Most anamolies eventually become commonplace and accepted. One of these is the fact that Los Angeles (the 2nd largest media market in the United States) does not have a pro football team. It takes a whole helluva a lot for the city of Los Angeles to be collectively conscious about anything, and our lack of an NFL franchise is no exception. The knee-jerk explanation is that LA is too shi-shi, foo-foo, and whatever other Zsa Zsa Gabor-inspired slang term for “vanity” you want to use for a rough and tumble sport like football to suvive and thrive. In other words, football clashes with our civic culture, so there is not enough local fan interest to make a team economically viable. This is patently untrue, as I shall show below, and only forms the background of the conversation.

Those who think we can’t support 1 NFL franchise conveniently forget that not too long ago we supported 2 of them. The shock of losing both teams so abruptly in a short time span in 1995 has left the city almost numb to the effect. Seriously, has any city EVER lost 2 teams in one year? From the same sport? It was traumatic. Since then we’ve had a steady stream of local billionairres, from Ed Roski to Eli Broad to Ron Burkle, throw together fancy business plans to establish a new team here, but nothing has materialized.

Personal anecdote time. Fall 1990. The Raiders still live and breath down by the Coliseum and have clearly established themselves as THE magnet for criminal activity and symbol of gang affiliation. From 1987-1993 you simply did not wear a Raiders Starter jacket east of La Cienega. You just didn’t. My father takes me to my first Raiders game to watch journeyman and scrub extraordinaire Jay Schroeder throw 5 interceptions against the Miami Dolphins. Now, a certain adult cartoon called “The Simpsons” had recently appeared as a cultural phenomenon and was in heavy merchandise mode (”Everybody, if you can, do the Bartman/Shake your body, turn it out, if you can, man”, c’mon, you know the lyrics). Anyways, I’m leaving the stadium and off in the distance I see some rif-raffers holding up “Simpsons” shirts and apparently peddling them in the parking lot of the Coliseum. Being the sucker for good branding strategy that I am (or was, at 8 years old), my eyes light up and immediately alert my father to my newfound excitement over the upcoming impulse purchase. As we get closer, I finally get to see the full image on the shirt….and it’s of Homer banging Marge doggy-style.

I can’t believe I didn’t buy it. Talk about an Ebay auction, that item would cause the server to short circuit. Back to the topic at hand: WHY DOESN’T LA HAVE A PRO FOOTBALL TEAM? Local sports entrepreneur and the man that Theo Epstein wishes he was, Casey Wasserman, joined Bill Simmons “The Sports Guy” recently for a fantastic pod-cast on the subject. Wasserman has built a first-of-kind sports management and marketing firm with its hands in nearly every relevant aspect of sports, so I’ll accept him as a qualified expert on the subject. After listening to the podcast, here seem to be the big hang-ups:

First and foremost, No Public Financing for A New Stadium.

The California electorate refuses to provide public funds for construction of a new stadium. Seattle residents took the same stand and saw their basketball team hightail it to that basketball heaven known as Oklahoma City. Lonestar residents were kind enough to provide Jerry Jones with $450 million to help build the new Cowboys stadium. New Yawkaz have fronted about $336 million to George Steinbrenner for the new Yankee Stadium. The prosepctive owner of the Los Angeles franchise will not have the luxury of such subsidies and risk mitigation. The new owner would have to cover that extra $300-$400 mil not to mention the interest on those loans. An extra $20 million in debt servicing here, some high yield constuction financing there, and all of a sudden…we’re talking real money! All in all, the state of California is just not good with stadiums. Sacramento has as garbage facility. So does Golden State. The Staples Center is a premium facility, but look, we had to have two teams share it for it to be built! There is currently no sports facility that even approaches being able to support a modern NFL franchise. And with no public financing for such a facility, the prospect of it happening is unlikely.

The benefits justifying that increased cost are significantly reduced by NFL Revenue Sharing.

The NFL likes parity. It likes keeping podunk franchises like Green Bay competitive with the city slickers from New York, Chicago, etc. To that end, it has a revenue sharing deal that would make Fidel Castro green with envy. Teams share media revenue equally. The visiting team gets 40% of the stadium “gate”. A good chunk of the economic benefit of owning a team in a major media market like Los Angeles would flow back to the general pot, not to the bank account of the owner. So who is going to outlay that billion dollars to get a franchise started when freakin’ Jacksonville is scooping up the increased media revenue that you generated?

Scarcity of demand???

Not really. Once again, we supported two franchises, one would not be a challenge. Look at the demand for USC football. You don’t think a giant share of that would translate to a pro team? And USC, like any college, is limited in its appeal. Baseball cannot be considered a glamour sport by any stretch of the imagination and despite the McCourts the Dodgers have been breaking attendance left and right. You don’t think the city would get just as amped for a football team? It would be huge! Besides that, as The Sports Guy notes, Los Angeles represents one of the highest concentrations of both individual and corporate wealth. That is individual and corporate wealth that would love to snatch up expensive luxury boxes that would be a key feature of a new football stadium. Everyone also forgets that Los Angeles extends beyond Sunset Plaza. There are dozens and dozens of middle income suburbs with residents who are priced out of the Lakers games and love football. They would easily fill seats 50,000 through 100,000 on an NFL Sunday and would basically ensure that every LA football game is a sell-out.

So there you have it. Our cheap asses need to pony up $3.17 a piece and get this stadium built. It will make a guy like Ed Roski richer than a third world dictator, but how can you put a price on extending our ability to prove our cultural superiority?