League Conducting Auction for Bidders Ovitz, McNair

The game is on:

1. Who is going to win?

a) Michael Ovitz, who says he’s going to leave the owners’ meeting next week in Atlanta with an NFL expansion team for Los Angeles.

b) Bob McNair, who expects to leave Atlanta with an NFL expansion team for Houston.

c) No one at this time, as Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones predicts.

d) The NFL.

Answer: d.

The NFL has exactly what it wants--a bidding war. McNair upped his ante as soon as he learned Ovitz had predicted he would get the team.

Tuesday night when the league’s Expansion Committee meets, it will put Ovitz’s proposal alongside McNair’s, then one of the owners will call McNair upstairs to his hotel room and tell him if he were willing to put up an additional $50 million. . . . Meanwhile, another owner will be on another telephone with Ovitz, telling him if he were willing to put up an additional $50 million. . . .

2. Has Ovitz really been told he’s getting the team?

a) That’s what NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue told him.

b) That’s what some of the owners told him.

c) That’s what he thought he heard.

d) He’s an agent; they don’t even know what they say.

Answer: c.

Give Ovitz credit for being bold and persistent, but he’s way out there, saying in jest, “If I don’t come back with the team now, I’ll have to move out of L.A.” Memo to Hollywood enemies: Insert your own wisecrack here.

NFL officials did tell Ovitz that a big chunk of earnest money and a franchise fee bid close to Houston’s would get him an expansion team. He figured that made him a lock. But knowing the way the NFL operates, there’s wiggle room--the franchise fee can’t be that much less.

3. Should we really expect a final decision by Wednesday?

a) Fat chance.

b) If you believe the NFL, why sure.

c) Yes, because Ovitz has an option deadline at Hollywood Park and McNair is threatening to go after an existing team.

d) There’s no way they can pass on a Houston deal that includes a record $625 million for an expansion franchise.

Answer: a.

Sorry, attended too many of these meetings to think it won’t be delayed until Nov. 2-3 meetings in Chicago.

Some owners believe that L.A. failed to meet the Sept. 15 deadline and that Houston should automatically get the team.

Ovitz believes Tagliabue will champion his cause and point the owners in L.A.’s direction. Ovitz also thought they would award him the team two years ago. Right now Houston looks like the favorite, but then it has held the pole position in this race from the start. It just hasn’t hit the wire yet.

With these eccentric owners, it takes only eight of them to stop anything.

4. Why is the NFL so high on Ovitz?

a) He’s a fool.

b) He’s the last man standing in Los Angeles.

c) He can make them more money.

d) All of the above.

Answer: d.

The NFL favors fools, guys like Dan Snyder, who put out

$800 million for the Redskins because he remembers going to sleep as a kid with his Redskin helmet on. Ovitz was foolishly behind the aborted Seahawks’ move to Anaheim, before he foolishly suggested building a stadium on a dump site in Carson, switching to the Coliseum when that sank, and now adopting Hollywood Park as home.

Motivated by a desire to rise from his Disney ashes and regain his reputation, he has played the NFL game by the NFL’s rules, while Peter O’Malley, Lew Wasserman, Eli Broad, Ed Roski and Marvin Davis have been dismissed.

Relentless in his quest and brilliant at working a room, Ovitz is acknowledged by NFL owners as a marketing genius with the capabilities of making them more money. But first they’d like him to buy their affections with a handsome franchise fee.

5. Does the NFL have a way for Ovitz to save face?

a) Who cares about the loser?

b) They may need him in the future.

c) So long as he promises to introduce them to Nicole Kidman.

d) They will send him tickets to Houston’s first game.

Answer: b.

If Houston gets the team, the NFL will urge Ovitz and his running mate, Ron Burkle, to buy the Hollywood Park stadium site for $55 million, which means any team trying to move to L.A. will have to deal with Ovitz and Burkle. The NFL believes a team moving to L.A., leaving its name and legacy behind and getting new local ownership in Ovitz and Burkle, will be successful in a new stadium. How come they are always wrong? Watch out--this idea appears to be picking up steam behind the scenes.

6. Does the NFL believe an expansion team can make it at Hollywood Park?

a) No idea.

b) Yes.

c) No.

d) Maybe.

Answer: a.

This is the same league that accepted author Tom Clancy as owner of the Minnesota Vikings, only to discover a few weeks later he didn’t have enough money.

The Coliseum fiasco is another example of how the NFL does business. It anointed the Coliseum as its site of choice in L.A., without having done its homework and realizing later that historical restrictions would prevent it from building the Super Bowl palace it would require in L.A.

The NFL is in a bit of a panic now. It needs competition for Houston.

7. If billionaire Eli Broad and most everyone else say a deal cannot pencil out in L.A., why does Ovitz think it can?

a) He’s counting on partner Tom Cruise making more blockbusters.

b) He won’t be putting the bulk of the money in the deal.

c) He thinks he can make the argument that it’s not necessary for him to pay a high franchise fee.

d) All of the above.

Answer: d.

This is about ego, which is not a criticism, but Ovitz’s motivation to make it work. Ovitz gets his chance to stick it to Michael Eisner, the Disney boss, who wrote of Ovitz in his book:

“During his first several months on the job, he suggested a litany of possibilities, ranging from buying an NFL franchise and an NBA team to acquiring a record company. . . . In nearly every case, when our strategic planning group ran the numbers, they concluded the deals couldn’t be justified economically.”

Ovitz has to persuade Burkle, a supermarket billionaire, to spend the money to make this deal work.

8. What kind of owners would Ovitz & Co. be?

a) The best.

b) Worse than Al Davis and Georgia Frontiere combined.

c) No idea.

d) At least better than Fox.

Answer: d.

They haven’t given a thought to who would be coach, general manager or quarterback. If Ovitz is managing general partner of an expansion team, as sensitive as he is to criticism, the booing fans will be able to get to him. Try that with Rupert Murdoch.

9. Why is there still such confusion?

a) Houston should be a slam-dunk.

b) Some owners think Al Davis should return to L.A.

c) Ovitz talks a good game.

d) All of the above.

Answer: You guessed it, d.

Houston has been a lock for more than two years. It has a $195-million public-money head start on L.A., giving McNair more leeway to bump up the franchise fee. McNair says no one in L.A. can do a sensible business deal without public contribution.

But Ovitz still has the floor. The owners could have gone to Houston any time over the last few years, so if Ovitz “knocks their socks off” as one owner said he must, L.A. wins the day.

If not, he waits until the dark of night to slip back into town.