News of the Arroyo
Title: | L.A. is OK without NFL |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2004-09-07 |
Summary: | September 7, 2004 - Has LA and region suffered from not having a professional football for ten years? Bob Keisser doesn't think so. |
Author: | Bob Keisser, Sports Columnist |
Publication: | |
Content: | Tuesday, September 07, 2004 - Ten years after, and we\'re still standing. Contrary to the fears of many, Southern California did not lose its ballast and sink in the Pacific when the Rams and Raiders left for St. Louis and Oakland without a kiss goodbye. NFL fans did not riot and storm City Hall in Los Angeles, demanding city leaders steal someone else\'s team. Greater Los Angeles did not lose its collective identity, as Cleveland did when its original Browns moved to Baltimore, or suffer any kind of football-deprived psychosis. As Southern California prepares for its 10th season on the outside, it appears the market has actually thrived without an NFL team, a notable fact what with the NFL starting to make sounds like they want to return to the market. Our other teams have done well. The Dodgers and Angels are on pace to draw 31/2 million fans. The Lakers won three NBA titles and fill Staples Center, as do the Kings. The Angels won a World Series, the Mighty Ducks made it to the Stanley Cup finals, and Clipper attendance is up even though performance remains down. Without a home NFL team, L.A. receives more NFL television than any other major city in the nation, 10 years after receiving the fewest. No one has had to think twice about going to the Coliseum and dealing with the lunatic Raider fringe. No one has bought a ticket feeling guilty about padding the bank account of Georgia Frontiere or Al Davis. NFL fans in L.A. are probably enjoying their passion for football a lot more than fans in, say, San Diego, which has a team but no hope. The Chargers haven\'t had a winning season since 1995 and are 43-85 the last eight seasons. And the NFL has prospered, too. The league owns the consciousness of the nation, its stadium shell game has been profitable, and a decline in Nielsen TV ratings here has had minimal impact on the national numbers. \"The longer we go without one, the less we seem to miss it,\' said sports marketing analyst David Carter, whose local Sports Business Group has clients across the sports spectrum. \"It\'s out of sight, out of mind.\' Until recently. Casual talks between the NFL and civic leaders in four cities Los Angeles (Coliseum), Pasadena (Rose Bowl), Carson and Anaheim have intensified to the degree that the league expects proposals from each group next month, leading to more meetings and eventually a new stadium agreement by next May. The league would then supervise placing an existing team or an expansion team in L.A. What Southern California has gained in the last 10 years is insight into its own sports market, its habits and priorities, and the dictatorial power of the NFL. Many other options \"We\'re not Cleveland, which lives and dies with the Browns,\' said David Simon, President of the Los Angeles Sports Council, which acquires special sports events for the region and works with other groups. \"There\'s no question a team here, if it was run well, would draw. But (the NFL) is a different model, and we (Southern California) were better suited to absorb the loss of the NFL than any other city.\' This market\'s base of sports fans is so huge that no one team drives ticket sales or interest. Those angered by the Ram and Raider departures have been able to drown their tears in a $7 beer at a wide array of other events. Economists who have studied fan habits, ticket sales, PSLs and the stadium shell game agree there\'s a flat amount of discretional spectator spending in any market, and that doesn\'t change regardless of the number of teams in town. When the Rams and Raiders left, the fan dollar was spread to other franchises. Simon said 20 million sports tickets are sold in a calendar year in L.A. and Orange County, and an NFL team\'s attendance would be the veritable drop in the bucket. \"If you were to add the attendance for eight home NFL games, it would represent just three percent of that total,\' Simon said. \"That\'s not a big impact. Football doesn\'t depend on as many fans. They need 60,000 a game eight times a year. That\'s not even close to the model for the Dodgers with 81 home dates or the Lakers with 41.\' Most diverse market Several surveys of sports fans the last decade indicate that less than a third of the region\'s population thinks having a NFL is important in any way. This is also the most diverse market in the nation. In this ultimate melting pot, there are probably pockets of citizens unaware the Rams and Raiders were ever here. \"The NFL has never understood the nuances of the market,\' said Carter. \"We have a lot of transplants who are more interested in the teams they grew up with than an L.A. team. And sports fans in L.A. have more options than fans in other cities. There are plenty of teams here to support.