News of the Arroyo
Title: | Rose Bowl-colored glasses? |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2003-04-22 |
Summary: | April 22, 2003 - The LA Daily News reports on John Moag's big plans for the Rose Bowl and the NFL. |
Author: | Kevin Modesti's |
Publication: | Los Angeles Daily News |
Content: | PASADENA -- On the cracked and pitted concrete steps outside the Rose Bowl\'s south end zone, the promoters of a pro-football-worthy stadium renovation propped up a speaker\'s podium and architects\' paintings Tuesday morning and prayed to the Weather Channel. \"(Locals) told me it was going to rain and we\'d have to move this press conference indoors,\" said John Moag, the Maryland-based chief of the Rose Bowl\'s effort to lure an NFL team. \"I\'m not from here, but I know better. I know it doesn\'t rain in Pasadena.\" The sky indeed came up blue above the giant neon rose -- just as it is on all of those uncannily sunny New Year\'s Days that Moag has seen on TV -- as pretty pastel conceptions of a space-age Rose Bowl, vague plans for $500 million in financing and unconfirmed claims of NFL interest were shown off to reporters and Pasadena\'s powerful. \"If I was an (L.A.-area) NFL fan,\" Moag declared more seriously, \"this is a pretty good day.\" How good is \"pretty good\"? Does this plan have a better chance than the ones from Downtown Los Angeles, Chavez Ravine and Carson? Is some unidentified football team on its way here, nine years after the Rams and Raiders hit the highway? Well, you and I are from here, and experience tells us when a Southern California football proposal looks too good to be true ... it probably is. The reasons for optimism begin with the proven men on Tuesday\'s platform: Moag, the sports broker credited with (or blamed for) the Cleveland Browns becoming the Baltimore Ravens; Bill Thomson, the former Pasadena mayor in charge of rallying community support; and the principals of HOK, the nation\'s leading stadium architecture firm. The good news extends to the plausible designs on the artists\' easels, calling for the 81-year-old stadium\'s distinctively shallow structure to be maintained even as its 92,000-seat capacity is reduced by about one-third, luxury suites rise above the bowl\'s rim, and pedestrian areas and the surrounding Arroyo Seco are beautified. The pluses deepen with the methodical efforts to make sure Pasadena leaders and citizens are signed on to the plan, which could be presented to NFL owners at the league\'s May 20-21 meetings in Philadelphia. \"The people (involved) are huge,\" said The Sports Business Group\'s David M. Carter, a Redondo Beach-based authority on the sports industry and a consultant to Rose Bowl executives. \"This plan allays a lot of the fears about what would happen to the (landmark) building.\" The very public politicking on behalf of the Rose Bowl plan promises \"a deal in which everybody has a stake,\" Carter said. \"This isn\'t a midnight deal that\'s going to be rammed through some municipality. ... This (proposal) has a different look and feel at this stage.\" Having said that, Carter conceded, \"It\'s right (for fans) to take a wait-and-see attitude. ... I think at this point you\'re right to defer to history. Los Angeles lost the Rams and the Raiders. And every time a group has got a head of steam, it has petered out.\" Tuesday\'s unveiling might hit the leaders of competing Southern California efforts like a blindside blitz, and their responses in the next few weeks will help us decide how seriously to take the Pasadena project. Certainly, the deep-voiced Moag and the fair-haired Thomson are serious about it. They say developing the proposal was \"the hardest part.\" They envision needing nine months to complete an environmental-impact study and 23 months for construction. In that time, the UCLA football team and perhaps even the Rose Bowl game might have to find a temporary home. The reasons for skepticism begin with the need to get about half a billion dollars from the NFL, which would finance the construction cost based on the promise of future income from the stadium. \"Not a penny of taxpayer money\" will be used, Moag said. The question then is whether the NFL would want to make a deal in which it wouldn\'t reap taxpayer money. Maybe it\'s the NFL\'s intention to finance a Rose Bowl upgrade and use it to extort tax cash out of other cities whose teams could move to Pasadena if their own stadium deals weren\'t sweetened. Another question: Where were NFL representatives Tuesday, when the promoters had advertised a satellite-link appearance by commissioner Paul Tagliabue? Perhaps it\'s the NFL\'s intention to privately encourage Pasadena but avoid publicly discouraging other L.A.-area bids. \"We\'ve kept our focus on the end zone and not look to see who\'s coming in to tackle from one side or another,\" Moag said. Moag said he talks with NFL leaders \"almost on a daily basis\" and hopes to come back from the Philadelphia meetings with an oral deal to give the granddaddy of all football stadiums a facelift -- a deal that would make sense for the league only if it then gave us a team. Sounds good. Looks good. Too good? Kevin Modesti\'s column appears in the Daily News three days a week. He can be reached at (818) 713-3616 andheymodesti@aol.com . |
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