Tagliabue, NFL Delegation Visits Los Angeles

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue headed an NFL delegation to Los Angeles to meet with the mayor and various business leaders in the city. The meeting is even more proof of the determination of the NFL to bring a team back to L.A.

"We're farther along than we have been at any time since professional football left Los Angeles," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told reporters with Tagliabue at his side before the parties had their dinner meeting and reception at Getty House, the mayor's formal residence.

The greater Los Angeles area has been without a NFL team since the Raiders left the Los Angeles Coliseum for Oakland and the Rams departed from what is now known as Angel Stadium in Anaheim for St. Louis before the 1995 season.

NFL owners decided last month at a meeting in Denver to give $5 million each to Los Angeles and Anaheim to explore the amount of support, especially financial, that each community can supply to help build a new stadium.

No decision has been made on when Los Angeles will get a team, if it will be an expansion club or an existing franchise, or if Los Angeles or Anaheim will be the place the team calls home.

Los Angeles officials hope to build an $800 million stadium inside the Coliseum, which would be leased to the league. Anaheim officials have proposed a new football stadium for the parking lot next to Angel Stadium.

There's still plenty of work that needs to be done for Tagliabue to realize his goal of having a team in the second largest media market by 2009. The cost of a stadium and how it will be financed are just some of the key issues.

The outgoing commissioner said there are several pieces that must be put in place for a team to return to Los Angeles, one being a satisfactory agreement with the University of Southern California, one of America's top college football teams which plays its home games at the Coliseum. A state-of-the-art Coliseum for a NFL team would probably seat less than 70,000, with USC wanting a home that would seat at least 80,000.

These problems will be worked out because the league is determined to have a franchise back in Los Angeles. And when the NFL makes up its collective mind to do something - it gets done.

Where the team will be located and stadium funding are the only real stumbling blocks. The NFL almost certainly will move an existing franchise to L.A. so ownership won't be a problem. An expansion team makes absolutely no sense. Having a 33-team unbalanced league would cause havoc with the schedule.

The San Diego Chargers, Jacksonville Jaguars, New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings appear the likely candidates for the move. The Chargers make the most sense. They already play in state and the franchise began in Los Angeles back in 1960 before moving to San Diego the following season.

There's still some questions to be answered and details worked out, but one thing is certain - it won't be much longer before Los Angeles has an NFL franchise once again.

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