nfl stadiums arent cheap

[smazza]

The NFL's $1-billion question

That's the latest estimate for building or renovating a stadium in Los Angeles, although a Coliseum commissioner says that figure is inflated.

By Sam Farmer, Times Staff Writer

October 25, 2006

NEW ORLEANS  The NFL isn't moving quickly on the Los Angeles front, but the cost projections are.

The price tag for a new or renovated stadium in the L.A. area could top $1 billion  more than double the estimates of a few years ago  team owners were told at their annual fall meetings Tuesday by league staff. That does not include the cost of a team, which could be an additional $1 billion or more.

ADVERTISEMENTBecause there is virtually no public money available for an L.A.-area stadium, the league is weighing the merits of paying for the construction and then passing that along to the new owner.

"I don't think at this meeting anybody was prepared to pay that for a Los Angeles stadium," said New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, chairman of the league's finance committee. "I don't know if somebody else is out there who's willing to come into the NFL and do that or not. At this moment, I think it's on the back burner."

Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen agreed, saying: "We've got a lot of other things going on. I think Los Angeles is on our radar screen, but we're not concentrating on it right now."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league is "not giving up" on L.A. but said the challenge is becoming increasingly difficult with each month that passes. He said the latest construction estimates range from $820 million to $1 billion, and that's based on the stadium opening in 2010, which would mean work would have to begin immediately. There are no plans to do so.

"If you delay it, it would be a significant increase," he said. "When you're talking about billion-dollar projects, a 10% increase is pretty significant."

In its latest flirtation with the L.A. market, the league has worked on the stadium component without first identifying a team that could potentially move or an ownership group. Asked if that approach could change, Goodell indicated it might.

"We haven't been successful to date on the approach that we've taken," he said. "We do believe we've made some progress. But circumstances may change where we take a different approach to go forward."

By comparison, the most expensive development project underway in California this year is a $700-million, mixed-use complex in San Francisco, according to McGraw Hill Construction.

In L.A., on top of construction there would be a price for a team. According to Forbes, the average value of an NFL franchise this year is $898 million, more than triple than when the magazine began calculating team values eight years ago. The newest NFL franchise, the Houston Texans, cost $700 million in 1999. Or, if an existing owner were to move his team to the Southland, that owner probably would be required to pay a relocation fee in the hundreds of millions.

The league is considering proposals for a renovated Coliseum, and a new venue in the parking lot of Angel Stadium. At least one member of the Coliseum Commission believes the $1-billion estimate for a renovation to be substantially inflated.

"We believe the cost of remodeling the Coliseum with all the bells and whistles to be $700 million to $750 million," said David Israel, a state appointee to the commission.

Israel was among the commissioners who earlier this month said Coliseum officials might explore non-NFL alternatives in case the league did not choose that venue.

"We've been ready to make a deal for going on two years," he said Tuesday. "The only thing the delays have done is increase the costs. Waiting is not going to make it cheaper."

There are two pressing concerns for the commission: The rent the Coliseum pays to the state is due to increase in January from $80,000 to $2.5 million annually, and stadium officials need to renegotiate the USC lease, which expires after the 2007 football season.

Bill Chadwick, a commissioner, said the group should begin negotiations with USC and "aggressively" investigate a master-lease agreement that would allow the school to control the stadium; and look for proposals for developing the nine acres on which the Sports Arena sits.

"I think there's absolutely a sense of urgency," Chadwick said Tuesday. "It's not imagined. It's not a ploy. It's real."

L.A. City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a fellow commissioner, made the trip to New Orleans to touch base with owners and league executives. He said that while he's not in favor of giving the NFL firm deadlines, "you can't ignore the realities coming upon us. We can't ignore SC and the state."

Anaheim spokesman John Nicoletti said Tuesday that the new cost estimate does not change the city's decision to review other options for the 53-acre site.

"We always knew that the NFL was thoughtfully considering the financial investment, and we knew that cost would be one of the deciding factors for the owners," Nicoletti said.

That owners now publicly acknowledge L.A. is not a top priority is a significant shift, even though the decade-long process has been marked by fits and starts. Just last April former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said of the league's possible return to the region, "In some ways the stars are aligned." A month later, the league authorized spending up to $10 million for design and engineering studies at the Coliseum and outside Angel Stadium.

"This thing has gone from a marathon to an ultra-marathon," said David Carter, executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute. "The finish line keeps getting moved, and you wonder if anybody attached to it has the stamina to continue."

Typically, team owners have been optimistic about an eventual return to the nation's second-largest market. But the rising cost estimates, coupled with the fact they would have to pay the bill, have given them pause.

"The one comment you hear is it's got to be the right deal for everybody," said John Mara, co-owner of the New York Giants, who is working on a cooperative $1-billion-plus stadium deal with the New York Jets. "For whatever reason, we haven't been able to get to that point yet.

"I'm worried about building my own billion-dollar stadium right now. I have another team helping me with it, and I know how difficult that is. At some point, I think everybody in the room would like to have a team in Los Angeles. Whether it will happen or not, I don't know."

Even Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, a longtime proponent of the league's returning to the L.A. area, said it could become too expensive  although he doesn't think the situation has reached that point yet.

"There's a point where it doesn't work," Jones said. "You're just sticking your neck out too far."

[smazza]

NFL deal looks remote

As league officials downplay chance of a team here, Coliseum Commission begins negotiating a 'master lease' with USC.

By Sam Farmer, Times Staff Writer

October 26, 2006

With the possibility of an NFL deal fading, Coliseum and USC officials have launched negotiations aimed at securing the school's future role at the stadium.

"We are actively discussing with the Coliseum Commission the possibility of a lease," USC Senior Vice President Todd Dickey said Wednesday. "The details we have yet to work out."

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Word of the negotiations came a day after the NFL said the cost of a new or renovated stadium in the Los Angeles area could top $1 billion, more than double the estimate of a few years ago. At their annual fall meeting Tuesday, several team owners said a return to the region was not a top priority.

That prompted frustration and exasperation from some influential members of the Coliseum Commission, who earlier this month said they might investigate non-NFL alternatives if no significant progress was made at the league meetings.

"I think they regressed," said David Israel, a state appointee to the commission. "I basically think the deal is done. It isn't going to be made."

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who also serves on the commission, said it became apparent over time that if the NFL really wanted to make a deal with the Coliseum, the league would have made one already. He, too, said it's time for stadium officials to move on.

"When you ask a girl out 25 times and she says no 25 times, maybe the 26th time you just don't call," he said.

New NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, a key player in L.A. talks over the last decade, said the league is by no means giving up on the nation's No. 2 market but acknowledged the rising cost of building a stadium makes a complex situation even more challenging.

"I'm still positive about the Los Angeles market," Goodell said. "I think the NFL and Los Angeles together can be a win-win combination."

The league's team owners seem far less optimistic. Recognizing there's virtually no public money for a stadium in the Southland, they seem resistant to footing the entire bill themselves.

Among those who said they were not interested in funding a $1-billion L.A. stadium was New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, who has been rumored to be positioning his team for a relocation to Southern California. Despite record ticket sales and a rebuilt Superdome, there was uncertainty about the viability of the New Orleans market even before Hurricane Katrina.

But Coliseum backers cannot wait indefinitely for an NFL deal because the commission's 50-year lease agreement with the state recently expired. Annual rent is expected to soar from $80,000 to $2.5 million in the next deal. USC leases the stadium from the commission, and that two-year agreement ends after the 2007 football season.

At the commission's monthly meeting earlier this month, member Bill Chadwick introduced the idea of entering into a "master lease" with USC, which would effectively transfer the day-to-day operations of the stadium to the university.

There are strong indications the master-lease concept is being discussed in the current discussions with USC.

Chadwick said he would be in favor of a USC master lease on three conditions: an appropriate increase in rent; that the community could still use the stadium on occasion; and that the university commit to making significant capital improvements. He said a rough calculation for that commitment is $200 million in improvements over 10 years.

Although he said he doesn't have enough information to know whether the current NFL negotiations are finished, Chadwick said he "got a definitive signal that I have to determine whether there's a viable Plan B."

The stadium negotiations with the NFL have been fraught with mixed messages over the years. Often, deals that seem dead spring back to life. As recently as Friday, specialists hired by the league were doing environmental testing at the Coliseum.

"To assume this deal is dead is not the right approach," Chadwick said. "But to assume it's alive is not the right approach. Until a definitive agreement is signed with somebody, all options are open."

