Sports Franchises

The NFL is willing to consider a return to its Los Angeles roots. Evidently, so are the San Diego Chargers. While the league is kicking around the notion of playing the 50th Super Bowl in L.A. -- where the first one took place -- the onetime L.A. Chargers appear to be inching closer to a possible return to their birthplace. As is always the case with the on-again, off-again saga of the NFL's flirtation with the nation's second-largest market, nothing is written in stone.

The Lakers just won the NBA championship, and Southern California celebrated with them, with hundreds of thousands of fans attracted to a parade down Figueroa Street and a rally at the Coliseum. There are 122 teams in the NBA, NFL, NHL and Major League Baseball. And Southern California is home to the team that best repays its fans "for all the emotion, money and time fans invest," according to an ESPN study to be unveiled today. That team is not the Lakers. That team is the Angels.

The Angels did not land a lavish new television contract last winter. They did not unveil new luxury suites. They did raise ticket prices but only modestly in comparison with other major league teams in prime markets. And yet their franchise value shot up, way up. The Angels jumped from 13th to sixth in the annual Forbes rankings, in a year no other club jumped more than three spots.

Convinced he can succeed where so many before him have failed, billionaire developer Ed Roski today will unveil plans for a proposed NFL stadium in the City of Industry, aimed at luring the league back to the Los Angeles area. NFL executives have already visited the site, which is near the intersection of the 57 and 60 freeways, and have had several conversations with Roski.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell delivered his first Super Bowl address Friday, but he shed little new light on the prospects of putting a team back in the Los Angeles market. "We need to find a solution in Los Angeles that works for both the community and the NFL," he said in a refrain he and his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, have said for years.

What really stays in Vegas is your money, which is why there are so many fantasies about looting it in all the movies, songs and TV shows about the city. Not that it's even easy to imagine. Even after the thieves in "Ocean's Eleven" walk out of Terry Benedict's safe with $150 million, he finds them in the sequel and makes them pay it back, plus $40 million in interest. Asked if that's fair, Benedict, played by Andy Garcia, murmurs ominously: "I hope not."

This week marks the start of Major League Soccer's 12th season, and the debate about the league's financial health is again a topic around at least a few water coolers. It's not an open-and-shut case. How, for instance, can MLS be called healthy if 10 of its 12 teams lost money last year, including a reported $14-million loss by the New York Red Bulls?

The commission in charge of the Memorial Coliseum seems at a crossroads: should it keep chasing its NFL dream, or sign a long-term deal with USC? That will be the focus of today's monthly meeting, its last before summer break. Clearly, there are divergent opinions on the nine-member commission, with some not ready to give up on pro football returning, and others fed up with the flirtations that have dragged on since the Raiders left after the 1994 season.

LAS VEGAS -- Would AEG and Harrah's Entertainment form a partnership for a privately financed $500-million arena project set to open here in 2010 without a commitment from the NBA or NHL? Yes . . . and no. Turns out, it depends on how you want to define commitment.

The NFL will send a staff contingent to Southern California within the next month to investigate potential stadium sites that do not include the Coliseum or Anaheim, according to sources inside and outside the league. League officials are known to be interested in Chavez Ravine and believed to be considering an undisclosed location in the City of Industry.