NFL Clings to Its California Dreamin' as Houston Primps and Fumes

By JIM NEWTON and T.J. SIMERS

July 27, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

After years of cajoling and lobbying, of pleading their case to the National Football League’s 31 owners and winning over Los Angeles’ political leaders, the men who want the league’s next team still have one big question to answer: Why should a little old lady in Fresno pay even a cent of additional tax so Southern California’s richest men can buy a football team?

In recent days, the franchise-seekers have begun to develop their answer, which they will publicly trot out today in Chicago when the NFL owners meet. Key to their new approach is a subtle but important shift in rhetoric. No longer do the prospective owners and their public allies talk about “public money”; the new phrase of choice is “public investment.”

The amount being sought, advocates say, is about $150 million and would probably go toward building parking spaces at Exposition Park, where the new team would play in a renovated Memorial Coliseum.

Proponents say public investment in Exposition Park would not only help football but also the state, since California owns the park. In addition, they argue that the boon to the Southern California economy would allow taxpayers to recoup any public subsidy granted the football project.

As Bill Chadwick, the investment banker who is Gov. Gray Davis’ representative to the negotiations, is fond of saying: “If we’re going to take $10 out of my daughter’s education to pay for football, that’s not a good deal. But if we’re going to take $10, improve a public asset and turn it into $12, that’s something else.”

Whether that’s possible isn’t clear.

Some say the potential economic benefit would simply amount to shifting entertainment dollars, not creating new ones. Others argue that investment in the park would be a huge help to the team but would do relatively little for Exposition Park’s other tenants, principally the California Science Center and the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, which already have the parking and space they need.

The only pressure on the park, those critics say, is pressure being created by the bid for a football team.

Take the Science Center. Although a relatively new entrant in the Los Angeles cultural market, it attracts millions of visitors a year, many of them children.

Today, the center has no trouble accommodating those visitors, but some of the museum’s leaders and supporters worry that the stadium would attract such huge crowds--not only for professional football but also for USC games, concerts and other events--that it would cut into the Science Center’s business.

Proponents dispute those contentions.

The park, they say, is under-utilized and badly in need of improvement, and the football effort offers a rare chance to elicit a major investment in it. Already, local leaders are anticipating that the NFL will chip in $150 million toward the football project.

Stadium Carries $400-Million Price Tag

As substantial as that is, it leaves a lot of money to raise. Experts say it would cost roughly $400 million to build the stadium the prospective Los Angeles owners have agreed to recommend. In addition, parking for that stadium, which would require about 15,000 new spaces at Exposition Park, would cost about $150 million more.

That’s more than half a billion dollars before anyone even gets to the price of the team, about which there is much disagreement but which could run anywhere from $500 million to much more.

So it’s no surprise that the owners and the NFL would like someone else to pay part of the bill. Historically, baseball and football stadiums in almost every American city have been built with at least some public participation.

Predictably, however, the elected leaders who would be expected to carry the campaign for public money are sending mixed signals.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan has long insisted that no money should be taken from existing city services to pay for football. Last week, he said for the first time that he believes football will help Los Angeles’ poorest residents by providing jobs. Still, Riordan says those benefits to the poor are not enough to persuade him to reconsider his position on public money.

The mayor has left himself some wiggle room. Although he will not support tapping existing tax revenues, he says he would support applying any additional money that the team and the stadium help to generate--for instance, sales taxes that are generated from tickets and services inside the stadium.

Davis, meanwhile, has managed his own version of fence-straddling. He and his official spokesman have, in interview after interview, adamantly insisted that Davis will oppose any state money for the football effort. But it is Davis’ handpicked negotiator, Chadwick, who has become the most visible proponent of “public investment” in the park.

The reluctance of public officials to take the lead on the issue suggests that the city will find other ways to help, perhaps by assisting with an effort to acquire land near the site that could sweeten the deal for the NFL. For its part, the state will try to find some way of helping the football campaign without leaving obvious footprints.

Rather than coming up with cash, the state might borrow the money to build the parking, relieving the new owners of that burden, but saddling state taxpayers with up to $150 million in new debt.

Football Revenues Might Offset Costs

In theory, the parking structures could pay for themselves, proponents say. The state gets low-interest, tax-free loans, and it would collect from a number of sources to pay off the debt. Parking revenue, a special ticket tax, property taxes, increased hotel occupancy as a result of games--and particularly Super Bowls--all would help pay off the state debt.

Assuming the Coliseum were used about 50 days a year--sometimes to capacity, sometimes with many fewer visitors--that might be enough to make the deal break even for state taxpayers, say insiders who have looked at the numbers.

As for the broader economic benefits of football, supporters say they range from the minute--sales tax on every ticket and every cup of beer sold at the new stadium--to the more far-ranging--such as state income taxes paid by the officers and players of the new team, most of whom presumably would live in Southern California.

“That’s money that the state gets as part of having a franchise here,” said one football supporter. “That’s return on investment.”

But is it really? The players are under no obligation to live in the area. They could almost as easily settle down in Las Vegas and commute.

And even if they do come to Southern California and pay their taxes here, what makes football so special?

As critics are quick to point out, any large business has employees who pay taxes. Most of them don’t get state-supported parking structures.

What heats up the issue even further are the concerns about the stadium design, particularly those coming from historic preservationists.

The design that will be presented to the owners includes a frosted glass rim around the Coliseum, a blend of ancient Roman and Los Angeles styles, large end-zone sky boxes and a set of parking structures that could obstruct some views of the Coliseum from outside the park. Each of those causes historic preservationists concern--anxieties heightened by the prospect of public money being devoted to the project.

“This is a state building,” said Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy. “And they’re proposing to put state money in this project. It really becomes a travesty to use state money to destroy a landmark.”

Dishman and other conservancy officials are working with the prospective owners to iron out their differences, and both sides said a meeting last week helped air differences. There were some lingering doubts, however, and the session was not helped by Chadwick’s decision to skip that meeting.

In a letter sent to Chadwick on Friday, Dishman said conservancy leaders were encouraged by progress on the parking plans, particularly decisions to set back some of the structures and to lower the ones planned for the south side of Exposition Park, but added: “The Conservancy continues to have serious reservations about the stadium design.”

Chadwick acknowledges that hammering out the design differences remains a potential problem, and says those issues will figure in his recommendations to the governor, including his suggestion about whether state money should go toward the project.

For now, however, Chadwick’s eye is on Chicago, where he will take the design plans and his proposal for an agreement between the state and the NFL.

“I want us to have the chance to decide whether this deal is good for the state and for Los Angeles,” he said. “If I don’t think it makes sense, I won’t recommend it to the governor.”

L.A. vs. Houston

What each market has to offer the NFL:

L.A.: 15.6

Houston: 4.3

Metropolitan area population (in millions, 1997 figures)

L.A.: 2

Houston: 11

TV market ranking (out of 210 nationally)

L.A.: 5.1

Houston: 1.7

TV households (in millions, as defined by Nielsen)

L.A.: 5.1