Glazer could sell Bucs, buy Dodgers, and bid for NFL in LA

[gridironmike]

Lenny P. speculates on the future of the Bucs, Dodgers, and the NFL in Los Angeles. Although this is dismissed in the article, could you imagine the L.A. Bucs? Al Davis would just holler!!! :laugh:

Glazer's L.A. plan could include new NFL stadium

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By Len Pasquarelli

ESPN.com

Several years ago, when Malcolm Glazer was attempting to acquire the New England Patriots after having failed at previous attempts to land a baseball franchise, one NFL official dismissively referred to him as a "tire kicker."

The implication, of course, was obvious.

In the eyes of some NFL insiders, Glazer was a tease, a man who perused the business ledgers, but at crunch time was more wannabe than willing. He was the guy who moved around the showroom, chatted up a salesman, asked about all the available options, yeah, kicked at the tires and lifted the hood, and even slid behind the wheel once in a while.

But he was the guy, in the NFL's estimation at that time, with a bad case of premature buyer's remorse, the one who never quite consummated the deal and drove the car off the lot.

Malcolm Glazer, left, successfully brought Jon Gruden to Tampa.

It wasn't too long after that Glazer and his family purchased the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and, despite some bumps in the road both on and off the field, turned them into Super Bowl champions in eight seasons. And now, in what is shaping up as incredible irony, the man some NFL officials decided was merely a poseur is poised to become a real powerbroker.

Having finally piloted the four-door sedan off the lot, Glazer, if various media reports are accurate, is ready to trade up to a little deuce sports coupe. Oops, make that sports coup, as Glazer has apparently set his sights on taking over the Los Angeles professional sports market.

Or at least that segment to which Staples Center doesn't play landlord.

Glazer, who once sought the San Diego Padres and the Pittsburgh Pirates, now has his sights set on tearing down the "For Sale" sign that currently is staked at home plate in Dodgers Stadium. Apparently still unable to cure the baseball itch, and with motives that masterfully connect to Los Angeles' abandonment by and of the NFL, Glazer might pack up his Vince Lombardi Trophy, toss it in the back of the U-Haul and head for the Left Coast.

The Bucs owner is one of four suitors who last week submitted bids for the Dodgers, currently owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who has done some business with Glazer in recent months. Glazer recently invested $14 million to purchase about 3 percent of Manchester United, the premier British soccer club whose principle owner is … you guessed it, Murdoch.

It might not be the last time the two men put their heads together on a deal involving a crown jewel sports franchise.

Then again, acquiring the Dodgers, who figure to fetch $400 million or more, even for a faded team in an ever-fading economy, will be significantly more complicated than buying into a bloody soccer club.

In 1997, the NFL enacted stringent rules involving cross-ownership, and neither of the exceptions to those guidelines would make Glazer's purchase of the Dodgers a facile one. An NFL owner can hold the majority interest in another sports entity if it is located in the same market as his football team. Or he can own a team in another sport if it is in a market that is not considered a potential NFL city.

Since he isn't likely to move the Dodgers to Tampa or the Bucs to Southern California (not with a 25-year lease remaining at Raymond James Stadium), Glazer strikes out on the first exception. And given that Paul Tagliabue and his lieutenants have had their focus on Los Angeles ever since the Rams and Raiders picked up stakes after the '94 season, the country's second-largest television market pretty much qualifies as a potential NFL site.

The remedy, and here is where the plot thickens considerably, is to have Glazer sell the Super Bowl champion Bucs, then purchase the Dodgers and build a new football stadium in Chavez Ravine to lure an NFL franchise. He might even have a willing buyer in Tampa, with former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo residing in the area now, and with plenty of reach into the coffers of business associates there.

Yeah, we know it's convoluted, but that doesn't make it contrived.

In 1999, Glazer sniffed around the possibility of buying the New York Jets from the estate of the late Leon Hess, a move that would have required him to peddle off the Bucs at the time. Four years earlier, embroiled with Tampa city fathers over a new stadium, Glazer and his family were courted by the group attempting to relocate an NFL franchise to Los Angeles, to play in the Hollywood Park site league officials had championed.

Glazer owns a home in Beverly Hills, one of his sons lives in Los Angeles, and the family has extensive knowledge of and insight into the area. Some Los Angeles-area media has breathlessly reported that Glazer has told some confidants that an NFL team in the area would be a billion-dollar entity. Uh, no scoop there, folks, since Glazer is a member of the league's influential finance committee, which for several years now has been whispering the B-word in conjunction with a Los Angeles franchise.

The semi-reclusive Glazer probably has more loyalty to the Tampa area than has been portrayed, but the Rochester, N.Y., native, who took over a family shoe business when he was 15 and his father passed away, has more loyalty to the bottom line than anything else. Glazer may appear to be as socially challenged an owner as exists in the NFL, but there is certainly no denying his business acumen, or ability to buy low and sell high.

The Bucs franchise he purchased for a then-record $192 million in 1995 is now worth $600 million-plus, coming off a championship season, plays in a tremendous facility, and probably will never be more valued than it is now. The profit from a sale of the Bucs would make a tidy down payment on the Dodgers, a football stadium and, eventually, an NFL franchise.

While the scenario of Glazer heading west is more smoke than fire for now, it should not be completely discounted, given his track record. Glazer keeps precious little counsel outside the family members, operates when he opts to in a virtual media vacuum, and has always been a master of business stealth. There have been Glazer stories in the past, dismissed as fiction, which had a lot more truth to them than people ever realized.

Case in point: During the week preceding Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa, there were rampant rumors that Bill Parcells was assembling a staff and was coming out of retirement to replace Tony Dungy as the Bucs head coach. The Glazer family issued a lot of non-denial denials, even as Parcells indeed was contacting coaching cronies, but the deal never happened. But it was a marriage in the works, even before Parcells ignominiously (and infamously) left the Bucs at the altar a year later, and was more than smoky fiction.

So could Glazer pull off the improbable Los Angeles power play?

Those close to Glazer, and some past business associates, acknowledge that he should never be underestimated.

Last year, when it seemed he and his sons were conducting an aimless head coaching search that made them easy targets in the local and national media, they magically pulled the Jon Gruden rabbit out of a hat. Still waters usually run deep and, when Glazer and family hunker down in the bunker and then are conspicuously silent about their business affairs, that's often a time to surmise the smokescreen is camouflaging some major deal.

It's been less than 10 years, after all, since Malcolm Glazer was portrayed as a "tire kicker" and proved some league pundits wrong.

The ascent to sports mogul and butt-kicker might not take as long.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

[Yomar]

Fox 11 News in LA is reporting that Glazer buying the Dodgers will be announced tomorrow