Coliseum Project Would Be Boon to Area Economy, Study Finds

Bringing a pro football team to Los Angeles to play in a new stadium inside the historic walls of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum could bring $400 million and 3,500 jobs to the region during construction, plus $64 million and 1,000 jobs each season of operation, according to a study made public Monday by prime boosters of the project.

But even the study’s director cautioned in an interview that he looked solely at additional revenues triggered by the stadium, not at costs, and said large-scale public investment in the project does not make good business sense. Although the construction would produce a onetime surge, the ongoing economic benefits would simply make up for losses suffered when the Raiders left Los Angeles two years ago, said Sushil Bikhchandani of UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

“It doesn’t imply that L.A. County or the city should fund a new stadium,” said Bikhchandani, associate professor of decision sciences at the management school. “If the NFL expects the city to spend something like $200 million, I don’t think that’s a good investment. . . . The kinds of expenditures that other cities have made in attracting NFL teams cannot be justified on economic grounds.”

Neither the NFL nor city officials pushing the Coliseum proposal have laid out any specifics on how much they would expect in public subsidies.

Commissioned by the city’s Sports and Entertainment Commission, the $2,500 study estimates that building a facility would boost state and local tax revenues by $13 million, with the tax rolls adding $9 million more a year, and an additional $12 million each time the Super Bowl came to town.

Bikhchandani said the best economic guideline for determining a worthwhile investment is the estimates on increased taxes, because they have no corollary costs.

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The study does not consider whether public funds might yield greater economic benefit if they were invested in a project with more permanence, and better-paying jobs, than a football stadium. It also does not compare the relative benefits of the Coliseum site to other sites where a new stadium has been proposed--such as next to Dodger Stadium or next to the proposed sports arena at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The study estimates that the region could garner $200 million and nearly 3,000 temporary jobs every time the Coliseum hosted a Super Bowl. However, the professor pointed out that the city has no guarantees about how often it would host the Super Bowl.

City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, a prime backer of the proposal for a revamped Coliseum, said Monday that the specifics on how the new stadium would be financed cannot be hammered out until an ownership team is identified. The Anderson study, he said, indicates the project’s attractiveness not only to sports fans, but to political and business leaders.

“We see this project as a part of the revitalization of our city. It has a spinoff effect that spells revitalization of the region,” Ridley-Thomas said. “That’s what it’s about. It’s about the game, but it’s also about the economy.”

The unveiling of the economic impact study came as Ridley-Thomas and other city officials returned from a meeting last week in New Orleans with NFL officials, expressing optimism over what they called an “evolving partnership” between the league and the city.

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Coliseum proponents plan to meet with NFL owners again at their March meeting, and say they expect to identify owners, design a financial plan, revamp the governance structure of the publicly run Coliseum and begin marketing luxury suites, club seats and personal seat licenses long before then.

Several league owners expressed dismay last week over the lack of a financial plan as part of the Coliseum’s presentation, and NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said football would not return to Los Angeles before 2000. In a statement released Monday, Tagliabue called last week’s meeting a “very useful and positive step,” but said financing and “public acceptance of the project” are issues needing more work.

“The display of leadership and unity on behalf of Los Angeles has been impressive and encouraging,” the commissioner said. “We will continue to work with . . . Los Angeles leaders in an effort to return the NFL to Los Angeles.”