Don’t Miss This Return

I miss the NFL.

There, I said it.

I know that doesn’t sound particularly cultured or enlightened.

But it has been seven years now, and I no longer care who knows it.

I miss the NFL. I miss feeling connected to the rest of the country on fall Sunday afternoons. I miss feeling connected to the neighbors on winter Monday nights.

I miss football-watching parties that mean something. I miss NFL drafts that change something. I miss being swept up in an unmatched feeling of civic unity engendered not by a sophisticated concert or festival, but by the gross, gaudy, splendid Super Bowl.

I miss hating the 49ers, feuding with the Broncos, ignoring the Chargers. I miss Al Davis the way I miss a four-inch wood splinter in the soft flesh of my foot, but that’s another story.

I miss the NFL.

No, I don’t miss it enough to put my tax money into a stadium; nobody should be so misguided.

And, no, I don’t miss it enough to go begging for a team, the dreadful results of which will be witnessed this fall by those suckers.

But I miss the NFL.

Which makes me thrilled to discover that this latest stadium proposal is a hit.

We don’t pay. We don’t beg. And if we’re lucky, maybe we don’t even have to deal with anyone named Spanos.

I don’t understand a lot of the economic quotes proffered in the wake of the Anschutz Entertainment Group’s announcement that it is hoping to build a stadium that will bring an NFL team to town for the first time since the summer of 1995.

But I did understand one.

“If this doesn’t work, the NFL has to realize, they could be taking the best shot they’ve ever had at bringing a team to Los Angeles and screwing it up,” said Tim Leiweke, AEG president.

He’s right. Of all the nutty ideas that have been floated in the last eight years, this is the first one that truly flies.

This could work. This can work. If the NFL is ever to return to Los Angeles in Commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s lifetime--and he desperately needs it to complete his legacy--then this must work.

For the first time, the football interests here are being represented by one group.

For the first time, this is a group with a resume, having already built one of the most successful basketball arenas in the country.

For the first time, this is a group with some punch, telling the NFL they are not interested in being used for expansion or leverage.

And for the first time, it’s their money, not ours.

The Anschutz folks were pushed into agreeing to foot most of the bill when they built Staples Center--for about the same price, $400 million to $450 million--and they have lived up to their word. We have no reason not to believe them now.

“I like what I heard,” Mayor James K. Hahn said Thursday with a grin. “This is a public-private partnership where the private side pays the bills.”

We don’t pay, and we don’t beg.

There will be no huge expansion fee. There will be no demeaning visits by clueless NFL owners who wonder--as their own small markets are dying--whether this town has enough sports heart.

The message from the Anschutz folks to the football folks is a simple one.

You’ve got a team that wants to move? You loan us a few bucks and give us a couple of Super Bowls, and we’ll build them the Staples Center of football stadiums.

And if not?

“If they don’t show us good faith, Phil [Anschutz] and I will disappear very quickly,” Leiweke said.

Not that the league was impressed or anything, but this week they formed a committee just to direct the traffic, and good thing. Teams are already lining up, led by San Diego or Indianapolis.

Yeah, I know, the Chargers are run by arguably the game’s worst owners who are not named Bidwill. And, yeah, the Colts have been a joke since leaving Baltimore.

But a good owner is not going to move his team, right? So we’re going to get a dog. But maybe it will be an old dog, or a dog with pups who want to change things, or a smart dog who will let sharp young Casey Wasserman run the show.

It doesn’t matter. They will learn quickly, in this market, they either win or become the Ducks.

They will also learn what is already known by those who add UCLA and USC football attendance totals when both teams play at home on the same day.

Before it was anything else, this was a football town. Even half of those 120,000-plus folks who fill our college stadiums some Saturdays would be enough for a pro team.

So, you say, you have gotten along just fine without the NFL, that you enjoy watching your three games every Sunday on TV. You are not alone. The overwhelming feeling here has been apathy, and with good reason.

But don’t you think that once a team arrives, you won’t just be a little interested? Even if you can’t afford tickets won’t you follow them at least a little the way you follow other groups with “Los Angeles” on the shirts?

The last two Laker championship parades have shown that the pro teams here are embraced by thousands of fans who will never see a game in person. Just because many people here won’t be attending doesn’t mean they won’t be paying attention.

Obviously, the Anschutz folks are like any other real estate outfit trying to get rich. But just as obviously, a team that won’t cost us anything is a valuable city asset. And that doesn’t even count a Super Bowl’s economic impact of $200 million to $300 million.

It would be more romantic to build the stadium at the Coliseum or Rose Bowl. But it’s going to be a lot cheaper, and far less political, to build it on those South Park parking lots.

And, certainly, it would be more Hollywood if the project were run by somebody like former mogul Michael Ovitz. But his people never showed us the money.

The Anschutz group has shown us not only the money, but also the ability to turn it into an arena that has energized three teams and occasionally brought together a city.

Now they want to do it again.

It is time for our government and the NFL to show they are listening.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected].