Tagliabue: Time for NFL to Decide on L.A.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Tuesday the next few weeks will be “pivotal” in deciding whether the league, absent from the nation’s No. 2 television market for more than a decade, makes a return to Los Angeles.

With new television deals worth billions and the security of a labor agreement through 2011, Tagliabue, who will retire in July, said now is the time to meet what he called the “perennial challenge” of a return to the area.

Two sites are in the running, the Coliseum and Anaheim. An 11-member owner committee is scheduled to meet next Tuesday in Dallas to hear from both -- a prelude to a meeting later in May in Denver of all 32 owners at which, league officials have said, a decision is due.

Acknowledging years of delays and uncertainties, Tagliabue said of a return to the Los Angeles area, “In some ways the stars are aligned.”

In an interview before an appearance at a Disneyland hotel, he also said, “There’s a recognition among the owners that it’s time to make a decision.

“Whether it’s the next four weeks or the next four months, the time has come to make a decision, up or down. And nothing -- nothing -- dramatic is going to be gained by prolonging the process.”

The Los Angeles area has been without a team since after the 1994 season, when the Rams moved to St. Louis and the Raiders returned to their first home, Oakland.

It remains unclear whether the league is poised to pick one site or both, or pick one now and reserve another for later, or put two teams in one stadium.

Tagliabue acknowledged that there may be “little sentiment” for expanding beyond the current 32 teams, “partly because people haven’t thought about it, and they haven’t looked at the pros and cons of expansion versus relocating a team.”

Later, speaking to the Orange County Business Council, he elaborated, saying expansion offers the league “the most control” in that “you are setting the terms and conditions of the transaction yourself -- therefore you have the optimum ability to pick the person.”

The Anaheim plan involves a 50-acre plot in the Angel Stadium parking lot. The city has offered to sell the land to the NFL under market value but has given the league until May 31 to make a deal before it explores other options for the parcel. Other details of the Anaheim deal have not been made public.

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle on Tuesday called his city “the center of the Southern California marketplace,” a town that has “matured and evolved” and boasts “economic vitality.”

The Coliseum would be thoroughly remade around the peristyle end, the 92,000-seat bowl reworked into a stadium with 200 luxury boxes seating 68,000 for the NFL and expandable to 80,000 for events such as a Super Bowl. The NFL would enter into a 25-year lease extendable to 55 years. Other deal points remain closely held.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in a morning appearance at the Coliseum, said he would be in Dallas next week to tout his venue’s merits.

“This is the greatest sports town anywhere in the country,” Villaraigosa said. “Make no mistake about that.”

In presentations to league owners during meetings last month in Orlando, Fla., NFL staffers suggested that cost estimates for both projects, the Coliseum and Anaheim, might run as high as $800 million -- up from perhaps $500 million three years ago.

With the costs of fuel, steel and other materials escalating, Tagliabue said the NFL is exploring ways to rein stadium costs in to the $650-million range.

“The numbers here are serious concerns,” Tagliabue said, adding that although there is urgency -- and momentum -- to striking a deal, it’s “going to take very sober analysis of some very steep costs.”

Times staff writer Duke Helfand contributed to this report.