NFL Puts L.A. Team in Its Sights

HOUSTON — Taking cautious, but substantial, first steps toward returning the NFL to Los Angeles, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue on Tuesday appointed a group of prominent team owners to study such a move and for the first time raised the possibility of granting L.A. an expansion team.

Speaking at the end of the league’s one-day spring meeting, Tagliabue said he will chair the so-called L.A. investigative unit, a panel that will include the Miami Dolphins’ Wayne Huizenga, the Cleveland Browns’ Carmen Policy, the Carolina Panthers’ Jerry Richardson, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Dan Rooney and the New England Patriots’ Bob Kraft.

“The main purpose of the group,” Tagliabue said, “is to work with me as a sounding board to identify the realistic alternatives, an intermediate group that brings a lot of expertise to the discussion as we go forward.”

In other developments Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council introduced several motions that could help ease the way for the NFL’s return and the construction of a new stadium, possibly in downtown Los Angeles. The measures introduced would allow the use of public money to help build a stadium as long as the city is repaid, help find potential stadium sites and create an ad hoc sports franchise committee that would be a “vehicle for city representatives to work with the National Football League.”

Among the teams considered likely candidates to move to Los Angeles are the San Diego Chargers, Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, New Orleans Saints, Indianapolis Colts and, yes, the Oakland Raiders.

Despite much recent talk about the Chargers, one source, after listening to speculation by various owners, said the Colts are the front-runners.

Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones envisions a team in Los Angeles “sooner” than five years, but Tagliabue wouldn’t put a time frame on the mission of his new group.

The commissioner said that, although he is enthusiastic about the interest of Staples Center owner Philip Anschutz in building a football stadium in the downtown L.A. area, Anschutz is not alone.

“There are several others [with similar plans] in the private sector, would be my guess,” Tagliabue said. “But it’s an educated guess.”

Though he picked his words carefully and remained vague on many issues, Tagliabue was firm on one. Asked if the renovation of the Coliseum remains a viable option, the commissioner answered, “No.”

In 1999, the competition for the league’s 32nd and, supposedly, final team for the foreseeable future came down to L.A. and Houston, with Houston being awarded the franchise when owner Bob McNair offered $700 million to cinch the deal. The Houston Texans begin play this fall.

“There was an assumption that, when we went to 32, that was it for a while,” Tagliabue said. “I don’t see another team for the next decade, but whether anybody [in the working group] will have an idea to make an exception will be addressed in the future.”

Open speculation about adding a new team could be a ploy to blunt criticism that the league has formed a group that will devise a way to abandon one of its current cities, some observers said.

“They don’t want a situation where they would have to ask a market to support a team that is going to be gone in a few years,” said Marc Ganis, who heads a Chicago-based sports consulting firm. “This way, they can hold out the possibility that a team will not have to relocate.”

Tagliabue may have downplayed the role of the new group, but Kraft made it clear its mission must be a top priority.

“Putting a team in Los Angeles,” the Patriot owner said, “will be one of the most important accomplishments of the next few years. Los Angeles is the gateway to all of Asia. It is the second-biggest city in the country. The league belongs there.”

Policy, on the other hand, sees the mission differently.

“If we had a crystal ball,” he said, “and could see that there will never be an NFL team in Los Angeles, I think the commissioner would still have formed this committee to pay attention to the fan base and the business community there.

“This committee is designed to enhance interest in the Los Angeles market, but I am not going to say that we will play a direct role in bringing a team there.”

While the guessing game over who will make the big leap was the hot topic at Tuesday’s meeting at the Inter-Continental hotel, Charger President Dean Spanos stood in the lobby and did his best to downplay rumors that it will be his team. That speculation gained momentum because of the team’s decision to move its training camp to Anschutz’s new training complex in Carson in 2003. But Spanos insisted he wants to keep the team in San Diego and said the training camp move had long been considered as a way to avoid distractions at home.

“Maybe it’s bad timing, but one is not tied to the other,” Spanos said.

Spanos said the Chargers have hired Mark Fabiani, a political consultant who worked for both President Clinton and on Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign, to find a way to keep the Chargers in San Diego. And that means finding a way to get a new stadium built.

“All we want is to be competitive with the rest of the league,” Spanos insisted. “Qualcomm Stadium is one of the two or three oldest in the league.”

Spanos predicted that “in the next five or six months, we should have a realistic idea if we can go forward. We will take our time to do what’s in the best interests of our team and, hopefully, we’ll be able to work it out in San Diego.”

But if not, Spanos now has a group of fellow owners to help him evaluate his L.A. options.

Somebody will move to Los Angeles, said Jones. “I have blind faith it will happen.”