NFL to L.A.: dream before reality

04 February 2011 |permalink | email article

After all the wild enthusiasm by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and much of the city’s sports, entertainment and business elite to embrace AEG’s proposed $1-billion NFL facility next to the Staples Center in the already crowded downtown corridor the normally passive City Council awakened and took a cooler view in voting to have a financial analyst study the stadium’s cost and benefits. Councilman Paul Krekorian, a leading doubter, said the city should avoid going to “extraordinary lengths” to speed approval of the project. “What’s the rush?” He’s right.

On Wednesday at Super Bowl media day at Cowboys Stadium, Art Rooney II, the president of the Steelers, said he thought a team would return to Los Angeles by 2016. “I think Los Angeles is in the picture by then,” he said. “It’s great football town. They’ve supported a few franchises over the years, and hopefully, we’ll get another one back there by a least 2016.” Los Angeles has been without an NFL franchise for a decade and a half. But in recent months, dueling proposals to build world-class stadiums to lure a team have raised the prospect that the city may get one. But cost and location matter, and 2016 is a long way off.

Crisis in Egypt

Hosni Mubarak tells ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour that “If I resign today there will be chaos.” The Pharaoh is playing a game with President Obama to buy more time, using the Muslim Brotherhood as an excuse…. Mike Huckabee, the GOP frontrunner in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, criticizes Obama for not being more supportive of Mubarak, but some of his rivals want him out and side with the Obama administration.

Quotable

“I want to be clear: “Now’ started yesterday.” – Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, on Obama’s call on Tuesday for a political transition in Egypt to begin now.

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