, this city needs and deserves the finest football stadium in the world, just as my dad thought in 1958-59 and ’60 that Dodger Stadium should be the state of the art with beauty, comfort and fan acceptance. And it was, and for 35 years Dodger Stadium has had an extraordinary reputation. If it can’t be launched like that, then I’m not going to be involved.”

Nor does O’Malley want to stand alone in a financial deal that might run as high as half a billion dollars.

“I don’t believe any individual or company can, should or will try to do this alone,” O’Malley says. “We are talking to prospective partners and we’re all analyzing the risk. We have to keep in mind that the only stadium that’s been privately built for football in our lifetime was Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami. For some reason, private companies and individuals are not building football stadiums, so we’re asking ourselves why is that the case? I would think we would have an answer in March or April.

“I have no interest in taking a team from another community. That just doesn’t appeal to me. I also believe that in view of the history of the NFL in Los Angeles, the smartest and most ideal way to go is with an expansion team. To introduce that team at the same time you introduce this extraordinary stadium, well, that’s the ideal way to launch the NFL in Los Angeles. And that’s my goal, to do it the ideal way.”

The NFL currently prohibits owners of franchises in other sports from buying football teams, but most NFL owners believe that rule will be changed this year, thereby allowing O’Malley’s participation.

“I think in sports it’s essential you admire someone, and Peter O’Malley is one of the few people I admire in this sporting community,” says John Callahan, a professor of sports psychology at USC. “I like the way the Dodgers operate, and he stands head and shoulders above most owners.”

*

Hollywood Park: The Park Plaza Hotel has imploded, the environmental impact report for a stadium has been approved and all R.D. Hubbard needs to return football to Los Angeles in time for the 1996 season is an NFL owner’s signature.

“It’s going to happen; we have the only alternative to bring football back to L.A.,” insists Hubbard, chief operating officer of Hollywood Park. “We got what everybody else is talking about. Any way you look at it, everyone else is two years or more behind us.”

Hubbard’s plan is to make a deal with a team, move it to Los Angeles, set it up in the Rose Bowl for the next two seasons, begin building a 65,000-seat stadium at Hollywood Park and open it for business in 1998.

Hubbard, who also owns racehorses, recently attempted to demonstrate his savvy to a group of visitors at the Hollywood Park Directors Room, telling them to back his runner in the fifth race. The horse finished third.

Indeed, some doubt Hubbard’s financial ability to pull off a football deal. While the Inglewood City Council has authorized $35 million for a stadium at Hollywood Park, that sum falls short of the estimated $200-million price tag for the stadium.

Hubbard’s horse handicapping aside, he is still the only one in Los Angeles pushing hard for an immediate return of football. And he’s been willing to put his reputation on the line that he’ll be the one to do it.

“They have their environmental impact report and that’s big,” says John Shaw, Ram president. “Some team out there just might jump at that.”

But a few of those teams ready to jump face their own hurdles. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who failed to persuade Orlando city officials to build a new stadium, would have to pay the estate of late owner Hugh Culverhouse $35 million if they move out of Florida. The Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks are angling for new stadiums, but would they agree to take on Hubbard as their landlord and fight the NFL for approval to move?

“It’s to the NFL’s advantage to get a team in here as quick as they can in a state-of-the-art facility,” Hubbard says. “And it’s to their advantage to get a Super Bowl back here as soon as they can. Every year that we go without a team--they can say it isn’t affecting them--but from a marketing standpoint the longer you go, people lose interest. And they will lose interest in watching teams on TV; you got to have a presence.”

The NFL has given assurances to O’Malley and Disney that Super Bowls will be part of the deal if either is selected as builder of a new stadium in Los Angeles. Hollywood Park has heard no such talk, largely because the NFL wants to stay clear of Hollywood Park’s gambling interests.

“If I had my druthers the NFL would be sitting here with me when I meet with the owners in trying to make a deal happen,” Hubbard says. “But once we have a deal made I would expect them to get behind it and support it.

