If Irsay has his way, the Super Bowl will come to L.A.

The Super Bowl L column, that is.

Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts and a member of the league's Super Bowl committee, said L.A. should be considered as a host site for the game's 50th anniversary in 2016 -- even if there's still no NFL team here.

"In L.A., it's there for the taking," Irsay said. "People there are going to have to make it happen, make it work. But I know right now people are ready to put their time and effort into making this work."

There is a historical reason for staging that game in L.A. The first Super Bowl, pitting Kansas City and Green Bay, was played at the Coliseum in 1966. In the years that followed, one more Super Bowl was played at the Coliseum, and five were played at the Rose Bowl.

The Super Bowl has never been played in a city or region that does not have an NFL team. Two L.A. teams left in 1995, when the Raiders moved back to Oakland and the Rams relocated to St. Louis.

There have been more than a dozen attempts during the past 13 years to bring a team back to the nation's second-largest market, with the latest being Ed Roski's concept of building a stadium in City of Industry.

The way Irsay sees it, the promise of a Super Bowl could help grease the skids for a new team and stadium in the L.A. area.

"If a Super Bowl comes, you're hoping that it leads to a bigger day," he said in a phone interview. "The synergy of the thing hopefully leads to another franchise. It's a realistic possibility."

There wouldn't be any problem persuading representatives of either existing L.A. stadium to host a Super Bowl, which, according to league estimates, pumps as much as $400 million into the host city's economy.

"We'd love to be part of the conversation and would be extremely excited to host it," said Darryl Dunn, general manager of the Rose Bowl.

David Israel, president of the Coliseum Commission, said the game would be a natural fit for that stadium, and pointed out that 2016 will also be the 70th anniversary of the first racially integrated major professional sports team, the 1946 L.A. Rams, who broke the color line with two African American players.

"The Coliseum is where the Super Bowl was born," Israel said. "And it's always good to go home again."

Super Bowls are awarded years in advance. The next four sites have been decided -- Tampa, Miami, Dallas and Indianapolis -- and the 2013 game probably will be awarded this spring.

In addition to Irsay, the Super Bowl committee is composed of Chicago's Mike McCaskey, Philadelphia's Jeffrey Lurie, Pittsburgh's Art Rooney, Cincinnati's Katie Blackburn -- all owners or ownership family members -- and Buffalo executive Mary Owen.

The Super Bowl bids are expensive. In Indianapolis, Irsay spearheaded an effort that raised more than $25 million of private money to pay for the proposal. He said someone in L.A. would have to make a similar effort, and stressed that the Super Bowl wouldn't simply be handed to the city.

"There's no doubt in my mind that if somebody were to say, 'We're going to go out and get this thing,' they'd have a helluva chance," said Irsay, who spends a lot of time in L.A. and is a member of Riviera Country Club.

"They'd have my vote, I'll tell you that."

Farmer is a Times staff writer.

sam.farmer@latimes.com