Ovitz Receives Help in Clutch

Jerry West, Laker executive vice president, has agreed to join Michael Ovitz’s ownership group pursuing an NFL franchise for the Los Angeles area and has been given permission by team owner Jerry Buss to moonlight as an advisor for the football project.

West will travel to Kansas City, Mo., with Ovitz for an Oct. 27 showdown presentation before all 31 NFL owners with invitations also extended to the New Coliseum Partners and the city of Houston.

“I’m thrilled that Michael Ovitz would want me as a part of his ownership group,” West said. “Jerry Buss has given me permission to help, and I have been very impressed with Ovitz or else I would not have jumped in like I have. I think he’s done it the right way, is doing his due diligence and has put together an ownership team of some very powerful people.

“My allegiance with the Lakers remains first and foremost, and I am going to finish my career with the Lakers. But Michael Ovitz has placed a value on my experience in Los Angeles, and I will try to help him in assembling a staff that will allow him to move forward with this project.”

West, who recently agreed to a four-year contract extension with the Lakers for $3.5 million a year that will carry him through the 2002-03 season, said he has carefully studied Ovitz and finds him capable of winning the day.

“I’m a football fan, and we’ve been without a football team for four years,” West said. “It’s time we had a team here.”

Ovitz, former chairman of the Creative Artists Agency and bringing an energy to Los Angeles’ bid for the return of the NFL like no other to date, is asking the NFL to award L.A. an expansion franchise by this November to begin play in 2002.

“I think he’s excellent because he has the ability to focus and create excitement,” NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. “He’s an extremely capable guy, he’s got a project that’s just not a concept on the back of an envelope, but something that he’s done a lot of work on . . . and he knows what he’s doing.”

Ovitz, who has been determined to satisfy NFL requests, delivered plans to Tagliabue here this week for a privately financed 78,000-seat stadium on a 158-acre site in Carson, calling it, “the Hacienda,” which will be surrounded by an entertainment-geared mall of 1.5 million square feet between the San Diego and Harbor freeways.

Ovitz, the former Walt Disney Co. president, told the NFL he envisions a Universal Studios-Disneyland type of destination tourist stop in Carson and said the Spanish-style stadium--complete with church tower and bells to ring after every touchdown--will be open to the public 365 days a year.

“I think this Hacienda concept, where it’s located--in that traffic corridor--linked as it is to this mall concept with fan [amenities]--I think a lot of that has people very excited,” Tagliabue said. “In terms of fans services and having a facility that would be a magnet for fans, not just because there’s great football there, but because it’s a landmark in Southern California--that is a very exciting concept.”

So does that vault Ovitz’s project a step ahead of the New Coliseum Partners, who have spent the last two years lobbying for NFL attention?

“I think it does in terms of the attractiveness of the facility,” Tagliabue said. “Whether it does in terms of the viability of making it happen, I’d say it’s a tossup and one of the reasons we’re having the meeting in October.”

That of course plays to Ovitz’s strength as both showman and salesman. Along with associate Peter Levin, Ovitz has already traveled around the country meeting with NFL owners, promoting the Los Angeles area and promising to build a one-of-a-kind stadium that could cost as much as $300 million, suitable for hosting Super Bowls every three or four years.

The Oct. 27 meeting, Tagliabue said, is unprecedented. In previous expansion processes, interested groups have had to work their way through a series of committees getting only to all the owners at the moment of decision. This would appear to be a rare opportunity to catch their attention and force them to set a specific timetable for expanding to a 32nd team.

“I’m confident the Coliseum will make a fantastic presentation in October, and Los Angeles Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas has been important in pursuing the NFL,” Ovitz said. “Ed Roski is a first-class businessman and brought a great arena to the city. I don’t know the people in Houston, but they have political support and have one unified effort.

“As far as I’m concerned, if we meet all of the NFL’s criteria, all those [others] are irrelevant. It’s up to 31 owners, and that’s who we will be speaking with in October.”

