Broad Invites Ovitz to Combine Forces in Bid to NFL

After a frustrating set of National Football League meetings in Atlanta left Los Angeles’ prospective franchise owners annoyed over the city’s chances to secure a team, billionaire Eli Broad Thursday extended a vague overture to rival Michael Ovitz, offering to join forces with the onetime entertainment executive.

Broad’s offer was unclear on which of the two men would lead the effort from here.

In fact, the offer was contained in a letter sent to news organizations before Ovitz had received a copy. It invited the former Hollywood super-agent to join Broad’s group in vying for an expansion franchise that would play in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The league has said it wants to bring its next team to Los Angeles and the Coliseum, but still has not set a price for the team or picked an owner.

Broad and developer Ed Roski head one group seeking to bring the NFL’s next team to the Coliseum. Their chief rival is the Ovitz group, which includes a number of celebrities, including former Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson and actor Tom Cruise. A third and more remote contender is billionaire Marvin Davis, who recently entered the competition by suggesting that he might be prepared to bring a team to land at Hollywood Park.

Faced with pressure from the NFL to seek public money for any football plan, Broad on Thursday for the first time formally suggested that he and Ovitz combine their efforts.

“We still have those last few yards to go before reaching the end zone,” Broad wrote in his letter to Ovitz and his partner, grocery magnate Ron Burkle. “To help us all get there, Ed Roski and I would like to extend an invitation for you to join our effort to obtain the expansion franchise.”

In fact, Broad and Burkle met Thursday and reportedly discussed how rivals might combine efforts to avoid being pitted against each other by the league.

The NFL has set a deadline of Sept. 15 for picking an owner for the projected Los Angeles franchise. That has stepped up the pressure on local leaders to consolidate their efforts and stop the contention between them.

According to sources, Broad’s letter was motivated by the NFL’s continued dawdling over setting a price for a football team and selecting the league’s next owner. The NFL’s failure to move on those fronts has irritated Los Angeles leaders and made the league an object of ridicule among some of the same officials it is courting.

Contacted on his way to the Bahamas, Ovitz said he shared that frustration, but he declined to commit to joining Broad’s group.

“I’m as frustrated as anybody by the NFL process,” he said. “But I’m doing what they’re telling me to do.”

Ovitz, who lives down the street from Broad but has clashed with him over the football effort, said he intended to stick with his own plan. He added, however: “If Eli has something that makes good sense, I’m willing to listen.”

At this week’s meetings in Atlanta, Ovitz presented NFL owners with a plan intended to meet the league’s specifications for what it wants to bring a team back to the Coliseum. Chief among those demands was that Exposition Park be altered to accommodate 25,000 parking spaces.

Exposition Park currently has fewer than 10,000 spaces, and the NFL’s demands have sparked loud objections from local officials, some of whom believe that the requirement is so unreasonable that it is intended to scuttle the effort altogether.

Still, Ovitz produced a plan that would meet the NFL’s goal--at the possible cost of more than $200 million in public financing required to elevate much of the park atop three- to five-story parking garages, interrupting sight lines to the Coliseum and potentially energizing advocates of historical preservation to oppose the project.

Critics of Ovitz’s plan emerged within hours of its public debut, dampening the league’s enthusiasm for it.

In fact, Broad spent much of his time in Atlanta explaining to league officials and owners why the Ovitz plan could not win the necessary approvals, much less the public financing required to turn it into reality.

Broad’s letter subtly telegraphed the tension between his group and Ovitz: He remarked on his friendship and admiration for Burkle, while noting that others consider Ovitz a talented figure in marketing.

Only days ago, Broad was publicly questioning whether Ovitz was the marketing genius that others believe he is.

Conflicted between its admiration for Ovitz’s design and its concern about whether such a proposal actually could be built, the NFL tentatively endorsed the proposal, but said it wanted more time to review it. Meanwhile, it urged Ovitz, Broad and their partners to join forces in producing a single proposal for the historic site.

Up to now, the prospects for a joint effort have seemed slim. While leaving the door open to other partners, both Broad and Ovitz have insisted that they lead the ownership group. Both are courting former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway, who is popular among NFL owners, to make their bids more attractive to the league.