Coliseum Gains New Life as Contender for NFL Team

The underdog bid by the historic Los Angeles Coliseum to become home to a new NFL franchise increasingly looks like a contender, as a group of business leaders with a competing proposal for a football stadium next to the Convention Center agreed Thursday to keep their plan under wraps until the Coliseum’s fate is determined, and league officials this week promised to give serious consideration to the Coliseum proposal.

Retired Arco Chairman Lodwrick M. Cook and consultant Sheldon I. Ausman, leaders of a group that unveiled plans last month for a stadium in the South Park area of downtown, have asked Los Angeles Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas for a seat on the city’s ad hoc sports committee, which has endorsed the Coliseum as the No. 1 site for pro football and is working to persuade the NFL to back a state-of-the-art stadium within the Coliseum’s landmark frame. Attorney Alan Morelli of South Park Sports said he will ask the group’s board to agree to stay mum about its site until the Coliseum backers pitch their plan to National Football League team owners in New Orleans Oct. 30 and 31.

“We are not going to mount a public relations campaign to push our site, in order to avoid a distraction from the Coliseum,” Morelli said in an interview. “We support those individuals who are promoting the Coliseum.”

Meanwhile, Dodger owner Peter O’Malley met Thursday afternoon with Ridley-Thomas to discuss a request from several city officials that O’Malley drop any plans for a football stadium in Chavez Ravine and instead throw his support to Exposition Park, site of the Coliseum. O’Malley declined comment after the meeting, but sources close to the situation said he is likely to join the Coliseum team next week.

“Last year, I would have said the chances for NFL football in the Coliseum are one in a thousand,” said Fred Rosen, president of Football L.A., an organization with no ties to specific stadium sites that is trying to bring a team to Southern California. “Now, if the community rallies around the Coliseum and the funding is put in place, then the Coliseum has an excellent chance. If we all pull together as a city and as a community, this can happen.”

Ridley-Thomas, who is the historic stadium’s chief booster, exulted over a letter from Morelli indicating South Park would drop out of the race in favor of the Coliseum and back efforts for broader improvements to the entire Exposition Park complex.

“It signals a new level of unity, where city leaders in the private sector and in the public sector are uniting behind the Coliseum in a way that is rather extraordinary,” the councilman said. “Their support was invited--it is welcome. It’s now where it ought to be, with our being single-minded about one of the city’s most precious resources.”

During a visit to Los Angeles this week, NFL President Neil Austrian, Vice President for League Development Roger Goodell and Stadium Committee Chairman Jerry Richardson spent 2 1/2 hours with Ridley-Thomas and a handful of others discussing prospects for a new football team in the venue that hosted the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games and was home to the Los Angeles Raiders until they left for Oakland last year.

League officials said they were encouraged by the city’s commitment to a virtually all-new stadium, designed by H-O-K Sports, a Kansas City-based architect that has built several showcase NFL stadiums recently, rather than a renovation of what some have called an antique. The Los Angeles Kings’ proposal for a new hockey and basketball arena downtown also brightens the Coliseum’s picture, because if successful it means that the Sports Arena in Exposition Park could be torn down and the site used for parking and that shuttle buses could help capitalize on parking spaces at the new arena and the Convention Center itself.

“It goes back to what we’ve said all along: It’s very important to create something new and something special in looking toward the future,” said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. “We didn’t think fixing up the Coliseum was the answer. If we’re talking about, essentially, a new facility, then that’s something different, and we’re willing to talk to them.”

Steven Soboroff, a senior advisor to L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, and Coliseum Commission President Roger Kozberg both were encouraged by Tuesday’s meeting with NFL officials.

“They’re very much interested in this project, before anything else in Greater Los Angeles,” Soboroff said, adding that the trio of NFL leaders offered specific advice on how to rebut the team owners’ perception that Exposition Park is not a safe place. “A year ago, they didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, they didn’t see any ‘there’ there at the Coliseum. Now they say, ‘We’re interested in the Coliseum if you do this, this and this.’ ”

Goodell said in a statement that the stadium committee will discuss the Coliseum at a Sept. 25 meeting in New York and that the entire league will consider it in October. “There are many issues that need to be addressed,” he said. “We will continue to analyze all the stadium options in Los Angeles.”

O’Malley’s decision could be crucial to the outcome, he said.

“Peter O’Malley’s views on our plans for Los Angeles will be very important,” Goodell said. “He knows how to serve the fans of Los Angeles and deliver a first-class sports-entertainment attraction.”

Even as the stadium sweepstakes narrows to focus on the Coliseum, however, the competition could be heating up over who would own a new NFL franchise in Los Angeles. O’Malley has long been seen as a leading possibility, but in its letter to Ridley-Thomas, the South Park group suggested the Coliseum organizers consider a “multiracial group” it calls “a credible contender” that has been “previously approved” by the NFL as a franchise owner.

Morelli and Ausman refused to identify the potential owners, and Ridley-Thomas and Aiello said they do not know to whom the letter refers.

“We’re not looking at ownership at this time,” Aiello noted. “We’re looking at a stadium.”

Times staff writer T.J. Simers contributed to this report.

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Sizing Up the Stadium Sweepstakes

The field in the stadium sweepstakes to lure an NFL team to Los Angeles appears to be thinning, with a broadening coalition backing plans to build a state-of-the-art facility inside the historic walls of the Los Angeles Coliseum. While there remain competing proposals in Anaheim and Inglewood, here is the status of various prospects within the city limits:

* Coliseum: Gaining momentum as a favored site. Endorsed as the No. 1 choice by Mayor Richard Riordan, the Los Angeles City Council and several other government officials. Hired H-O-K Sports, a Kansas City-based architect that has built several popular new NFL stadiums, to design a new venue. Committee is working on financing and parking plans, and will make formal proposal to NFL team owners at their meeting in New Orleans on Oct. 30-31.

* Chavez Ravine: Dodger owner Peter O’Malley was considering building a stadium next to his baseball park, but an announcement about his plans is three months overdue. This week, Coliseum boosters invited O’Malley to join their effort; he is mulling that, and has often said he doesn’t want to compete with the landmark stadium. City Council opposes building a stadium at Chavez Ravine.

* South Park: A group of business leaders who last month unveiled plans for a $350-million stadium next to the Convention Center and the proposed new hockey and basketball arena now say they will set their project aside until the Coliseum’s fate is determined by the NFL. They have asked for a seat on the committee backing the Coliseum.