NFL Seeks a Site to Behold

America’s most popular sports league has been estranged from its second-largest market for more than a decade, resulting in a new rite of spring.

Each May, as they will again beginning today, NFL owners conduct general meetings and invariably end up grappling with what to do about Los Angeles.

But since 1995, the year the Raiders and Rams left, reconciliation attempts have failed. The region and league seem convinced that, although a relationship would be nice, they don’t need each other. And, in a twist, that eventually may be what paves the way for some progress.

L.A.-area taxpayers have made it clear that they’d rather watch games on television than pay for the construction of a stadium. And the NFL, flush with a new $4-billion-per-season TV package, is in a position to invest in the future of the 32 teams it has, rather than divvying up another expansion fee.

There are three L.A.-area sites competing for an NFL team, the Coliseum, Rose Bowl and Anaheim -- Carson pulled out of the bidding Sunday -- and the league could decide this week to make a selection from among them. “There’s a resolve to make something happen,” said Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots’ owner, who is on a five-member NFL committee working on Los Angeles issues.

Just don’t be surprised if nothing happens too fast.

The NFL is working on its own timetable. Although league owners and executives have said that they would like to have an L.A.-area team in place for the 2008 season, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue told The Times in December, “I always thought that 2008 was a bit aggressive.”

If there is a front-runner among the competing sites, it’s the Coliseum, but the race is not a runaway and each contender has its share of strengths and weaknesses.

* The Coliseum has plenty of political clout on its side ... but NFL owners and executives have never been especially enthusiastic about the stadium or negotiating with the commission that runs it.

* The Rose Bowl is in a terrific location ... but the people of Pasadena seem split on whether they want the NFL.

* Anaheim has the land and a plan ... but was last into the mix and has no existing stadium.

Despite the hurdles, the NFL and L.A. haven’t been this far along in the process since 1999, when oilman Robert McNair swooped in with a $700-million offer -- not counting the cost of a new stadium -- to outbid competing L.A. groups and win the league’s 32nd franchise for Houston.

Circumstances now are far different. Foremost is the NFL’s stated willingness to pay for the stadium, an investment of $500 million to $600 million. The tab for construction will belong to the franchise owner, and the league will be reimbursed by the sale of personal-seat licenses (PSLs), naming rights, suite and club-seat sales and the like.

The league’s plan for returning to the L.A. area mirrors that for Cleveland in the late 1990s, when that city was promised a franchise on the condition that a stadium would be built. Construction on the publicly funded Cleveland Browns Stadium was underway even before the city was awarded the expansion franchise or a team owner had been selected.

The difference: Paying up front for the stadium would be unprecedented for the league, which routinely adopts public-private partnerships to develop venues. Rare are privately financed stadiums, such as New England’s Gillette Stadium and Carolina’s Bank of America Stadium.

“It’s hugely favorable to Los Angeles that the league is willing to pay for the stadium,” said Max Muhleman, president of a leading sports marketing firm and the person credited with devising the PSL concept. “It’s a sea change.”

That’s not to say competing sites won’t contribute to the development of a stadium.

The Coliseum would allow the league to alter the stadium so dramatically that it almost certainly would lose its status as a historic landmark.

“And we’re not going to ask them to buy it,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, an L.A. County supervisor and member of the Coliseum Commission, which is negotiating with the league.

“We couldn’t sell it to them, nor would we. So we start off with that.”

There are similar issues with the Rose Bowl, where the NFL is a hot-button topic in neighborhoods surrounding the stadium and beyond. The Pasadena City Council last week certified the environmental impact report for a new Rose Bowl but delayed until next month a decision on whether to continue courting the NFL.

In Anaheim, city officials are mulling the idea of granting land to the league -- a parcel of the Angel Stadium parking lot -- free or at a greatly reduced price.

What won’t be an issue in this process is team ownership. The league has removed that component from this stadium derby. That’s a key distinction from 1999, when competing groups bitterly fought to gain the upper hand and undermine each other. The owners who have the most influence on the situation now are those in other NFL cities who are angling for new stadiums or more lucrative deals. It benefits them greatly to have continuous activity on the L.A. front, if only to leverage their own cities.

The New Orleans Saints have broken off negotiations with Louisiana over subsidy payments, and some within the franchise have suggested that relocation to L.A. is an option.

The San Diego Chargers, another relocation candidate, want a new stadium and have the ability to get out of their Qualcomm Stadium lease any time after the 2008 season.

Then there is this: The NFL still views the L.A. area as a two-team market, as it was when it was home to the Raiders and Rams.

So league executives are weighing the merits of developing two sites, one in L.A., the other in Orange County, as well as the possibility of having teams share a stadium.

So far, putting one in place has proved difficult enough. It’s no surprise, then, that there is only cautious optimism.

“From my observation, there’s no reason in the world this deal shouldn’t be made,” Yaroslavsky said. “But there are a lot of decision points ahead of us.

“This process has a long way to go.”