Here's the pitch
Three groups present franchise proposals to NFL
Posted: Thursday January 28, 1999 06:42 PM
MIAMI (AP) -- The price tag for an NFL expansion franchise in either
Los Angeles or Houston might be nearing $1 billion.
Three ownership groups, each prepared to lay out approximately that
amount, presented their cases to the league's expansion and stadium
committees Thursday.
Two of the groups want a team for Los Angeles, which has been without
a franchise since the Raiders returned to Oakland and the Rams left for St.
Louis, both in 1995. The third group wants to put a team in Houston to
replace the Oilers, who left for Tennessee in 1997. Each had 30 minutes to
address the committee.
"We heard three excellent presentations that spoke to the issue of
financing," said Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and
co-chairman of the committee. "It gives us three wonderful options to
deliver our product into each market."
The NFL has 31 teams with the addition of the expansion Cleveland
Browns, set to play next season after paying a $530 million entry fee. That
number is unwieldy for scheduling purposes, forcing at least one team to be
off every week during the season. The league has said it would like to go
to 32 teams by 2002.
The committee, which also discussed the $800 million sale of the Washington Redskins,
will report to a full ownership meeting Feb. 16 in Atlanta, but a vote is
not expected at that time. The subsequent meeting takes place in March in
Phoenix.
"We have some work to do as a committee," Kraft said. "This is a big
commitment of between $750 million and $1 billion. The good news is whoever
winds up with it, there will be a passion for it."
Robert McNair, who heads the Houston bid, believes the committee
has a basic problem on its hands.
"I think the NFL wants to be back in Houston and wants to be in Los
Angeles and is trying to figure out how to do that," he said.
McNair invited the committee to look at a model of the new stadium he
plans for the team he hopes he gets. The model of the $300 million
retractable-roof stadium cost about $85,000.
McNair's group wore campaign buttons that read "Houston NFL 32."
"I thought it went well," he said. "They greeted us cordially. The
most interesting thing was there were very few questions asked. That's an
indication of how complete our proposal was. We've done everything they
asked us to do."
McNair said he exchanged a few words with Michael Ovitz, who heads the
Los Angeles group planning to build a new, mission-themed stadium complex
in suburban Carson called the Hacienda.
"Michael said they asked a lot of questions and he probably gave the
wrong answers," McNair said. "He said he'd never been to Houston. I said
that made us even, because I'd never been to L.A., but I was just kidding."
Ovitz's group was the first to address the owners. They brought charts
into the meeting room and overstayed their 30-minute limit. There was no
indication whether that was good or bad.
"They were very pleasant," Ovitz said. "We've delivered every
environmental letter they needed. There was a very detailed discussion of
finances.
"I don't have any inclination other than to bring football back to
L.A."
Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad, a recent addition to a group headed
by Ed Roski, which has proposed reconstructing the L.A. Memorial Coliseum,
endorsed Ovitz's comment. "We agree," he said. "We will be bringing
football back to Los Angeles."
Roski said his group proposes keeping the outside facade and building
the new stadium inside that familiar rim. The new seating capacity would be
66,000, compared to the old stadium's nearly 100,000.
"The NFL is very interested in tradition, so it's nice to build a new
facility and combine it with that tradition," Roski said, referring to the
site of the first Super Bowl and two Olympics.
"We tried to save everything you remember about that stadium," said
J.K. McKay, the director of football operations for the Roski-Broad group.
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