Ovitz to Drop Carson NFL Bid, Sources Say

Michael Ovitz, the Hollywood mogul whose campaign to build a stadium and shopping complex in Carson helped energize the professional football sweepstakes in Southern California, is preparing to drop his bid and to endorse a new proposal to renovate the Coliseum and build a new ballpark for the Dodgers at Exposition Park, sources close to the fast-developing talks said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in yet another development, some NFL officials are suggesting that Los Angeles’ bid would be strengthened by adding former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley to the group of prospective owners. O’Malley is popular among many current NFL owners, and his name surfaced repeatedly in recent conversations between the NFL and local civic leaders, according to people who participated in those meetings.

“I appreciate that view,” O’Malley said. “I have talked to different people and have listened to what they have to say. It is well-known that several years ago, I had an extraordinary interest in getting involved in football.”

Ovitz has championed a site in Carson and lobbied hard to get a National Football League expansion franchise for that area. But his effort has been handicapped from the start by the strong business and political coalition united behind the Coliseum.

Led by City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the Coliseum campaign also includes such luminaries as Mayor Richard Riordan, billionaire financial services entrepreneur Eli Broad and real estate magnate Ed Roski.

Broad, the main financial power behind the Coliseum proposal, has long said that he would welcome other investors in that effort. Ovitz and Broad are neighbors, and among the leaders of Ovitz’s group is Ron Burkle, a close friend of both Broad and Riordan, suggesting that a unified proposal might combine the two groups.

Although Ovitz was not immediately available for comment, sources close to the football talks said he is expected to endorse the Coliseum effort by the end of the week. In part, those sources said, Ovitz’s move is motivated by his belief that a new proposal to bring both football and baseball to Exposition Park represents an exciting possibility for sports in Los Angeles.

Side-by-side, state-of-the-art baseball and football stadiums would represent a rare development in sports marketing. Some skeptics wonder about the prospects for the baseball park, however, noting that plans for it are far less developed than those for football.

They also question whether it would prove lucrative for the Fox Group, which owns the Dodgers, to abandon the team’s longtime home in Chavez Ravine, which Fox now owns outright, in favor of a spot next to the Coliseum that would be leased from the state.

Others say the dual-stadium proposal would create formidable parking problems that could only be addressed through public investment in a parking structure, a move that the local government generally has resisted.

Details of that idea were reported Tuesday in The Times. Responding to the reports, the NFL and Fox Entertainment Group both released statements confirming talks but shying away from details.

“We have had a number of recent discussions with Los Angeles civic and business leaders, including Fox executives, about various NFL stadium solutions in the Los Angeles area,” the NFL statement said.

Fox’s statement was only slightly more detailed, confirming that the idea has been discussed and emphasizing that it was at the instigation of football officials.

“Over the past year, we have considered a number of proposals to deal with the long-term needs of the Dodgers and Dodger fans,” it said. “. . . One such proposal reported today, made to us recently by parties associated with the NFL, involves relocating the team to a new stadium located at Exposition Park. The proposal brought to us, one of many we have seen, is too preliminary and nonspecific for us to comment on.”

NFL owners are coming to Los Angeles early next week. The league has given Los Angeles until Sept. 15 to present a unified proposal for bringing football back to the region.

If Ovitz drops the Carson site and endorses the Coliseum proposal, that would represent a major step toward unifying the area behind a single proposal.