“We haven’t discussed Super Bowls. Super Bowls are not part of our deal, and it is not contingent upon Super Bowls. I have watched what Jerry Jones has done in Dallas . . . and Dallas has never had a Super Bowl, but he’s sold more luxury boxes and club seats than anyone else by far. I got to think L.A. has to be as good a market as Dallas.”

The question is whether L.A. sports fans will pay for personal seat licenses, a one-time premium fee that guarantees the holder can buy tickets the next year, and it’s a large part of the big-money formula that is driving football. Carolina Panthers fans are ponying up between $600 and $5,400 for their PSLs. Just as critical is whether corporations will put up the money to buy luxury boxes, another revenue-generating component that has spelled success for teams with state-of-the-art stadiums boasting these accommodations.

“I don’t know the economics of the deal,” says Klosterman, who previously worked for Hubbard. “But don’t ever sell R.D. Hubbard short. If he wants to, he can make it happen.”

The NFL will not talk publicly about Hollywood Park other than to include it among the possible sites for a new team, but privately the league has gone so far as to say it will take Hollywood Park to court if it tries to bring a team to Los Angeles.

*

Everyone else: Roger Goodell, a rising star in the NFL front office, has been charged with the task of overseeing Los Angeles. The NFL currently considers O’Malley, Disney and Hollywood Park the only serious contenders, but Goodell continues to keep an open mind, meeting with anyone who might have the solution.

A group of investors headed by Irwindale businessman Fred Lyte offered to buy the Arizona Cardinals from owner Bill Bidwill, move them to L.A. and play in the Coliseum. After being rebuffed, they began to address their mail to Seattle owner Ken Behring.

Would anyone pay good money to watch the Los Angeles Cardinals in the Coliseum? “We have the money in our budget to get good players and management and put a winning team on the field,” Lyte says somewhat naively.

Former Twentieth Century Fox owner Marvin Davis and MCA Chairman Emeritus Lew Wasserman have talked with the NFL, but they have chosen to avoid the public spotlight. And the NFL believes that for football to take hold again in Los Angeles, it will take an all-out, high-profile marketing effort.

“In the case of the Carolinas and our effort to get football,” says Jerry Richardson, Carolina’s high-profile owner and NFL Stadium Committee chairman, “politicians had to be enthused, the corporate community had to buy suites and advertising and the fans had to participate. I’m optimistic that eventually we’ll get the same thing done in Los Angeles.”

*

What does the NFL have in mind for Los Angeles? Why is a new stadium mandatory? Should Los Angeles allow the NFL to dictate its future?

*

NFL resolution G-7, which 23 NFL owners voted for on July 21 last year, affirmed the Raiders’ return to Oakland. Furthermore, it said: “In light of the importance of the greater Los Angeles area to the League and its members, the League’s member clubs collectively own and will control any League franchise opportunity in the greater Los Angeles area; that no club may appropriate such opportunity for itself without the consent of the Executive Committee. . . .”

The resolution to keep the future of Los Angeles under the direction of the NFL, while probably lacking much legal clout, provides Tagliabue with immediate statesman-like power in the midst of apparent chaos and offers the semblance of a protocol for all interested suitors. And in flexing its corporate muscle, the NFL has unequivocally ruled out the return of football to the Coliseum, citing the facility’s condition and concerns about the surrounding area.

No one in the NFL will go on the record about their dissatisfaction with the Coliseum’s South-Central neighborhood, but there is a perception among owners that the area is nothing but trouble. Which may explain why the Raiders have not been featured on “Monday Night Football” since 1985, while the Rams have been on six times. The Coliseum Commission counters that what little crime occurs is related to drinking at the games. In a brochure delivered to all NFL executives extolling the “new” Coliseum, the commission calls the perception of high crime in the area “an erroneous generalization, as [it] is not a byproduct of the venue or its surrounding area, but is rather spawned by the actions of one particular tenant and a segment of that team’s fan base.”

