Hopes High, Obstacles Many as NFL Owners Visit L.A.

The arrival of 11 National Football League owners in Los Angeles today provides local leaders struggling to secure a team for the city with a promising opportunity, if they can surmount the complexities and egos in their path.

A deal is possible, and many believe that ultimately Los Angeles’ desire to fill the Coliseum with a professional tenant and the league’s need to find a way back into the nation’s second-largest television market will smooth over all the differences. Beneath the surface, however, obstacles are everywhere. To name a few:

* Developer Ed Roski holds the right to build a football stadium at Exposition Park, the NFL’s preferred site, but the league does not want to be told that dealing with him is a precondition of its return to Los Angeles. Roski can be stripped of his rights in return for a promise of reimbursement, but he has led the effort to win a franchise up to this point, and there’s little enthusiasm among local decision-makers for dumping him now.

* Former Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz, a man with a legendary reputation but many enemies and a string of recent setbacks, is desperately hoping to rehabilitate his record and fight his way back into the football talks. He’s burdened by having backed a bad horse with his ill-fated proposal to build a stadium in Carson.

* Investment services entrepreneur Eli Broad has the money to buy a team and build a stadium, but he does not have the necessary two-thirds of the NFL owners prepared to endorse his ownership. Officials of the NFL and others close to the process have expressed concern that Broad may not have much passion for football.

* Clearing all the bureaucratic hurdles in the way of approving a new stadium will take time. But the NFL has given Los Angeles just six months, and the process is stalled until the league picks a site and an owner. But with no assurance of getting a team, no one has much incentive to invest the time and money to obtain the approvals for a stadium.

* The NFL would dearly like to encourage a financial competition between Ovitz and Broad, but they are unlike most of the prospective owners with whom the league normally deals. Pushed into a bidding contest, Broad, who is driven more by his desire to spark new life into downtown than by a passion for football, might just walk away for good.

* Finally, one theoretical solution to many of the problems would be to bring Ovitz’s group and Broad’s group together into a single bid--perhaps involving popular former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley--that would require one of the two men to yield to the other. Both have told associates that this is unacceptable. The result: That option, once considered attractive, now seems gone.

It’s Like ‘Chess, Not Football’

“This is not football,” said Mayor Richard Riordan, who made millions pulling off complex business deals and who has been working to bring the various parties together in the football talks. “This is chess.”

If so, it’s chess by the clock, as time is running out, at least on some aspects of the deal.

By the time 11 NFL owners leave Los Angeles Tuesday, the city either will have made enough of an impression to move the deal forward, or the league will reluctantly shift its sights back to Houston, where a less inviting market but a much simpler stadium proposal awaits.

In the run-up to this week’s visit, the owners were stripped of one chance to make big news. Some had hoped to use the visit to announce their support for the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the site of the league’s next expansion team. That meant dropping Carson from the list of contenders.

But they were beaten to the punch by news reports that Ovitz already was planning to abandon his support for Carson and shift his focus to the Coliseum. Ovitz’s move, which he made official just hours after telling Carson officials that he had no plans to abandon them, left city leaders fuming. However, it also put Ovitz back in the hunt for ownership of a team.

Ovitz has his admirers, and many NFL owners relish the thought of benefiting from his marketing talents. He said he’s eager to join, but on his own terms. In an interview with The Times, Ovitz made clear that while he’s interested in competing for a football team at the Coliseum, he’s not interested in playing second fiddle to Broad.

Broad, while publicly welcoming other investors, has privately clashed with Ovitz. When Ovitz finally announced he was dropping Carson, Broad released a statement that referred to Ovitz as “my friend” but also made clear that he does not need the former agent’s help.

“Ed Roski and I have the history, momentum, financial strength and relationships to get the job done,” Broad said.

From the perspective of the NFL, some of that is good news. Competition suggests the possibility of a bidding war between two or more investor groups, and it allows the NFL owners something they badly want: a choice.

But it will have to be a limited choice. Between the cost of building a stadium inside the historic peristyle of the Coliseum and of ponying up the franchise fee for a team, the new owners will be required to invest roughly $1 billion. That eliminates a lot of candidates.

Still, Ovitz and his group, most notably supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, say they can drum up that amount of money. And no one doubts that Broad, one of Los Angeles’ richest men, can do the same.

Moreover, Los Angeles is the home to plenty of wealth. Former MCA chief Lew Wasserman has indicated interest in a team, as has former Arco chairman Lod Cook. Individuals close to the process say O’Malley does not have as much money, but he’s well-liked by NFL owners and deeply respected for his leadership of the Dodgers. He reportedly is considering a move of his own.

