Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz remains committed to bringing professional football back to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and welcomes competition from any other possible site, including the area around Dodger Stadium owned by Peter O'Malley, according to the president and chief operating officer of Anschutz Corp.
In interviews and a letter sent this week, representatives of Anschutz Corp. and other Coliseum supporters said they believe pro football will return to Los Angeles sooner if there is an open, freewheeling competition for the franchise.
"We do not believe Peter O'Malley or anyone else should be asked to hold off on making a proposal, and we would urge Mr. O'Malley and others to make their proposals as soon as possible," Anschutz Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Cannon Y. Harvey said in a letter to state Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles). "We are confident that the Coliseum is the right venue and that the consortium forged by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas has the best capacity to achieve a successful result."
In the delicate, nuanced language of the Coliseum negotiations, that represents a subtle but important shift in emphasis by the project's backers. Initially, they had asked potential rivals to back the Coliseum, but some Coliseum supporters now believe that approach is hurting the effort by allowing NFL owners to believe that if they reject returning to the Exposition Park site, they can later turn to O'Malley or someone else for a Southern California stadium.
Harvey would not characterize his letter as a change in the negotiating position of the Coliseum group, saying instead that it was an expression of the Anschutz Corp.'s understanding that the bid for Los Angeles football has always been an open competition.
Ridley-Thomas, whose district includes the Coliseum, concurred. "If they have a better project, then they should put it forward," he said of the Coliseum's potential rivals. "But they will be in direct competition with the new Coliseum. . . . Either their support for the new Coliseum is earnest or it is not. If it is not earnest and they are waiting for it to fail, they will be waiting a long time."
Through a spokeswoman, Mayor Richard Riordan said he, too, believes that competition would be healthy for the football sweepstakes. Riordan, the spokeswoman said, is convinced that the Coliseum will prevail.