“The most difficult part of the equation in Los Angeles is the stadium,” says the Broncos’ Bowlen. “I don’t look at getting the team [as] anywhere near as difficult, whether it’s expansion or relocation, as getting an appropriate venue.

“It’s not the Coliseum, it’s not the Rose Bowl, it has to be a stadium better than any in the country. I think what will happen is, we will get a new stadium done in Los Angeles by agreeing to put a team in Los Angeles when the stadium is ready.”

The Coliseum, built in 1923 and a national historic landmark, recently underwent $115 million in improvements, although much of that money was spent on underground earthquake repairs. Coliseum officials estimate the facility needs an additional $90 million in improvements (in parking and the addition of luxury boxes and club seating) to meet NFL demands, but they point out that is still $130 million less than the low-end anticipated cost of building a new stadium. NFL officials don’t believe an additional $90 million will be enough to meet their “state-of-the-art” stadium standards.

“What we feel we have to have is a very special facility there,” Tagliabue says. “In that particular market, anything short of that is not the kind of proposition we’re interested in.”

What interested entrepreneurs are hoping to imitate is the Dallas experience, and the Coliseum doesn’t lend itself to that. While most NFL owners lease their stadiums, Jones, as owner of Texas Stadium, can determine how much additional revenue he wishes to earn. And a “state-of-the-art” facility, with its luxury boxes and club seats, can generate quite a profit for the NFL owner (regular seating is split 60-40 between the home and visiting teams). But Los Angeles isn’t going to use public funds to build a stadium and then simply turn over the keys to a franchise owner.

One of the Coliseum’s champions is Michael Hernandez, city councilman for the First District, who wants to stop construction of a football facility at Dodger Stadium or win major neighborhood concessions from O’Malley before allowing the project to continue. He has also conducted public hearings to determine the best site for a football stadium in Los Angeles.

Hernandez has declined to specify a list of possible concessions--”mitigation,” as he calls it--and while he talks tough, he has not rejected the possibility of compromise.

“In my meetings with the NFL,” Hernandez told a crowd of 50 at a public hearing last month, “it seemed clear they had their minds set on building a new state-of-the-art stadium. While I’m sure NFL owners think a new arena is in their best interests, it is the City Council, not the NFL, that sets policy for the city of Los Angeles.”

Riordan, who has taken no such strong stand on the Coliseum, appointed a Football L.A. Task Force, but so far--with the exception of the work of Soboroff and Ticketmaster’s Fred Rosen--the task force has been only a political gesture.

Hernandez, who persuaded the City Council to spend up to $50,000 on a consultant to scout possible stadium sites, retracing steps already taken by Soboroff and the NFL, believes that “the Coliseum’s best days may still be ahead.” But others have come to the conclusion it’s time to move on.

“You can’t keep pissing against the wind,” says John Ferraro, president of the Los Angeles City Council and the Coliseum Commission.

*

Who cares if football is played each Sunday in Los Angeles? Can we be considered a major league city without the NFL presence?

*

“No big deal,” says Ken Ravizza, a Cal State Fullerton professor who works in the area of sports psychology. “The psychological impact on L.A. is different than that on Cleveland. There is so much to do here and people just shift gears; it’s not like a desperate sense of identity. In Nebraska what else is there to do but follow the Cornhuskers? In Cleveland how much else is there?”

“Los Angeles is a very sophisticated market,” says Robert Baade, professor of economics at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Ill. “People there are voting with their feet; they won’t take mediocrity. If you would like to go someplace else, be our guest. The indifference with which the departure of the Rams and Raiders have been met substantiates that assertion. There is an indication L.A. is getting a little fed up with pro sports.

“It’s difficult from the NFL’s point of view because it’s abandoning the second-largest market in the country. It’s a disturbing trend from Paul Tagliabue’s point of view, with teams moving from larger media markets to smaller media markets. That movement is occurring because of stadium revenues. That revenue is very, very attractive to owners because it’s not shared revenue with other owners, and it’s a pretty clear financial incentive to go where the largest venue revenues are being offered.”

