There’s Not Much Crying About This Defeat in NFL

Forget expansion committees, public funding, season-ticket sales, luxury boxes, new stadium construction, parking, traffic, security, owner integrity, management personnel, financing or any other criteria the NFL said it was looking for in proposals.

Houston was not awarded an NFL franchise. Houston bought one. The NFL simply sold it to the highest bidder. They could have saved a lot of people a lot of time by simply selling the franchise through eBay.

JIM SANZARO

Westminster

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$1.01 billion? Houston, those oil fumes have been seriously affecting you. Who needs schools, infrastructure and police when you have a football team. Yee-haw!

WILLIS BARTON

Los Angeles

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Los Angeles, it is time to stand up and be proud. People in other places may claim Angelenos are apathetic and self-involved, but we are the only city in the nation willing and able to stand up to welfare-billionaire NFL owners.

CHRIS FORD

Los Angeles

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Here’s an idea as to how Los Angeles can still get that franchise from Houston:

After the newly granted 32nd team spends its first season losing, the Texas fans will become outraged, prompting comments from the expansion players such as, “I wouldn’t apologize to our fans at gun point,” or, “The fans should apologize to us for having to come play in front of their fat butts.”

Then, Los Angeles steps in and offers a package deal equivalent to the $700 million Bob McNair paid for the team (so L.A. throws in the Clippers, Benoit Benjamin, Ross Porter and $698 million).

In an event similar to an Old West train robbery, Houston takes the money and runs, and fights can resume at the Coliseum every Sunday.

GREG MACDONALD

Azusa

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Please assign a reporter to look into the possibility that this whole movement to bring the NFL back to L.A. was really a conspiracy by greedy satellite dish manufacturers.

JOE WACHTER

Laguna Hills

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One man’s take on the news of no NFL team in L.A.:

1. If somebody is dumb enough to pay the NFL $700 million just to get a team, he deserves it.

2. It’s hard for me to be really upset about not having a team when my favorite one for the last 17 years, the Denver Broncos, doesn’t play in this state. When they do, San Diego isn’t that far out of the way to go. I’m sure there are a few people in this city like me.

3. I won’t be upset with watching a Green Bay-Minnesota game on TV. I wonder if the people in Houston will feel the same way when they’re stuck watching that Houston SpaceCenter-Cleveland Brown matchup.

4. No PSLs here.

TOM CAMMALLERI

Simi Valley

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I was driving by a park last night and saw a couple hundred youngsters practicing football. These kids had to be no more than 10 years old. How sad that their parents may never be able to take these children to a pro football game in Los Angeles. With the popularity of football so high among young people in this area, the NFL is really doing themselves (and us) a disservice.

MATT SCULLY

Long Beach

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As a sports fan who has resided my entire life in Los Angeles, I’m disheartened by the attitude perpetrated in the media and elsewhere that the people of L.A. are apathetic to the return of pro football.

The forgotten truth is that there are many like myself who miss the NFL both as Sunday entertainment and as a fixture of civic pride. Perhaps it’s an old-fashioned notion, but I’ve always held that sports teams are an extension of the community they represent, a way to unite the citizenry behind a common cause.

Without pro football, Los Angeles is without a soul and will always play second fiddle to those lesser cities that seem to understand this concept.

MIKAEL ROMANO

Valley Village

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Sixty-some thousand fans won’t get to attend NFL games in Los Angeles. The eight million or so of us in the area really don’t care.

KEN JOHNSON

Pinon Hills

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Why do we need professional football in the Southland when we have so many exciting teams playing so many riveting sports right now. Consider basketball (Z), ice hockey (ZZ), baseball (ZZZ) and soccer (ZZZZ).

Key: (Z) a thrill a quarter.

(ZZ) rather watch the commercials.

(ZZZ) conking out.

(ZZZZ) better than sleeping pills.

LEWIS POLIN

Laguna Niguel

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Let’s review. Michael Ovitz vowed to get a football team for Los Angeles. Leigh Steinberg vowed to save the Rams for Anaheim. So much for super agents!

MICHAEL A. GLUECK

Newport Beach