NFL in L.A.? Maybe someday. At a discount? Not for you.

What a farce, and so right away you know I’m referring to the NFL and its chances of returning to L.A.

Developments, as reported by our NFL expert Sam Farmer the past few days, are laughable, but a reminder once again of the NFL’s arrogance.

Yes, we’re back to the old days when the NFL maintained L.A. needed it more than the NFL needed L.A., and 17 years later it sounds more ridiculous than when first mentioned.

The NFL never has understood the L.A. market. Folks here are willing to spend big money to be seen in a new stadium as long as the team inside is winning and they don’t have to read about all the nonsense leading up to stadium construction and the acquisition of a team.

But now we have Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay proclaiming anyone wanting to bring a NFL team here must pay full price for a team share.

What do we care?

It’s not our money. The only ones who do care are Ed Roski and Philip Anschutz.

Why not have the NFL email them instead of having one of its owners get all huffy publicly, reminding everyone the NFL is an exclusive club maybe best avoided?

I’ll have to check the archives, but I don’t recall his father asking Indianapolis city fathers to pay their full share for the moving vans when he slipped out of Baltimore in the middle of the night.

The Colts won’t be moving here, but Irsay talking so freely about L.A. paying full price for the NFL experience is a dead giveaway the NFL is once again ready to tap into L.A.’s riches.

The deal-making has begun. He’s obviously working on behalf of fellow owners such as the San Diego goofs and whoever owns the horrible product that is the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The NFL will want the full price for a share of a team on the move, but with that price fixed at what the team will be worth once it moves into a new billion-dollar playpen here.

Let the Jaguars and Chargers remain where they are and see how much their team’s value might be. That’s right, the NFL needs L.A. more than L.A. needs the NFL if it’s interested in jacking up the value of its franchises.

The game is on again, and gauging public interest here after so many starts and stops, nothing will probably be taken all that seriously until the opening kickoff is in the air.

As for those of us paid to follow this, as usual the NFL is taking the approach a city must bow to NFL demands if it wishes to join the club.

Fine by me: deal or no deal. We already know L.A. will be just fine with or without the NFL.

Should a deal be done, though, it becomes our problem because the NFL will continue to flex its arrogance. It’s how they deal with their fans in the cities that do have football — making them buy tickets to keep the game on TV; making them buy tickets to exhibition games to purchase season tickets; making them build new stadiums or wave goodbye to their heroes.

Now I’m sure Anschutz believes he should get a discount when buying a piece of a team. He will be spending all the money to build a stadium, incurring all the risk, and it’s a good argument once he starts talking millions with NFL owners.

But we never see the guy, never hear him talk, so what do we care what he must do to make his $1-billion stadium successful?

Maybe first he ought to make the Kings successful and David Beckham relevant. Sorry, I just worry, given his track record, knowing he also has first right of refusal to buy the Lakers. And now add an NFL team as well?

We never took to the Boston Parking Lot Attendant, and yet some recluse from Denver might control much of the local sports scene here one day.

As for those who say Roski’s stadium plan in the City of Industry might be the better play than adding to Anschutz’s power around here, that’s what the NFL is counting on to keep Anschutz in his place.

But the NFL has no interest in Industry or Roski.

For the past few years, Roski spokesman John Semcken has talked about the impending arrival of the NFL — as early as next year, and then the next and the next. It never happened, and yet Semcken was telling everyone the Industry project was ready to stick a shovel in the ground.

It was a scam, the NFL refusing to bite because Roski not only wanted a free piece of a team, he wanted a team to move here and pay to build a new stadium on his land.

How does an owner recoup his money from a stadium, used maybe a dozen days a year for football, but otherwise sitting empty in Industry? It’s just not going to happen.

Roski dropped his demand for a free piece of a team, but his plan still calls for an NFL owner to pay for the construction of a new stadium. Good luck.

If an owner wanted to do that, he could stay where he is in Jacksonville or San Diego. The Raiders are something else, better suited for Mars, but who knows where they land.

If the NFL is going to return to L.A., it will happen downtown after NFL owners and the Denver billionaire wrestle over how they might divide the millions of dollars they’re going to make off local football fans.

Maybe Anschutz pulls out, as he and Roski have already done twice before. Maybe there’s football here again and maybe not.

It’s pretty much how I feel about the NBA lockout. When they start playing games again, there will be reason to take interest.

t.j.simers@latimes.com