Hahn Open to Site Downtown

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn said Tuesday that he is very supportive of the idea of building a football stadium in downtown Los Angeles but stopped short of endorsing a proposal being floated by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz.

“I think a football stadium downtown would be very exciting,” Hahn said. “Certainly, Staples made a huge contribution and a positive one to downtown Los Angeles, and I think a football stadium would be positive as well.

“The devil’s in the details here, but I think the will is there, the commitment is there, the enthusiasm is there, and I want to support it in any way I can.”

The mayor said he has met with real-estate magnate Ed Roski, who is working with Anschutz on the proposal. But Hahn said he has also spoken to other potential investors who want to finance their own deals, including Michael Ovitz and Magic Johnson.

“I’ll be working with whoever ends up wanting to do a deal,” Hahn said. “All I’m committed to is seeing that we get a team here.”

Hahn, who has said he believes Los Angeles will have a NFL team within five years, said Tuesday that he senses a lot of enthusiasm for the project among NFL officials.

“They recognize this is a very important media market that they’re just not in,” he said.

The mayor said that a deal would require a large amount of private capital, and said Staples Center offered a good model of how the project could be financed.

“I think a huge public subsidy is out of the question,” Hahn said. “That’s just not going to happen.

“It’s a project that I think can be done with private capital and private partners. We’ll look for ways that we can streamline the approval process, we’ll look for ways that tax revenues that are generated on site like ticket taxes ... can go back into the project.”

City Controller Laura Chick said she would support the project if it involved minimal risk to the city.

“We did it with Staples, and if we can do it again for a football stadium and bring a team, I think it would be exciting for the city,” she said.

The mayor said that the proposal of building a new stadium does not mean that there is no hope left of renovating the Coliseum to house a football team, but warned that the city should not limit its options.

“I think the Coliseum would be a great place for a football team, but at the end of the day, I think we made an error last time saying it was basically a take-it-or-leave-it proposal, and if it wasn’t at the Coliseum, we weren’t interested,” he said.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, a major proponent of bringing a team to the Coliseum three years ago, said he believes that site should still be considered. And he questioned whether enough land could be assembled to build a stadium near Staples Center.

“It could be a gargantuan challenge,” Ridley-Thomas said. “They have to demonstrate that it can be done.”

Matea Gold and Tina Daunt

NFL owners made some minor rules modifications Tuesday but took a pass on the two centerpiece issues of their meetings in Orlando, Fla.--the “tuck” rule and an option to buy a piece of the Arena Football League--deciding to further examine them in the months to come.

Eight NFL owners have purchased Arena franchises, and the NFL has the option to acquire 49.9% of the league before March 31. The measure would have required 24 of 32 votes to pass.

“We couldn’t reach a consensus,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.

Had the NFL exercised its option, it would have shared the Arena league’s advertising, merchandising and sponsorship revenue.

“I think it has some positive elements,” Baltimore Raven owner Art Modell said. “We have to cultivate it and see if it blends with what we do.”

Pittsburgh Steeler owner Dan Rooney said he has reservations about arena football, especially if the league plans to compete with NFL Europe for players.

“I don’t really consider [arena] to be the same kind of football that we play, that colleges play, that high schools play, that they play in Europe,” he said.

The owners, general managers and coaches also discussed the tuck rule, which says that if a quarterback’s arm is moving forward in a throwing motion, it’s considered a pass attempt, even if he loses possession as he’s trying to tuck the ball into his body.

The Oakland Raiders believe that rule robbed them of a playoff victory at New England, after an apparent fumble by Patriot quarterback Tom Brady in the final minutes of regulation.

“We discussed the rule in an open forum,” said Tampa Bay General Manager Rich McKay, chairman of the competition committee. “It didn’t get clearer, it got murkier.”

Among the rules that passed:

* When the visiting team has the ball and the clock is running, the home team cannot pipe music or artificial crowd noise through its stadium speakers.

* The clock will no longer stop in the last two minutes when a quarterback is sacked. In the past, it stopped for about five seconds.

A proposal to give the receiving team the ball on a botched on-side kick was rejected in favor of giving the kicking team another chance from five yards back.