Hollywood mogul Michael Ovitz says he may scale back his ambitious plans to remodel Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum or even consider building a stadium at Hollywood Park racetrack if that's what it takes to ensure that the NFL's 32nd franchise comes to Los Angeles.
"I am at the Coliseum because that is what I was told to do," Ovitz said last week. "If [the NFL tells] me to go to Hollywood Park, I'm going to do whatever they want me to do. I want a football team, period."
Ovitz said he has been contacted by billionaire Marvin Davis, who has optioned land at Hollywood Park in apparent hopes of bringing a football team there.
The specter of Ovitz and Davis, former owner of Twentieth Century Fox, joining forces to build a stadium on the racetrack property was just one of the wild plot twists in the rapidly developing Los Angeles football story last week.
Just as it was starting to look as if Los Angeles would actually get a team to play in the Coliseum, a number of events transpired that left some observers questioning whether the city will lose its franchise opportunity to Houston.
NFL owners, at their meeting in Atlanta last week, were wowed by the creativity and aesthetics of Ovitz's presentation of a glitzy, Roman-style Coliseum surrounded by a park built on top of several multilevel parking garages.
But the NFL asked for more time to study the plan after questions were raised about whether the $525 million project could be financed, and the Los Angeles Conservancy, a historical preservation group, sent letters to NFL officials with concerns that Ovitz's plan would dramatically alter a national historic landmark.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad, who is backing a competing plan to remodel the Coliseum, said the NFL is "backing away" from endorsing Ovitz after he and others pointed out that Ovitz's plan cannot be built as currently envisioned. "The fear I have is that some owners will bite on all of [Ovitz's plan], and after a while they will find out it can't be done and be disillusioned and say, 'The hell with L.A. We'll go to Houston,' " Broad said.
The NFL has set a Sept. 15 deadline for Los Angeles to present a "viable" stadium plan or lose the expansion team to Robert McNair, a Houston billionaire who, unlike his Los Angeles rivals, has $200 million in public funding for his project.
The latest West Coast developments have "not hurt our prospects at all and have probably helped," McNair said last week. "They have not made any progress out there, and our deal is a done deal, and at some point in time ...people are going to come around to that fact and realize the answer is to go to Houston."
McNair called Ovitz's concept for the Coliseum renovation "pretty" and a "wonderful idea" but "unsupportable" financially and otherwise.
Meanwhile, Ovitz said he was willing to address concerns about his project, including scaling back the parking garages, which would cost about $225 million and require public funding.
"The NFL asked us to prepare a plan for 25,000 parking places, and parking places cost you $9,000 a place," Ovitz said. "We did what they told us to do, so I don't understand why everyone is so surprised by the number."
Ovitz noted that he had less than two months to come up with a plan for the Coliseum after the NFL chose that location over a site in Carson where he was planning a stadium modeled after the historic California missions. That project, which also drew rave reviews for its design, is widely credited with igniting the NFL's interest in returning a team to Los Angeles after the Raiders and Rams left in the mid-1990s.
Ovitz, a passionate football fan, has been trying to get a team back in Los Angeles for several years. "I presented on the Coliseum three years ago," he said. "I was told they wouldn't play there. I was then asked to find another site. I found Carson. I was told six weeks ago to go to the Coliseum."
Although Ovitz had not talked to Davis, who began negotiating for the land at the Inglewood racetrack just a few weeks ago, he said he would be willing to consider that site as well if that is what the league wanted. "I like Marvin very much and would be happy to talk to him about it," Ovitz said.
A combination of Ovitz, who is well-liked by many NFL owners, and Davis, whose net worth has been estimated at more than $4 billion, could be powerful.
The city of Inglewood, which has historically shown more interest in spending public money on sports facilities than Los Angeles, could potentially provide funding, especially since the Los Angeles Lakers and Kings will be leaving the Great Western Forum later this year for the new Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The Great Western Forum, which is for sale (see story, page 1), is adjacent to the Hollywood Park land, which already had an approved environmental impact report for a football stadium.
Inglewood Mayor Roosevelt Dorn said he has not spoken to Davis but would welcome a football team. When it comes to public money, "We are open and the city is interested and looking at all available opportunities," he said.
But in Houston, McNair said Davis' entrance into the football race at this late date is just more evidence that "people are turning over every rock they can find out there to find some sort of solution, and the thing they are avoiding is who is going to pay for it."
