Sports Franchises

Entertainment giant MCA Inc. has agreed to back a proposed sports and entertainment complex in Santa Ana, filling a major gap in financing and programming for the $75-million project, city officials and other developers disclosed Monday. Antonio G. Tavares, president of the Philadelphia-based Spectacor Management Group, said MCA is to become an equal financial partner in the proposed 20,000-seat arena, along with his group and a third developer.

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.

One year from today--Sept. 3, 1995--the National Football League will open the regular season, and the Rams will be playing in. . . . The answer is forthcoming, Rams President John Shaw says, and by month's end he will have met again with Peter Angelos, the Baltimore Orioles' majority owner who is acting on behalf of that city's efforts to lure a team. Hartford has submitted a serious proposal, St. Louis continues to be interested, and Anaheim has not surrendered.

Sometime Tuesday, Los Angeles Rams owner Georgia Frontiere is slated to sign a lucrative deal to move her football team to St. Louis. But the extraordinary agreement--which will include a new stadium for the team to play in and immense annual profits--will be John Shaw's handiwork through and through. Almost five years in the making, the accord represents the team president's calculated strike to boost Frontiere's sagging fortunes and finances.

The Cold War might be over for the rest of the Soviet Union, but not for Vladimir Krutov. His battle, however, is with one small segment of the Western world--the National Hockey League in general and the Vancouver Canucks in particular. Krutov has become a hockey player frozen out of his own sport, a Russian living in self-imposed exile from the ice.

Building a new stadium to attract an NFL team would be financially beneficial to Los Angeles but not as lucrative as some experts may contend, an informal Times survey found. The direct annual impact of a football team in Los Angeles would be about $32 million, the survey of financial experts, officials and various economic reports found.

Sometime Tuesday, Ram owner Georgia Frontiere will formally announce what was learned Saturday: She has struck a lucrative deal to move her football team to St. Louis. Frontiere's signature will seal the extraordinary agreement--which will include a new stadium and immense annual profits--but it will be John Shaw's handiwork that made it happen. Almost five years in the making, the move represents the team president's calculated strike to boost Frontiere's sagging fortunes and finances.

From an Arcadia high school student who made money trading Roman coins to a sports mogul whose Los Angeles Kings nearly won professional hockey's Stanley Cup last year, Bruce P. McNall has projected an image of glittery success. With his open checkbook McNall spent millions to lure such star athletes as Wayne Gretzky to his Kings and former Notre Dame star Raghib (Rocket) Ismail to his Canadian football team, the Toronto Argonauts.

Los Angeles Rams owner Georgia Frontiere said Saturday night the team's 49-year relationship with Southern California is over, and she will sign official papers Tuesday to move the team to St. Louis. "I'm on my way," said Frontiere, who will fly to St. Louis today. "I have to give my approval; I have no other choice." The Rams, who projected a loss of $6 million to $7 million in 1994, have received an offer from St.

Los Angeles developer and philanthropist Eli Broad has offered to buy the Dodgers for $430 million, mostly in cash, if Boston developer Frank McCourt's highly leveraged bid falls through, according to a letter from Broad to Fox Group obtained Friday by The Times. Los Angeles Mayor James K.

If the Russian metal magnate Mikhail Prokhorov's bid for 80% of the New Jersey Nets seems landmark for its foreignness, just gaze at the motherland. In a United Kingdom whose churning internationalism can make the United States seem cloistered by contrast, foreign ownership of the 20 soccer clubs in the globally towering English Premier League has reached quite a juncture: half. "I'm almost losing track," said Michael Brunskill of the watchdog group Football Supporters' Federation.

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 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 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.

When is Los Angeles getting an NFL team? The answer is simple: It isn't -- not as long as the Coliseum fancies itself an option. It's as clear-cut as that. The league has no interest in moving forward with that stadium, and yet realizes that moving forward on any other project here would be too much of a political headache as long as the publicly owned Coliseum is being promoted as viable. The cost estimates of a Coliseum renovation range from $600 million to more than $1 billion.

Land developer Ed Roski Jr., who was instrumental in the building of Staples Center, has 600 acres, a plan for a new stadium in the City of Industry, and experience in dealing with the confounding folks who run the NFL. Maintaining he's not "nuts" for resuming his NFL quest after the frustrating and fruitless try to win an expansion team for the Coliseum a few years ago, Roski said Monday he will meet with NFL officials soon.

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.

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 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.