Roski chips away at luring NFL to L.A.

Somewhere on Sunday, Ed Roski was watching and drooling.

He knew that what he was seeing, on a super Sunday of NFL competition, was what he wants for his city of Los Angeles.

All but a handful of the games had a bearing on the playoffs. There were more permutations than a slot machine. If you were a Philadelphia Eagles fan, you lived and died with what was happening in Tampa and Minneapolis. If you were a New England Patriots fan, your heart pounded fast for the New York Jets over Miami.

This was Chapter One of the book on sports marketing. Almost everything that was happening mattered. You can engage fans with luxury suites in shiny new stadiums, and leggy cheerleaders in sexy outfits. But you can't turn them on with the same passion as you will with games that count and drip with drama.

Somewhere on Sunday, while Roski drooled, the architect of this all, the late NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle was up there smiling.

Roski wants to make Los Angeles part of this again. He wants occasional grand finale games of seasons -- such as Sunday night's Chargers victory over the Broncos, with the virtuoso voice of Al Michaels describing it all -- to be taking place about 100 miles north of Qualcomm Stadium.

Yes, after nearly 15 years of having his city jerked around like a Yorkshire terrier on a leash and lied to like a jury at a Mafia murder trial, Ed Roski wants to try again. He has land, the financial wherewithal, an entrepreneurial spirit and a plan that is hard to ignore. He even seems to have the NFL's ear these days, but then, with them, it is hard to know which face to talk to.

Roski, president of Majestic Realty in the City of Industry, wants to build a stadium for an NFL team on land near the intersection of the 57 and 60 freeways. He also wants to own whatever team plays there, or at least a major portion of it.

You haven't heard a lot about this for several reasons. Most members of the media -- and readers, listeners and viewers they serve -- have been down this path with the NFL so many times that their minds click off to the words "NFL team in L.A." The old phrase "fool me once . . . " doesn't quite make it. With L.A. and the NFL, it is more like "fool me forever. . . . "

Another reason this is not a daily update news story is because Roski is a quiet man who does things mostly behind the scenes and has been through this NFL shell game, sort of as a bit player, several times before. Roski would rather climb Mt. Kilimanjaro (he has) or walk the wilds of an African jungle (he has) than see his picture in the paper every day.