\' Public money game shunned Outsiders love to slap the laid-back mentality of L.A. sports fans, but L.A. is in reality more sophisticated than most markets. It knows a rat (Al) and a fraud (Georgia) when it sees one, and it has refused to play the public money game the NFL loves so much. The failed quest by the New Coliseum group to land an expansion team in 1999 is often cited by economists as the best example of a city standing up to the NFL\'s public money demands. Those same economists also agree there\'s absolutely no hard money return on a public subsidy of stadiums and teams. All four of the stadium groups are expected to present bids with modest public money investments, if any. Carson, which has revived its 1998 proposal for a new stadium atop a landfill, planned to issue $150 million in bonds six years ago. \"I always tell people that the fans didn\'t fail the NFL. The Rams and Raiders failed the fans,\' said Carter. \"If they had played good football, attendance wouldn\'t have been an issue in their leaving.\' It was a small issue at that. The teams moved at the vanguard of franchise free agency and the stadium shell game. The NFL, after five cities fought to land two expansion franchises in 1993, realized it could reap new stadiums and financial perks by playing one city off another. The offer that landed the Rams included guaranteed ticket sales and PSLs (Private Seat Licenses), which had been introduced by Carolina in its successful bid for an expansion team. The Rams claimed a loss of $5 million in 1994 as a rationale for moving, but the team also admitted it made a $3.5 million profit in 1993 while going 5-11. The other insight? The NFL is bulletproof. It has been sinfully successful in its decade-long quest to build new stadiums most everywhere, most of them with public money attached, from a low of $70 million in New England to help owner Bob Kraft build Gillette Stadium, to $452 million in Cincinnati. St. Louis and Oakland combined spent approximately $525 million in public funds to land the Rams and Raiders. Since 1994, 15 new NFL stadiums have opened, a 16th is under construction, and six existing stadiums were extensively renovated. Dallas and Kansas City are already working on new facilities by the end of the decade. Four teams have significant \"issues\' regarding their stadium situation Indianapolis, Minnesota, New Orleans and San Diego and the word \"relocate\' has come up in conversation. Two others, the New York Jets and San Francisco, have stadium concerns but moving has yet to become an alternative. L.A. as leverage Is it any wonder then that the league is once again showing interest in L.A.? We\'re not a market, we\'re leverage. One is reminded of an offhand comment NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue made a decade ago. When asked if PSLs and increased ticket prices would price the common fan out, he said, \"The common man watches television.\' TV options much better Yes, we do. That was one reason why some fans here cheered the departure of the locals. For years, we were saddled with two subpar home teams the Rams went 23-57 their last five years in L.A. (1990-1994) and the Raiders made the playoffs just three times in their last nine years here whose road games were mandated to be shown here because of NFL TV rules, rules that also limited the number of network games we\'d receive on Sundays. There were dozens of instances in the early \'90s when the weekend\'s most attractive and important games did not air here because of the home-team mandate. In 1994, L.A. had fewer NFL exposures than any market in the nation; a year later, NFL-free, our exposures increased 30 percent. \"The NFL is the absolute best sport to watch on TV,\' Carter said. \"If you\'re a real NFL fan, who plays in a few fantasy leagues and roots for several teams, why would you want to waste an entire Sunday attending a NFL game where you can\'t keep up with the rest of the league? \"We often talk about the experience of going to games, but you have a better view at home.\' Home sweet home Indeed. DirecTV offers the entire schedule. You can watch with a half-dozen or more friends, you don\'t have to worry about someone keying your car in the parking lot, you enjoy a 90 percent reduction in the cost of concessions, and no one cuts beer sales after the third quarter. \"That\'s one reason I don\'t believe a NFL team relocating here would automatically do well,\' Carter said. \"No one wants to inherit someone else\'s problems,\' i.e., the Chargers. \"I think an expansion franchise would get more support.\' \"I think there are people here who can\'t wait for football to come back,\' said Simon. \"Just because there\'s no pickets doesn\'t mean there wouldn\'t be a full house.\' But there\'s also no denying we\'re all quite comfortable in our own house, where the TV options are plentiful and the nachos are free. |
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