NFL owners meet today; L.A. low on agenda

Paul Tagliabue’s last major challenge as NFL commissioner was preserving labor peace. Now, Commissioner Roger Goodell is faced with finding harmony among team owners over the sensitive issues of revenue sharing and the new collective-bargaining agreement.

That will be a main focus of today’s one-day owners meeting, Goodell’s first in his new role.

Although the subject of the NFL possibly returning to the Los Angeles area is on the agenda, owners have set aside just 20 minutes for an update on that situation. No significant movement is expected on the initiative, nor are many of the key engineering or administrative players planning to attend. Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a member of the Coliseum Commission, is scheduled to be there.

Earlier this month, members of the Coliseum Commission suggested they should begin looking at non-NFL alternatives for the stadium in case the league decided not to return to that venue.

“I don’t expect a vote of any kind at this meeting,” said David Israel, a state appointee to the commission. “But we’d all like some indication that there’s progress toward a resolution.”

Another item on the agenda is the possibility of games outside the U.S. The league is considering staging a regular-season game or games as early as 2007 in international locales. The countries under consideration are Germany, England, Mexico and Canada.

-- Sam Farmer