Musical Chairs, Football-Style : Who’s playing where? It’s a wait-and-see game

Last week’s vote by National Football League owners to let the Rams leave Anaheim for St. Louis was not unexpected. The team had threatened to sue the NFL if the move was blocked.

But adding insult to injury, the decision not only has a negative effect on Anaheim--which loses one of its stadium’s two major tenants--but it could have a negative impact on Los Angeles. That’s because it could cost the Coliseum, which first lost the Rams to Anaheim 14 years ago, the tenant the Memorial Coliseum Commission found to replace the Rams: the Los Angeles Raiders.

The internal wheeling and dealing by NFL owners that garnered enough votes to allow the Rams to move included a proposal to build a $200-million stadium for the Raiders in Inglewood, adjacent to Hollywood Park.

The Inglewood stadium could be built by 1997, if financing is worked out. That’s the big if, of course. But that’s where the NFL comes in. The league wants to keep at least one team in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest television market, so it is willing to help Raiders’ owner Al Davis privately finance a new stadium. That could be done if the NFL contributed to a stadium construction fund or promised to stage Super Bowl games at the new facility. The Super Bowl is the NFL’s big-money game, and the revenues could leverage construction loans.

It’s hard to argue with the logic of this deal. If Davis can get enough private money to build his team a spanking new stadium on private property, more power to him. And don’t overlook the fact that the local tourist economy would get a boost from those future Super Bowl games. But there are other silver linings in the clouds that now loom over not one but two publicly owned stadiums.

First, the NFL is handling this situation more wisely than former league Commissioner Pete Rozelle did when the Rams left the Coliseum. Rozelle rejected entreaties from the Coliseum Commission for a new team, got sued, lost and wound up with the Raiders here. Current Commissioner Paul Tagliabue--realizing that Los Angeles is big enough for two teams--has said he expects another team to replace the Rams in a few years, possibly playing in Anaheim Stadium.

As for the Coliseum, if the Raiders leave in 1997 it still has USC football games to help pay the rent--plus another intriguing possibility. Anyone notice that more than 56,000 fans showed up at the Coliseum for a soccer game between Mexican and Chilean teams recently? That’s more than the Raiders draw for some games. Crowds like that are one reason Mexico’s pro soccer league is talking about putting a team in the Coliseum.

As this region’s demographics continue to change, the historic old stadium could be the site of--pardon a hackneyed expression--a whole new ballgame.