PHOENIX -- The last time the NFL had an expansion derby, in 1995, it selected two small markets -- Carolina and Jacksonville -- with good stadium deals.
Now it wants to expand to a big market -- Los Angeles -- with no stadium deal.
Nobody ever accused the NFL of being consistent, but NFL officials have yet to get 24 votes for their Los Angeles plan at the annual March meetings this week.
The problem is that Los Angeles doesn't have a stadium financing plan and a single site or owner.
Houston has all three, but it's the 11th largest TV market and Los Angeles is the second largest market.
League officials want to award the team to Los Angeles with the condition that it come up with a stadium plan by the end of the year. If it fails, it can then take the Houston deal.
But when the issue was brought to the floor yesterday, there was no consensus.
"We don't have 24 votes to go to 32 teams. We don't have 24 votes to go to Houston. We don't have 24 votes to go to Los Angeles," said Jerry Richardson, the owner of the Carolina Panthers and the head of the stadium committee.
The result is that the owners decided to send the matter back to the expansion committee, a 14-member committee made up of Richardson's stadium committee and the finance committee. They will meet this morning and try to come up with a consensus.
The league is concerned about the falling TV ratings in Los Angeles in the four years since the Rams and Raiders left after the 1995 season.
The Baltimore experience is a good example of how a long NFL absence from a town can affect TV ratings. Even though the Ravens have been in town three years, they haven't overcome the 12-year NFL drought the city experienced after the Colts left in 1984.
The ratings for the NFL in Baltimore -- for both the regular season and the Super Bowl -- were among the lowest in the league last year, although they were good compared to other sports programming in the city.
What's frustrating for the league is that Los Angeles realizes the NFL needs the market and isn't making the NFL the kind of offer it is used to getting from other cities interested in getting teams.
Alex Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers, said, "I like the Houston proposal. Tell me what's Los Angeles doing. I want a team in Los Angeles, but they have to want one, too."
Ravens president David Modell, a member of the stadium committee, said there is a great deal of sentiment for both Los Angeles and Houston and he hasn't made a decision yet.
Meanwhile, the proposed Washington Redskins sale to the Howard Milstein group remained in the finance committee and has yet to come to the floor.
But commissioner Paul Tagliabue gave a spirited defense of the league's position that Milstein should have to put cash in the $800 million deal. Milstein contends he often makes real estate deals on borrowed money without cash, but Tagliabue says that buying an NFL team is different from a real estate deal.
"We've had a policy as far back as I was involved, which goes back to 1969, that focuses on one thing," said Tagliabue. "If there's a financial failure by the operator of an NFL team, the league has to be party to an agreement with the banks and with the owner in which the league can go in immediately and take the assets, take control of the team for a fixed sum of money as part of the loan agreement and run the team.
"That's completely different from the financing of real estate."
But Milstein has his supporters, including Dallas owner Jerry Jones and Ravens owner Art Modell. Modell said there's no problem with borrowing the purchase price.
"Debt is like cash as long as you have the security to back up the debt," Modell said. "The bank does not lend money unless they know they're going to be paid."
In another tangled ownership situation, the NFL has decided to fine San Francisco owner Edward DeBartolo $1 million and suspend him for a year. He pleaded guilty for failing to report a federal crime in a gambling investigation in Louisiana. In his absence, his sister, Denise DeBartolo York, and her husband, John York, will run the team.
The NFL also passed a formal resolution that Phoenix will get a Super Bowl in 2004, 2005 or 2006 -- if it builds a new stadium.
That was designed to prevent the past fiasco when Tagliabue verbally promised Tampa Bay a Super Bowl if it built a stadium. It did, but the owners voted the Super Bowl to be played next January to Atlanta. When Tampa Bay owner Malcolm Glazer vigorously objected that the league had broken the commissioner's promise, they voted the 2001 Super Bowl to Tampa.
Pub Date: 3/16/99