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Why is Los Angeles still without a pro football team?
Jan 16, 2008
Leaving Money on the Table? L.A. Still Without NFL TeamMatt Egan | FOXBusiness
Believe it or not the second biggest city in the nation doesn’t have a team to represent it in the most popular pro sports league, the NFL.
It’s not that Los Angeles can’t support a team or that the league doesn’t want one. In fact, both sides realize the huge hole in this West Coast market has serious financial implications for the region and for the league itself.
The issue has been and will continue to be finding a home for an NFL team in L.A., as the city’s current venues are too old and other potential sites haven’t been settled on. Experts said the region won’t get a team until the league and the politicians agree on how to pay for a new or renovated stadium – something that’s anything but a cheap proposition.
To date, California politicians have been very hesitant to use tax dollars to build a new venue and the league hasn’t yet agreed to foot the bill. A compromise could come in the form of private investment or creative financing, experts said.
“L.A. has said ‘We’re not going to bend over backwards for the NFL just to get a team here.’ In any other location you’d have more of a financial commitment. LA has been very shrewd. The key is getting the right private entities to stand up,” said Kenneth Shropshire, director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative.
Since 1994, when the Rams and Raiders left Los Angeles for St. Louis and Oakland respectively, this huge media market and sports epicenter has been without an NFL team.
There are a boatload of reasons the NFL wants to be in L.A. and the market wants pro football.
“There’s a lot of business upside for the NFL and for L.A. It seems like a win-win,” said Mark Winneker, vice president of business development at The Marketing Arm in Dallas.
Experts said that by not having a team in the city, the NFL is leaving money on the table.
“Clearly the NFL wants to be there. Probably the NFL needs L.A. more than L.A. needs the NFL,” said Jim Grinstead, publisher of the sports business publication Revenues from Sports Venues.
Winneker cited the value of television programming that accompany an NFL team, such as coaches’ shows, pregame shows, radio station deals and of course actual game coverage.
“It would be another huge money machine – all of those things sell,” said Winneker.
Beyond that, the presence of the NFL in L.A. would boost home values in the area, lifting property tax revenues by up to $3.6 billion over 30 years, according to a 2004 study from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve. The report attributed this potential benefit, to the “desirability of an NFL team in the area.”
What’s most striking about the void in L.A. is the list of cities that do have teams, including small markets like Buffalo and Green Bay.
In fact, in the 14 years since the NFL left L.A., the league has expanded and added teams to several cities, including Jacksonville, Nashville, Cleveland, Baltimore and Charlotte. If you added these five cities’ populations together they still wouldn’t equal L.A.’s estimated 3.8 million citizens.
Other than L.A., the NFL has now returned to every city it had once vacated.
The region remains a huge Mecca for professional sports, currently home to two teams from each of the other three pro sports leagues.
“There is a whole hungry sports market in L.A., that given the football option again, would shift spending of dollars back to that again,” said Shropshire.
During the first nine months of 2007 Los Angeles topped the New York, Boston and Chicago markets in total ad dollars spent, coming in with more than $3.4 billion, according to data provided by Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
But critics point to several major reasons for why L.A. hasn’t seen a home pro football game in more than a decade.
The Rams and the Raiders left the area after failing to draw the number of fans needed to support an NFL presence.
The problem since then has been finding a viable stadium and the funding to bring a team back to the region.
The city has recently said that their aging Coliseum, the site of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, is no longer a “viable” option. Plans to build a stadium in a series of other locations, such as in Carson, Anaheim, near Dodger Stadium or next to the Staples Center haven’t come to fruition either.
“I’ve never had any doubt that a team will be successful and sell out all of its games in whatever venue it chooses to play in. When the NFL is ready there will be a team. They just haven’t been buying what we’ve been selling,” said David Simon, president of the Los Angeles Sports Council, which works to get sports events like the Super Bowl to the region but isn’t directly involved in the NFL talks.
The NFL has maintained a desire to make a deal work.
“We do have an interest in having a team in Southern California but we only look to have a team there under conditions that work for both the local community and the NFL. We are not going to make a move that would be ill fated and ill advised,” said Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman.
Until then, fans and league observers will continue to debate whether a team will reach the city via league expansion, or through relocation (some have mentioned the Minnesota Vikings and San Diego Chargers as ripe for the picking).