But Baade, who is the author of a study suggesting professional sports teams and stadiums have no significant impact on an area’s economic growth, expects the NFL to return football to Los Angeles, and soon.

“The media money from national TV will force it to happen,” he said. “But I think you’re going to see big cities playing hardball with the sports leagues more than in the past. Pro sports just doesn’t really do that much for a local community.”

Football might very well return to Los Angeles, but Callahan, the USC sports psychology professor, says it is much ado about nothing for the everyday citizen.

“It amazes me that Baltimore and St. Louis feel they need football teams,” Callahan says. “There are a few individuals in a city, well-heeled individuals, who brought the team to the community. It’s not like 4 or 6 million decided to do it.

“No longer is there that schoolboy approach that we must support a team. We know a team doesn’t give a damn because we have seen them leave for better business deals. The fact that some people think it’s mandatory to have a pro team to create a city’s own identity is an amazing sort of suggestion.”

*

What’s the payoff for L.A. if football does return? How much impact does a Super Bowl really have on a city?

*

As incentive for a new stadium in Los Angeles, the NFL is offering the builder as many as three Super Bowls in a nine-year span of time. This could enhance marketing efforts by tying the sale of luxury boxes and club seats for the regular season to Super Bowl tickets.

“With Super Bowls, it’s doable; without them, it isn’t,” says Soboroff, the vice chairman of Riordan’s task force.

Each Super Bowl, based on Los Angeles’ previous experiences, is expected to bring an estimated $250 million to the city.

“If you told me they would give us three Super Bowls if we built the stadium on the edge of the Santa Monica Pier, that’s what I would be working on right now,” Soboroff says. “To me, it’s about getting those Super Bowls. The NFL has committed those to a Dodger Stadium venue, and I believe they would commit them to an El Segundo venue. If Hollywood Park comes out the winner, then Football L.A. would do its best to help it get the Super Bowls.”

Three Super Bowls would go a long way in sprucing up the want ads for investors, and losing such an economic windfall concerns those working for the city of Los Angeles. It also concerns the city of Anaheim, which earlier this month unveiled plans for a billion-dollar sports, retail and entertainment complex and suggested it was a great idea if someone had the money to build it.

“This represents a serious community statement on behalf of Anaheim,” says Rosen, chairman of Football L.A. “This will serve as a greater impetus to get something done in Los Angeles.”

*

OK, so when? And how?

*

“I think Los Angeles won’t see a team there until after the year 2000,” says Alex Spanos, the San Diego Chargers owner. “No one is in the mood for expansion and I can’t see a team moving there. The people have to want it, and eventually they will. Look at Baltimore, it took 11 years. It took seven for St. Louis. It takes time.”

Maybe lots of time.

“Whatever, the league must control the market,” says Carmen Policy, the San Francisco 49ers’ president. “We just don’t want a football team; we want proper ownership there to make sure it works this time.

“What I think should happen is find a situation that appears not to be healthy somewhere in the league, and then find strong, solid L.A.-based ownership to purchase that NFL franchise that’s kind of dying on the vine.”

NFL owners will conduct their annual meetings in Florida in early March, and Tagliabue says discussion of the L.A. market will be on the agenda. The NFL, which seems most interested in O’Malley at this time, might push him for answers to see if he’s willing to go the distance. If O’Malley does opt to move forward, he says his intent will be to put together the”right” deal, “even if that means taking another year or two to make it happen,” he says.

Another year or two on top of the time it will take to earn favorable environmental impact reports and City Council votes on a variety of issues will probably take Los Angeles--Hubbard’s pronouncements aside--into the next century before it sees football again.

“I think it could be a while before the NFL is actually there,” says Richardson, the Carolina Panthers owner. “There is a great desire in the NFL to be there, and we want to move forward sooner than later. But even sooner than later can be a long process.”