There’s No Defense for NFL Expecting More L.A. Funds

The National Football League’s demand that Los Angeles put up more public money to bring a pro football team to the Coliseum is outrageous and should be rejected out of hand.

As it will be. There is zero chance that more public money will be put up by any city, county or state agency, beyond the promise of $150 million in state revenue bonds to build parking structures near the Coliseum.

But the real question is: What is the league’s problem? If the NFL wants to have a team in Los Angeles, to gain the advantage of Southern California’s large television audience and fan base, it should award a franchise to businesspeople willing to put up the investment and get on with it.

The league is already assured of a welcome by political and business forces in Los Angeles, who joined with Gov. Gray Davis in presenting a plan for parking and other amenities to the NFL in meetings in Chicago on Wednesday.

Los Angeles businessman Eli Broad, a billionaire several times over, has agreed to lead an ownership group for a new team.

Yet league Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, a lawyer by profession, voiced objections. Without more public money, a new Los Angeles team could not be “competitive,” he said, under conditions that foresaw profit of $25 million to $28 million a year.

Prospective owner Broad also said the projected profit was skimpier than would be acceptable in any normal business deal. Broad has urged public support “at no net cost to the taxpayer” to bring a new team. Such public support, which could take the form of public loans to defray the cost of stadium construction, would lighten the investment burden on Broad or other potential owners.

But the profit issue is somewhat of a phony. NFL franchises, and all sports teams, are not purchased for the promise of annual profit but for their rapid and considerable appreciation in value.

In just the last few years, prices for NFL franchises have gone up dramatically: The Washington Redskins changed hands this year for $800 million, a new Cleveland Browns franchise went for $530 million last year. As recently as 1995, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers set a record price for any sports franchise with a price of $192 million.

The proposed Los Angeles team is to be valued at $900 million--more than four times the Tampa Bay franchise price. Such enormous price appreciation occurs only with works of art--a phenomenon that renowned collector Broad would be familiar with.

So what is really behind this latest turn in the long-running drama of the NFL and Los Angeles? What is likely to happen? And what are the stakes for Los Angeles and all of Southern California in whether a new football team comes here?

Behind this new sour note is NFL frustration that Los Angeles has not been forthcoming with public money. The league has become spoiled by public bodies from Texas to Massachusetts voting massive expenditures for stadiums and other amenities to lure or retain teams.

Houston is offering $200 million of public money for a new stadium plus private investment in an adjacent football museum in hopes of luring the franchise that Los Angeles is in line for.

For NFL owners, who demand and receive such favors elsewhere, agreeing to come to Los Angeles for no appreciable public money is seen as a bad precedent. However that is the owners’ problem, not Los Angeles’.

So why doesn’t the NFL simply award its new team to Houston?

Because the NFL needs Los Angeles and Southern California. Its football telecasts are not attracting growing audiences--NFL ratings on CBS were down 1% last season; ratings were up 1% on Fox Network; and Monday Night Football suffered a sharp ratings decline because ABC shifted broadcast times.

The league needs to revive its fading attraction and enlarge its audience.

A Los Angeles team, owned in part by showman Michael Ovitz, might help do that.

Also, Los Angeles is a highly desirable site for Super Bowls, the annual late-January championship games that have become tax-deductible extravaganzas of business entertainment.

So, bottom line, the NFL will find a way to come to Los Angeles, even if not to the Coliseum. It could be that after further argument at league meetings scheduled for Sept. 15, the league may decide not to come to the historic landmark Coliseum, where earning big money on stadium revenues as NFL teams do elsewhere might run into questions of politics and environment.

But the NFL and its millionaire owners could perfectly well build a new football stadium at their own expense at Hollywood Park in Inglewood or anyplace else they can get planning permission.

It’s legal, after all, for businesspeople to invest their own money in expanding business in a new territory.

And Los Angeles and Southern California should welcome a new team. A revived NFL attraction, if marketed and managed well, could grace this region and swell tourism--at least at Super Bowl time. But surely such a business should be capable of standing on its own, without leaning on taxpayers to pay for it.

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James Flanigan can be reached at jim.flanigan@latimes.com.