Billionaire Joins L.A.’s Bid to Lure NFL Team

With a key meeting of National Football League owners approaching next month, Los Angeles sweetened its bid to put a new football team in the Memorial Coliseum on Thursday, announcing that billionaire Eli Broad, one of Mayor Richard Riordan’s closest friends, will become a principal investor in the project.

Broad is already a pivotal figure in the effort to revitalize downtown Los Angeles--he oversees fund-raising for the Disney Concert Hall, was instrumental in launching the Museum of Contemporary Art and is one of three men leading the campaign to secure the Democratic National Convention next year. Thursday’s announcement, however, represents his biggest personal commitment so far.

“I believe it’s going to happen,” Broad said. “They [the NFL] want to see the money. Now they’re seeing it.”

City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the force behind the effort to bring football back to the Coliseum, welcomed Broad’s entry into the campaign and said it would make a significant impression on the NFL. “The prize, we believe, is now in sight,” Ridley-Thomas said.

Although Broad’s entry into the football effort does not guarantee success, it represents a significant milestone in the continuing campaign to revitalize the downtown area.

Broad’s willingness to commit his money to the so-called New Coliseum project places a billionaire at each end of the Figueroa corridor--Rupert Murdoch, the only person in Los Angeles believed to be richer than Broad--owns the Los Angeles Dodgers at the north end of the projected sports and entertainment corridor. Between Dodger Stadium and the Coliseum there now are a string of existing, new or soon-to-be completed attractions: the Music Center, the new Roman Catholic cathedral, the Disney Concert Hall, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Convention Center and the Staples Center sports complex, home of the Lakers, Clippers and Kings.

Combined, those attractions are expected to lure an additional 6 million visitors a year to the downtown area, raising for the first time in the post-World War II era the possibility of a downtown with an around-the-clock set of destinations accessible by mass transit.

Although Broad would not say precisely how much money he is ready to put into a football team, he stressed that he and real estate investor Ed Roski Jr. are prepared to carry the entire investment themselves. Broad said he expects the bill for a new team to be about $750 million or more. Others have predicted that the full cost of a Los Angeles football team could reach $1 billion. Of that, more than $600 million may go toward the franchise fee, with the rest coming in the form of costs to build a stadium.

Broad added that he and Roski will solicit other investors for about a third of the franchise’s value, but said he will be the lead player and, if the group is successful in getting a team, he will oversee football operations and marketing while Roski tends to the stadium.

At the NFL, reaction was generally positive, although sources emphasized that more obstacles still need to be overcome before Los Angeles can land a football team to replace the Rams and Raiders, both of which left for other cities. The experience with the Raiders was a particularly bitter one, and one obstacle to building a stadium within the Coliseum shell is that football owners have bad memories of violent Raider fans.

“This moves their project to a new level, and that’s a positive, but there’s still three or four more levels to go,” said one NFL official, commenting on Broad’s involvement with the New Coliseum. “The good thing is this raises the awareness, just as Michael Ovitz’s contributions have raised the awareness in the marketplace. And there are bigger players involved now, including the mayor of Los Angeles, which is a positive.”

Leaders Trumpet City’s Prospects

City leaders, in fact, trumpeted prospects for the Figueroa corridor, which the mayor’s office attributes to a combination of private sector initiative, improving economic conditions and the steady decline of crime in Los Angeles, one that coincides with Riordan’s tenure but also mirrors progress made by other American cities over the same period.

“This is another great day for Los Angeles,” said Riordan, who has worked behind the scenes on the football effort. “Los Angeles is the place for the next NFL football team.”

The mayor added that the combination of Roski and Broad will help give Los Angeles the edge over its two rivals in the football sweepstakes, Houston and nearby Carson, where entertainment mogul Ovitz is trying to get a team.

Referring to Broad’s reputation as a tough businessman, Riordan said: “Ed Roski has provided the vision. Now Eli Broad is providing the muscle.”

In one sense, Broad’s entry does little to affect the bottom line. He replaces Denver railroad magnate Phil Anschutz, another billionaire who has dropped out of the Los Angeles bid to focus on soccer. But where Anschutz was considered a distant and somewhat mysterious investor whose commitment was suspect, Broad is local and well-known, both for his business savvy and his civic involvement. The result, NFL officials and local leaders said, is a stronger bid.

Addressing reporters and civic leaders on Thursday, Broad reminded the group of his track record in business.

“I like to win and generally I’ve been successful,” he said.

But he also sounded a note of caution about the NFL’s interest in competing bids from Houston and Carson.

“This is hardly a done deal,” Broad said during a morning news conference. “Let’s face it: The Coliseum has had problems in the past with one of its tenants.”

Speaking with a small group of reporters later, Broad elaborated, saying he hoped to build a franchise around a different group of fans than those who once attended Raider games.

“We clearly do not want to go back to the type of fan base that the Raiders had,” Broad said, adding that one of his jobs as the chief marketing person for the team will be to develop a less threatening group of fans.

Broad’s Personal Role Still Unclear

Exactly how much effort Broad will personally devote to the football endeavor remains somewhat unclear, however. He said he did not plan on attending the Super Bowl, where owners traditionally gather for a party and informally discuss upcoming issues. Houston’s group, by contrast, plans to be on hand that day.

Similarly, Broad said he had not yet decided whether to attend the owners’ meeting Feb. 16. Roski will be at that meeting.

Although that session may be closed to outsiders, there is a possibility the league might award its 32nd franchise to Los Angeles without choosing between the New Coliseum and Carson. The league has talked about awarding an expansion franchise to Los Angeles with a one-year deadline to provide a workable stadium plan.

Another unresolved question is whether public money will be required to build the New Coliseum. Political considerations make it almost impossible to use city money, but backers of the effort have flirted with other financing schemes, and they note that the favorable terms already given to Roski by the city, county and state authorities who control the Coliseum are worth tens of millions of dollars.

On Thursday, Broad and Roski also indicated that they hope to raise more than $100 million by selling so-called personal seat licenses--in essence, tickets that allow holders to later purchase season tickets.

The NFL, which has indicated from the outset that it would prefer concentration on building a stadium rather than selecting an ownership group, is still considering a plan to build a stadium in Los Angeles with its own money.

After building a stadium, the league would auction off the stadium and the team. Such an auction just took place in Washington, drawing eight bidders with a final offer of almost $800 million. The NFL believes it could draw at least $1 billion for a franchise and stadium in Los Angeles.

* BILL PLASCHKE: In billionaire Eli Broad, the New Coliseum finally has not only a face, but a wallet. D1