Pat Lynch, general manager of the Coliseum, said the venue has held up relatively well over the years but needs improvements to its video board, scoreboards and concession stands. He said the seats need to be replaced, but "we can get by with them for a little while, a couple of years."

Another issue is the future of the Sports Arena, which now is used for various community events and as a filming location. Its days of playing host to college basketball games are over, especially with USC's $130-million Galen Center opening last week.

"The Sports Arena is doing OK, not great but not bad," Lynch said. "But it's probably not the highest and best use of that property."

Even as it appears the commission is united about looking into other options for the stadium, there is some tension about the reasons for doing so. Yaroslavsky, one of the commission's three county representatives, questioned why the state plans to raise the rent so dramatically.

"I'm beginning to wonder, why doesn't the Coliseum Commission just get out of this whole thing and give the Coliseum back to the state?" Yaroslavsky said. "Let the state charge itself $2.5 million in rent."

But he reserved his most pointed criticism for the NFL.

"I think this is going to leave a bad taste in the mouths of the body politic in Los Angeles," he said. "This is the second time that the Coliseum has been stiffed by the NFL. The first time, there was some rationale to why it fell through, with Houston being the primary reason. In this case, when the Coliseum Commission has basically written a blank check to the NFL, they still stiffed us."

[smazza]

NFL: Out of our league

Pro football and L.A. are doing just fine without each other, thanks. Still, they would have made a nice couple.

October 26, 2006

IF LOS ANGELES WERE a high school cheerleader, the National Football League would be the handsome quarterback. She thinks he's cute, and he thinks she's cool. But they never get to the prom because they're both worried about their reputations. She doesn't want to seem too easy, and he doesn't want to seem too eager.

After a decade of dithering by NFL owners on the question of whether and where to put a pro football team in Los Angeles, during which time construction costs have skyrocketed, the economic equation has changed so much that it may no longer pencil out. An estimate submitted to league owners on Tuesday by NFL staff suggested that it would cost $1 billion for a new or renovated stadium in the L.A. area, more than double the figure from a few years ago. And that's not counting the purchase price of a franchise, which is believed to average $898 million and would doubtless be more in L.A.

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All this means a prospective owner would be on the hook for at least $2 billion. That's a hefty investment. You could buy a major metropolitan newspaper with that kind of money.

Pro football is dead in L.A. because the owners have put it on the back burner for years, more interested in using the threat of it to extorttaxpayer money from cities and playing potential stadium owners and sites against each other. A rise in TV ratings this year, and the fact that NFL games get a decent share in L.A. even without a local team, have also reduced the urgency level.

So what does the city stand to lose? Nothing concrete. L.A. may be the best-promoted city in the world, playing a starring role in countless movies, TV shows and commercials. It hardly needs a football team to put it on the map. Cities often justify the expense of publicly funded stadiums by playing up the economic benefits teams bring, especially if the city hosts a Super Bowl. But recent analyses have challenged that assumption.

What's really lost is not money, but the sense of community that a team like the Bears brings to a city like Chicago, the atmosphere in which everybody in the region is rooting for the same thing and barbershop quarterbacks can be heard everywhere dissecting the game everybody watched. That comes out occasionally in Los Angeles  when the Lakers are in the playoffs and purple flags flutter from car windows all over town  but it's a rarity. But when it comes to the nation's most popular sport, L.A. is a city of expats rooting for teams from there, not from here.

Few Angelenos will shed many tears if the latest cost estimates are the last nail in the coffin for pro football in L.A. Still, it would be an opportunity lost for the city and the NFL. And an intangible, but noticeable, loss of L.A.'s sense of itself.

[flsportsfan83]

WHY CAN UCF BUILD A STADIUM FOR $45 MILLION?

[Triple B]

WHY CAN UCF BUILD A STADIUM FOR $45 MILLION?

They had a coupon.

[smazza]

WHY CAN UCF BUILD A STADIUM FOR $45 MILLION?

if that is true coat

it will be an embarassment of a facility

[___ Eats It]

An embarassment of a facility that will house an embarassment of a team.

Fitting.

[TyBull]

a child's erector set..................

[smazza]

a bunch of football fans (rutger guys included) were sitting around the courthouse bsing and ftu/ou/oc came up

all of us wondered why have they been so bad for so long and why didnt compete in 30 years of football

i had no answer other than poor coaching