The NFL is not prone to gush, but the league has shown tremendous interest in Ovitz because of the marketing skills he might bring to the league, thereby making individual owners more money in their own stadiums. They also like the idea that they might have finally found someone who can deliver Los Angeles, returning to the league with a Hollywood flair.

In a startling pronouncement Thursday, however, Tagliabue said that he expects Houston to be “100% there with signed documents” for a publicly funded stadium with acceptable ownership in Houston businessman Bob McNair, after the October meeting. The New Coliseum is nowhere near that, and Ovitz has some talking still to do, but the NFL--knowing this will be the last chance to expand to L.A. for many years--would be thrilled to see Ovitz come on like John Elway in the fourth quarter.

“This meeting in October is a critical opportunity for anyone who is presenting,” Ovitz said. “I know this, I’m very motivated to make this work. And I’m a regular fan, and knowing how motivated I am, I have to believe there are other people in Los Angeles who feel the same way.”

Ovitz has told the league that his ownership group, in addition to West, will include actors Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner, former Laker Magic Johnson, Northwest Airlines executive Gary Wilson; Gabriel Brener, president and chief executive officer of Galco Inc., an investment and management firm in L.A.; Ron Burkle, managing partner and majority owner of Yucaipa Cos., and Ted Forstmann, co-founder and senior partner of a private investment company, Forstmann & Little.

Ovitz, a longtime Laker fan who made overtures earlier to buy the team from Buss, went after West, he said, to fill a void.

“I’m a fan, but I don’t know the sports world as well as maybe some other areas,” Ovitz said. “L.A. is an amazing place, and because of that the bar is a little higher than anywhere else. Jerry West has unbelievable instincts, and together with Jerry Buss they have made sure L.A. has had a championship team. They may not win it every year, but they put on a great show.”

Ovitz has been consumed by this project and has had his assistants working hand in hand with the NFL assembling a comprehensive financial plan to their specifications. It’s that kind of partnership with the NFL that makes Ovitz’s demand for a speedy response come November a little more realistic.

“Our plan calls for [personal seat licenses]; we have to have them to make this work,” Ovitz said. “The Cleveland deal that was recently done involved a publicly funded stadium, and we are not using any public funds to do our stadium. It’s a privately funded deal with the Bank of America and our investors.

“We have no control over what the expansion fee will be, other than to say no. And if it’s too much, we’re not doing it.”

Cleveland’s fee for joining the league as an expansion team was $530 million, almost three times what Carolina and Jacksonville paid three years ago.

Ovitz, who would like a show of interest from football fans in L.A. to nudge the NFL owners to move more quickly, is already falling back on his Hollywood background to produce a dazzling October presentation.

“Here’s what I have to do right now,” he said. “I have to please three different groups. I have to please the NFL front office with a financial plan, I have to please the owners that this is deliverable and the fans of L.A. want it and then we have to please the people of L.A., show them a design that’s cool and a stadium where they can have a great day.”

The New Coliseum Partners, meanwhile, while failing to produce much excitement of their own, have been critical of Ovitz’s plan because it requires the stadium and mall being built on a former dump site. In response to that, Ovitz delivered to the NFL precise environmental remedial actions for the land as recommended by a well-regarded national firm. In addition, he presented “best case” and “worst case” guaranteed bids to clean up the property and has included them in his financial plan.

The NFL’s lead attorney, L.A.-based Frank Rothman, will meet with Ovitz and NFL executives next week to further examine the remediation costs, but the NFL has already been impressed by Ovitz’s work along with his development partner, Herb Glimcher, in handling a similar site in New Jersey on which a mall is now being built.

“Step by step we are responding to the NFL’s requests and doing as they ask,” Ovitz said. “The NFL needs an even number of teams, and I believe the L.A. marketplace is important to the NFL; 15% of the viewing audience is somewhere in the Southern California region. Can they do it without L.A.? Of course. Is it good business? No.

“It’s hard to express in words after talking with the NFL, but I sense there is a tremendous amount of interest and excitement in getting something done in Los Angeles. And I believe we can get it done.”