Deal Fatigue

Will L.A. wake up to Roski's NFL dream?
Sam Farmer, LA Times, 4/16/08

At a news conference Thursday, Roski will unveil the latest concept for an L.A. stadium. It's a dazzling, asymmetrical venue built into a hillside in the City of Industry, near the southern intersection of the 57 and 60 freeways. His stadium would be surrounded by a high-end shopping mall, already in the works.

From Irwindale to Irvine, the Cornfield to Carson, Dodger Stadium to Hollywood Park, the Rose Bowl to the Coliseum, proposals ranging from ingenious to outlandish have fallen by the wayside.

This process has had so many fits and starts, so many set-ups and letdowns, every new proposal starts sounding like a punch line.

Roski calls it "deal fatigue," and he concedes there's a lot of it -- among the NFL owners, executives, media and fans. Not another NFL proposal.

The way Roski sees it, he could have shovels in the ground this fall and have a stadium ready to go for the 2011 season. By his thinking, a team could be in L.A. by the 2009 season and could play for two years in the Rose Bowl or Coliseum until its new digs are ready. He would want to own at least part of the team, but says he would be comfortable being a behind-the-scenes shareholder as he is with the Lakers and L.A. Kings.

But it's not as if he's going to dip into his personal fortune to pay for this whole project. He wants help from the NFL in the form of a $150-million loan and the promise of at least one Super Bowl.

Fans who want professional football in the Los Angeles area have been yanked around buy various cities and the NFL for years. Still, I can't help getting excited about the possibility of a team in LA.

The City of Industry is not the ideal location for me. Culver City is 28 miles from The City of Industry, about a 40 minute trip without traffic (up to 2 hours in traffic). That being said, I'd buy season tickets.