Autry Listening to Other Serious Offers for Team

As the Walt Disney Co.’s exclusive right to purchase the California Angels ended at midnight Monday, at least two other investment groups were expressing serious interest in buying the team, owner Jackie Autry said.

City officials said they would work to restore relations with the team’s owners, but Autry said she is talking with other potential buyers who would not guarantee to keep the team in Anaheim.

Autry declined to name the investment groups but did say that former baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth would be among those with “first rights” to talk with the team.

Ueberroth was negotiating with owners Jackie and Gene Autry before the deal with Disney was announced in May, and sources close to him have said he is ready to step forward with the same group of investors. Ueberroth could not be reached Monday.

Real Estate developer Donald Koll, whose name surfaced in recent days as a potential buyer, released a statement Monday quelling such speculation. “I don’t even like baseball,” he said.

Autry has said that Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring, whose football team began to practice in Anaheim on Monday with hopes of relocating to Southern California next season, had approached her about a purchase but she has dismissed him as a possibility.

Autry said it will be difficult to match what Walt Disney Co. could have achieved in marketing the team and in its ambitious plans to give Anaheim Stadium a $100-million renovation.

Autry said she was frustrated and disgusted that the Disney deal collapsed.

“I found a buyer who was so tied to Anaheim they couldn’t possibly leave,” Autry said. “This was so good. This was so right. This was a match made in heaven.”

Disney officials announced last Wednesday that they had walked away from negotiations with the city over renovation of Anaheim Stadium and an extended lease for the baseball team. On Monday, Disney reaffirmed its position.

“Our purchase agreement with the Autrys expires on its own terms at the close of business on March 18,” Disney Sports Enterprises spokesman Bill Robertson said.

In January, major league baseball owners approved Disney’s bid to purchase 25% and operating interest in the Angels, contingent on an agreement with the city to renovate the stadium. Disney and the city had 60 days to agree on turning the stadium back into a more intimate, baseball-only facility.

Disney offered to pay 70% of stadium renovation costs with the city paying the remainder, but there were several other points that kept the two sides apart.

Several city sources said the deal presented to the City Council last week had last-minute additions that made it impossible for Anaheim to accept. They said that Disney’s demands severely limited the city’s ability to move forward with Sportstown Anaheim, a proposed sports, entertainment and retail complex to be build on property around the Big A, linking the area to the Pond nearby.

City officials said Disney’s final offer would have cut off virtually all the city’s revenue from the stadium, leaving it unable to recoup its $30-million investment.

The proposal also gave Disney booking rights at a new football stadium should one be built next to the Big A and reportedly contained several restrictions, including view corridors that would have limited how high construction around the stadium could be, sources said.

On Disney’s side, there were concerns that the city would not provide adequate parking, that plans for Sportstown were still vague and that the city wanted a lease of at least 30 years.

Disney wanted a 15-year escape clause. If it moved the team from Anaheim after 15 years, the company would have lost the $70 million invested in renovating the stadium and would have had to pay back the city’s $30 million.

The pending deal also would have held Disney liable for cost overruns.

Angels President Richard Brown said the passing of the deadline does not necessarily mean a Disney deal is dead. “All it means is that the Autrys are free to negotiate with other purchasers and Disney no longer has the window of exclusivity,” Brown said. “That doesn’t mean Disney can’t continue to negotiate.”

Autry’s relationship with city officials has deteriorated dramatically in the last week. She has vowed to move the team from Anaheim once the Angels current lease expires in 2001. She has blamed city officials for the broken deal.

“The City Council doesn’t understand that any other purchaser won’t be able to come up with the financing they’ve been offered,” Autry said. “The city will probably end up paying 100% of it now.”

Mayor Tom Daly said Monday that it is “time to turn the page to another chapter in the story. We are prepared to move forward now with other baseball partners.”

Daly reaffirmed the city’s commitment to keeping the baseball team in Anaheim but said “at the same time, we want a reasonable economic benefit from our stadium property.”

Autry has been in close contact with Disney officials in recent days--she was Disney Chairman Michael Eisner’s guest at a Mighty Ducks game at the Pond on Sunday-- but complained that city officials have been slow to return her calls.

City officials said they hope to soothe relations. “We will be spending lots of time with Jackie Autry in the next few weeks,” Daly said. “We need to reach a new level of understanding with her. She and her team are very important to us.”

Councilman Bob Zemel said that with Disney seemingly out of the picture, it’s important for the Angels and Anaheim to look toward the future.

“I believe it would be smart for the Autrys and the city to work together in order to bring about the best deal for the Autrys and to allow the city to accomplish its goals as well,” Zemel said.

Councilman Lou Lopez said he hopes that the new owner will be community oriented.

“By being part of the community, you will have hard-core supporters who will support you whether you are in first place or fourth place,” Lopez said. “That’s what the Ducks have done and that’s why Disney would have been a good partner.”

It could be at least another six months before the Angels can be officially sold. First, a potential buyer must go through a process known as due diligence in which the team and a potential buyer exchange information, giving the buyer access to all of the team’s financial records and other documents. The baseball league then has 90 days to conduct a full investigation.

Lopez pointed to Ueberroth as the kind of owner the city would welcome, citing the former baseball commissioner’s success in organizing the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“He sold the Olympics to the community and had total involvement,” Lopez said. “That’s why it was a financial success.”

Disney Chairman Eisner said Sunday he does not “begrudge” the City Council’s decision.

“There can be two right decisions or two wrong decisions,” he said. “It’s not always black and white.”

Times staff writers Mike DiGiovanna and Debora Vrana contributed to this report.