NFL in L.A.? Don't hold your breath

As this newspaper's NFL writer, I field that question more than any other. My answer is simple:

Get real.

The chance of a team moving back here -- expansion beyond the current 32 teams is out of the question -- is growing slimmer by the day. Spiraling construction costs made it too expensive for the league to seriously consider it two years ago, and that was with extremely favorable banking relationships and rates. Now, the increasing difficulty of financing such a mega-deal makes things even tougher.

Most billionaires didn't amass their fortunes by being dumb with their money, and a move back to L.A. would require boatloads of dumb money.

Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal reported this week that the Giants, Jets and Cowboys are going to have to shell out substantially more money to build their new stadiums because of the implosion of the short-term debt market, which those teams have used to fund construction.

Even the mighty New England Patriots, a model NFL franchise, have run into problems on the financial aspects of their stadium debt.

In all, the league is saddled with $9 billion of debt, most of it connected to the construction costs of new stadiums, the purchase of teams, and ever-rising player salaries.

"When you shrink the margins by increased player costs and other increased costs, at some point the economics become untenable," Commissioner Roger Goodell said at the annual league meetings this week. "That's the concern. The deal has to work for the owners in an environment that is clearly ... uncertain at best."

The brewing fight over the collective-bargaining agreement and the very real specter of a player strike or lockout only make an L.A. scenario more outlandish.

As the cost of borrowing money goes up, so does the cost of an NFL franchise. Owners this week approved the sale of 50% of the Miami Dolphins to real estate mogul Stephen Ross for $550 million. And just think what the price might have been had the Dolphins won more than one game last season.

In the case of L.A., that's a billion-plus for a stadium, a billion-plus for a team, and some kind of gargantuan relocation fee. After all, you don't think those owners are going to give away the nation's No. 2 market for nothing, do you?

All that to come to a place the Raiders and Rams abandoned for greener pastures more than a decade ago.

So teams like the Chargers, Raiders, 49ers, Saints, Jaguars, Chiefs and others are longing for fancy new homes -- perhaps even in Southern California?

Aren't we all.

sam.farmer@latimes.com