NFL May Be Warming to Team at Coliseum

Preliminary talks are underway between NFL and Los Angeles Coliseum officials that could lead to the return of pro football in a new stadium at the historic Exposition Park site, a league spokesman confirmed Friday.

A source familiar with the discussions, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the talks could ultimately produce a “term sheet” -- essentially the framework of a stadium plan that would be acceptable to both the league and Coliseum officials.

“It’s a discussion document, part of a negotiation of possible terms,” said league spokesman Greg Aiello. “We wouldn’t characterize it as someone being ahead or behind at this point.”

The development suggests, however, that the league has warmed to the idea of placing a franchise in a reconstructed Coliseum, even though the venue has been derided by many NFL owners in recent years. The region has been without a team since the Raiders returned to Oakland and the Rams moved to St. Louis after the 1994 season.

Even if the league and the Coliseum were to agree on a stadium plan, it is unclear who would pay for the estimated $400-million renovation and whether an existing franchise would relocate to the nation’s No. 2 market or the NFL would expand, adding a 33rd team.

There are two other contenders in the L.A. stadium derby -- Carson and Pasadena. But the Coliseum effort appears to be the furthest along in the process, having completed an environmental-impact report and received the blessing of preservationists seeking to save elements of the stadium, built in 1923.

Prospects for a Pasadena solution have dimmed in recent months, in part because of design snags. The environmental-impact report cannot begin until a design is chosen. The Pasadena City Council submitted a Rose Bowl term sheet a year ago, but the NFL did not respond to it. The Carson effort would place a new stadium on a toxic-landfill site.

Mayor James Hahn and many other elected officials in L.A. have said they would not support a stadium effort if it involved public funds. Financing for a rebuilt Coliseum presumably would come from the league, the team and developers.

Team owners are expected to receive an update on the Los Angeles situation when they convene in Jacksonville, Fla., for league meetings later this month. It is unclear whether the Coliseum and the league will have reached agreement on a term sheet by then.

“Right now, both sides have put down some ideas,” Aiello said. “It’s just at the stage of putting ideas down on a sheet of paper.”

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue told The Times last month that the new Soldier Field in Chicago “has created a vision for what could be done in the Coliseum” and said talks with Coliseum officials have been more productive this time around than they were in 1999, when a Coliseum group was outbid by Houston businessman Bob McNair for the 32nd expansion team.

“Certainly, the opportunity to work on all of the underlying issues -- the construction issues, the cost issues, the design issues, the environmental issues, the historic preservation issues -- the opportunity to do that out of the spotlight is a positive,” Tagliabue said. “Then, we were trying to do it in the spotlight, in a context where you’re not only arguing about a stadium, but you’re also talking about who is going to own the team.”

For several years, the league has considered it a priority to bring the NFL back to Los Angeles. There is additional incentive to have a plan in place soon, because television contracts expire after the 2005 season, and having a team in L.A. would give the league more leverage in those negotiations.

Tagliabue has said it was possible the league could expand to 33 teams in order to place a team in Los Angeles.