News of the Arroyo
Title: | NFL brass leaning toward Coliseum |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2005-05-25 |
Summary: | May 25, 2005 - The NFL seems to be leaning toward the Coliseum as the future home of a Los Angeles franchise |
Author: | Billy Witz, Staff Writer |
Publication: | Pasadena Star News |
Content: | Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - WASHINGTON -- The National Football League inched closer Tuesday to finding its future at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a venue twice-rejected as too ugly for such a glamorous sport. In 30-minute presentations to league owners, the three finalists for a Los Angeles-area franchise put their best faces forward, but the issues facing the Coliseum appeared to be significantly easier to iron out than those in Anaheim and Pasadena. The NFL would like to choose a site by late summer or early fall, according to NFL executive Neil Glat, giving the three sites three to five months to settle on terms with the league, which has pushed back its target date for the league\'s return to L.A. from the 2008 to the 2009 season. The main issue at the Coliseum remains rent, said Glat, the league\'s vice president for strategic planning, who made the presentation. Yet Glat and Coliseum officials believe that difference can be resolved just as the issue of site control, a past problem with the Coliseum Commission, has been resolved. An agreement between the NFL and the University of Southern California over parking and stadium revenue is not yet settled and the NFL is still establishing costs of renovating the Coliseum. \"I didn\'t really hear anything new,\' said Coliseum Commission President Bill Chadwick, who was briefed by Coliseum General Manager Pat Lynch. \"I didn\'t hear anything that would make us change our approach, which is to focus on our site and resolve issues that make it work for the NFL.\' Less certain to be negotiated away are the major sticking points in Anaheim, where costs have soared, and Pasadena, where community opposition is likely to lead to lawsuits. \"What was originally going to be $1 a year in rent (for the eight-acre footprint of the stadium in Anaheim) is no longer the case,\' said Steve Tisch, the son of New York Giants\' co- owner Lawrence Tisch. \"The request is probably something that\'s a lot closer to fair market value (anywhere from $1.5 million to $4 million per acre).\' In Pasadena, the NFL is awaiting the City Council\'s decision June 6 on whether it will adopt the design preferred by the league or by preservationists. If the council accedes to the wishes of the NFL, it is likely to invite lawsuits, although they could come regardless. \"There\'s a lot of opportunity for ongoing lawsuits, which nobody wants and the league is looking at as a real possibility,\' Tisch said. Just when the NFL will be ready to move on a deal has little to do with the three sites or the league staff. Rather, it is tied to the major economic issues with which the league is wrestling possible alterations to the revenue sharing system, the future of the G-3 stadium- loan program and the collective- bargaining agreement with the players. Those negotiations will determine the future salary cap, which portion of revenues an owner will have to share with other owners, and whether the league\'s other owners will contribute up to $150 million through the G-3 program to what is expected to be a $500 million project. The revenue sharing issue is the most divisive. Unshared revenue stadium sponsorship, radio rights, suites, development has led to a chasm of more than $100 million per year between the top and bottom revenue clubs. Yet many of the top revenue clubs say they need the money to pay off the debt that finances the new stadiums that produce the large revenues. Some owners, such as the Pittsburgh Steelers\' Dan Rooney, expressed pessimism that an agreement on revenue sharing was near. \"Those (financial issues) would need to be in place as to a potential ownership\'s evaluation of what it\'s going to be like in L.A.,\' said Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. \"It could make a difference on who or what basis they\'d come to L.A.\' Most of those financial issues will be discussed further today as the two-day meeting concludes, but they are expected to take long enough that the NFL has begun to give up on its target date of 2008 the second consecutive year it\'s been pushed back. The league staff will then take direction from the L.A. Working Group committee of five owners. With Carson pulling itself out of the stadium process on Sunday, there was little drama involving Los Angeles. In fact, much of it involved New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, whose team has reached an impasse on a stadium deal with the state of Louisiana and can opt out of its lease after next season. Benson, in a lengthy discussion with reporters, affirmed statements his attorney made to the San Antonio News-Express earlier this month that he has received a written offer of more than $1 billion to buy his team and move it to Los Angeles. Benson reiterated what he told the Daily News in March that he wasn\'t interested in selling the team and intended to turn it over to his granddaughter, current team executive Rita Benson LeBlanc. \"I don\'t care if they offer me $6 billion,\' Benson said. \"I\'m not going to sell the club.\' The presentation on Los Angeles compared the three sites in four criteria: site, stadium design, risk and timing. Under the site category were the categories of access, parking and ancillary development. No judgments were made nor were any questions asked by owners. The most significant movement in Los Angeles of late appears to have been in Anaheim. The city and the league were originally discussing terms that called for 26 1/2 acres to be split into two parcels eight acres for a stadium and the rest for development. The city would lease both to the NFL for about 50 years, but the stadium section \"would probably not have an expensive rent on it,\' Glat said. He added that now the city was looking for an upfront purchase of the land. \"There\'s economic differences between those two,\' Glat said. \"We don\'t care whether it\'s lease or buy if the economics are the same (but) the lease option we were looking at was less expensive than the purchase option. We have an economic issue on what it would cost to develop the site.\' The twist in negotiations took place about six weeks ago, according to Glat and Anaheim spokesman John Nicoletti, well before Anaheim City Councilman Harry Sidhu charged that the city was preparing to give the NFL too favorable a deal. Tisch said another issue in Anaheim is a long-standing one. \"Is it L.A. No. 1 that\'s a big issue,\' Tisch said. At the Rose Bowl, the stadium design that the NFL would like to see adopted gives it more tunnels in the upper part of the bowl, more construction on the exterior and almost no chance of retaining its national historic landmark status. The city staff has recommended a design that gives the Rose Bowl a chance to do so. There also remain questions about parking and access, but the most formidable threat and one that\'s beyond the Rose Bowl\'s control is a lawsuit, which could cause delays even if it doesn\'t scuttle a renovation project. \"You\'re in a society where litigation is an option for folks,\' Dunn said. \"Everybody\'s known it\'s been a possibility from Day One and it remains a distinct possibility.\' Billy Witz can be reached at (818) 713-3636. |
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