NFL May Indeed Love L.A., but It Won’t Quite Commit

A quartet of NFL heavyweights, among them Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, will begin a three-day fact-finding tour of Los Angeles on Monday, but much to the disappointment of those courting league favor, it will not set a target date for the return of football.

“We know the parties in Los Angeles would like to get that, but presently we are focused on getting things completed in Cleveland, and we should be there by the start of the season,” said Roger Goodell, the NFL’s executive vice president for league and football development.

“Then we can focus our time toward L.A. I think there’s a great feeling, now that we have this window of opportunity after Cleveland to make something happen the right way, and this trip to Los Angeles will allow us to see where we are.”

The NFL, while becoming increasingly enamored in the last few weeks of former Hollywood super agent Michael Ovitz and his proposal for a stadium-mall complex in Carson, intend to contact representatives from Hollywood Park, the New Coliseum project, Fox and South Park.

Tagliabue will be joined by Goodell, NFL President Neil Austrian and Jerry Richardson, chairman of the NFL’s stadium committee and owner of the Carolina Panthers.

The NFL has awarded an expansion franchise to Cleveland to begin play in 1999, leaving the league with 31 teams and the announced intention of putting a 32nd team in either Los Angeles or Houston.

The New Coliseum project has been asking for an expansion team to begin play in 2000, which runs contrary to the stated plans and mood of league owners. In fact, earlier timetables that seemed to focus on a team beginning play in Los Angeles or Houston in 2001 now seem premature, with owners preferring to wait until 2002 or later. They are concerned about diluting talent further, and want to delay splitting league revenues 32 ways, rather than 31, once the Cleveland deal is completed.

As a side note, once Cleveland rejoins the league, it will take 24 owners, instead of the 23 needed previously, to approve the awarding of an expansion team to Houston or Los Angeles.

Ovitz, meanwhile, appears to have made quite an impression on NFL officials, who like his ties to the entertainment industry. Ovitz has given the NFL a list of potential investors and owners from Los Angeles, including some Hollywood actors. He has met with NFL officials in New York and has convinced them that environmental concerns about the property, previously a dump site for hazardous waste, will not be a significant roadblock.

“Wherever the site, there are going to be environmental issues,” a league official said. “We’ve been impressed so far by [Ovitz’s] commitment to this thing, and the design he has shown us is just terrific.”

The New Coliseum project, which had the exclusive attention of the league for more than a year without earning an endorsement from even one owner, is still being pitched. The Coliseum Commission, hoping to demonstrate the political unity and support behind the New Coliseum project, while calling it just a coincidence, has scheduled a ceremony to honor former commissioner Pete Rozelle on Monday with the NFL brass in town.

Call it just another coincidence or the New Coliseum project’s bad luck, but although the NFL will be represented at the ceremony, league officials said Tagliabue will be unable to attend the unveiling of a Rozelle bronze plaque in the Coliseum Court of Honor because of other business.