Jerry Richardson, owner of the Carolina Panthers and leader of the NFL’s site-selection committee, is one of many who would welcome O’Malley to the table.

“Peter has great credibility in professional sports,” Richardson said. “I think he would be an ideal person to represent the National Football League in Los Angeles in some sort of resolution. He would be a great asset. The more he could do, the better.”

Then there is Rupert Murdoch, who already owns the Dodgers and whose Fox Sports televises NFL games. Murdoch could play any of a number of roles in the football sweepstakes. Already, he and Fox have sweetened the pot for the Coliseum by keeping alive a controversial proposal to move the Dodgers from Chavez Ravine to a new stadium in Exposition Park. Although Murdoch has not been heard from directly, sources close to him say Fox is actively tracking the football talks on several levels.

One other thing to remember about Murdoch: Like Broad and Burkle, he counts Riordan as a good friend.

In handicapping the chances of the various possible bids, it is important to note that the NFL’s 31 owners are more of a fraternity or partnership than they are a traditional business. Close observers of the league say those owners do not take kindly to being told who will become the next member of their club.

Even if they’d like to have Broad and Roski or Ovitz and Burkle at their table, they don’t want someone else making that call for them. NFL sources say some of the owners feel boxed in by Broad and Roski because Roski holds a negotiating right with the Coliseum Commission. Some owners worry that Roski’s agreement might make it harder for them to choose the Coliseum as the site and then select an ownership group to which the real estate executive does not belong.

One solution would be for Broad and Roski to tear up the agreement and make it clear that it’s open season at the Coliseum. Still, that could leave Roski without a seat at the negotiating table, and it could weaken Broad’s hand in dealing with the NFL.

A prospective owner who was eager to please the league probably would tear up the agreement and hope for the best. But Broad can afford to walk away, a luxury that gives him wide latitude in these negotiations--though flexing that muscle could mean that the NFL finally throws up its hands and heads to Houston, where all things are simpler.

Amid so much confusion, respected Cleveland Brown’s President and minority owner Carmen Policy suggested Friday that the time has come for the league to play a more assertive role.

“Knowing that area I think it will be difficult for outside groups to develop the kind of nuclear energy that’s required to conduct that kind of campaign,” he said. “For this to work, I think the NFL needs to take control, go there and make it happen.”

This week offers a key opportunity for the NFL and Los Angeles leadership to take the measure of each other. With the stakes high and a rare chance for progress at hand, one might expect a packed schedule of brass-tacks negotiations. But according to people involved in planning the trip, that assumption would be wrong.

Business Leaders to Host Reception

Soon after arriving today, the owners will meet with key Los Angeles business leaders at a cocktail reception hosted by the Los Angeles Business Advisors, a group of chief executive officers that includes the head of Arco and Times Publisher Mark Willes, among others. There is no set agenda for that meeting, which is intended mainly to show the owners that there is broad business support for bringing a team to Los Angeles, said Sam Bell, president of the group.

On Tuesday, the owners will board a bus at the Century Plaza Hotel, where they are staying, and hustle off to downtown. They’ll drive by the site of the new cathedral but won’t get out. They’ll glimpse the parking structure that one day will undergird the Walt Disney Concert Hall, but there’s nothing there to see, so they’ll stay in the bus. Then they’ll drive down Figueroa Street, glimpsing the nearly complete Staples Center, but they’ll see that from their bus seats as well.

They do plan to get out and walk around at the Coliseum, and they’d like to hold a press conference. The only trouble with that is they haven’t decided what to say or who to invite. At one point, the plan was to have Broad, Roski, Ovitz and Burkle all appear together in a spirit of friendly competition. Since the competition is anything but friendly, however, that seems unlikely.

There was talk of having Riordan appear with them, but they could not decide what Riordan would announce, and Tuesday is the day that the mayor unveils his annual budget. The result: Riordan does not plan to be there.

While they’re at the Coliseum, the owners could take a few minutes to talk with members of the Coliseum Commission--the joint state, county and city agency that runs the state-owned facility. But that’s not on the calendar either. Commission members say the only details they have about the owners’ visit have come from their own sources or the press; they’re not invited to participate, even in the tour of their own facility.

So, what’s the betting on whether Los Angeles gets football’s next expansion team? It depends on whom you ask.

The mayor leads the optimists in saying a deal will happen--because it’s good for everyone, and his experience as a deal-maker inclines him to believe that good deals have a momentum of their own.

The pessimists have their own perspective. They see obstacles and egos everywhere, little time to solve the problems and little hope that this week’s tour will do the trick. NFL officials worry that Los Angeles leaders aren’t listening; locals complain of NFL arrogance. The league owners are expected to make their final decision by Sept. 15.