Riordan Will Be There in Spirit

Mayor Richard Riordan, failing to get any consideration from the NFL, will not be going to Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday to meet with league owners on behalf of Los Angeles and the New Coliseum Partners.

Instead he will send a video, which he was scheduled to make Friday, and although he supposedly will speak in support of the Coliseum, it’s the NFL that already has delivered a message.

Claiming that names were pulled out of a hat, the NFL arranged Tuesday’s presentations to begin with the New Coliseum, followed by Houston and then showman Michael Ovitz.

The NFL is hopeful that Ovitz’s anticipated Hollywood performance will have the NFL owners leaving the room eager to expand to a 32nd team, something they are in agreement on now.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue arranged this show-and-tell meeting primarily to put the owners on a faster pace toward expansion, while also stoking the pressure on L.A. and Houston to produce, although it might be a year before a selection is made.

The owners already know what they are getting in the New Coliseum and the completed Houston deal, but Ovitz’s strength is sizzle, and random drawing or not, there is no way the NFL was going to allow the New Coliseum, which has failed to excite in four previous subcommittee showings, to finish the day.

That’s what the New Coliseum required if the mayor of Los Angeles was going to be part of the 2 p.m. presentation.

But he won’t be there in person. Riordan has been scheduled for some time to launch his “Read To Me” literacy program in Los Angeles, Tuesday at 9 a.m. Efforts to reschedule the event, which includes the participation of several celebrities, were not successful.

Representatives of the mayor said they had planned to have him board a helicopter about 9:30, which would have taken him to a private or commercial jet for arrival in Kansas City at 3:20.

Mark Ridley-Thomas, Los Angeles councilman; John Semcken, Ed Roski’s point man for New Coliseum, and Rick Welch, chairman of the Los Angeles Convention and Business Bureau, each called the NFL requesting a switch in the presentations’ order to allow Riordan time to join the Coliseum effort.

The NFL refused, saying that could affect the schedules of other presenters. Score one for Ovitz.

Because he cannot be there for the actual presentation, Riordan has elected not to go to Kansas City. His views on the return of football remain his own, because he refuses to discuss them publicly.

Houston Mayor Lee Brown, who attended the NFL’s March meetings in Orlando, Fla., will be in Kansas City as part of his city’s presentation.

Riordan’s videotape, which is intended to compensate for his absence, undoubtedly will raise questions about L.A.’s commitment to the New Coliseum among NFL owners.

But by the end of the day, it might all be forgotten in the hoopla promised by Ovitz.