Council straight-arms NFL in dash to make concerts a regular Rose Bowl feature
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/a_new_game_plan/12823/
By Andre Coleman, February 13, 2014
On Monday, the Pasadena City Council began a process designed to
take any possibility of the NFL playing in the Rose Bowl off the table
and introduced a possible “third tenant” in the form of concerts.
The
council voted unanimously to increase the number of displacement events
— an event with an expected attendance of 24,000 people or more — from
12 to 18. The council also made it clear that the city will not enter
into any agreement that would allow the NFL to use the stadium as a
temporary home in 2014.
“The Rose Bowl is
actively considering opportunities that have come in since the first of
the year for music events and a soccer game and this gives us the
opportunity to defer any consideration of the NFL for 2014,” said Mayor
Bill Bogaard.” The goal here is to develop a program of activities that
work for the neighbors and reduce the need to even consider the NFL.”
When
asked if the increase in displacement events was the beginning of a
process to eliminate any possibility of a team playing in the Rose Bowl,
Bogaard said, “Yes, if things can come together on some new tenant or
activity that is reliable. The goal is to go down that path and no
longer consider the NFL.”
The Rose Bowl has
long been talked about as a possible temporary home for a professional
team relocating to Los Angeles while a permanent stadium was being built
somewhere in Los Angeles County. The chance of that happening seemed to
have improved earlier this year when a judge threw out a lawsuit filed
by homeowners alleging that the city’s environmental impact report (EIR)
on bringing a pro team to Pasadena did not accurately study the impacts
of the additional traffic and noise.
Last
month, the NFL confirmed that St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke had
purchased a 60-acre tract of land in Inglewood, near the site of
Hollywood Park, which has been closed to make way for residential
development. The Rams left Anaheim for St. Louis in 1995 and the Oakland
Raiders left Los Angeles a year later, leaving the NFL without a
football team in the second biggest television market in the country.
The
Rams’ current lease with the Edward Jones Dome contains an escape
clause that will kick in at the end of the 2014 season. According to
ESPN, if the stadium hasn’t been upgraded to one of the eight best
venues in the NFL before that time, the Rams’ lease will then become a
year-to-year proposition.
Rose Bowl General
Manager Darryl Dunn has said repeatedly that no formal negotiations took
place between the city and the league, but Councilman Victor Gordo, who
sits on the Rose Bowl Operating Committee (RBOC) and serves as the
liaison between the city and the Rose Bowl, said that the displacement
events only address 2014’s possibility of an NFL team at the Rose Bowl,
and added the right thing to do is to continue pursuing alternatives
that build harmony between the stadium and the residents living in the
Lower Arroyo.
“Rather than have the NFL go the
way of the 710 [Freeway connector proposal] and remain a question that
continues to divide this community, the responsible thing to do is
pursue alternatives and see if there is a viable solution,” Gordo said.
The
vote to increase the number of events comes less than a week after the
council voted to revamp its contract with the RBOC to increase
communication between the stadium and the council. The new contract
includes recommendations for three reports a year from the RBOC to the
council and new policies for managing large events.
The
RBOC has been battling for more than a decade to bring the financially
troubled Rose Bowl into the black. In 2005, the council was split on
entering negotiations with the NFL to bring a permanent team to the
stadium, but later voted against it. The move prompted then-Councilman
Chris Holden, now a member of the state Assembly, to take the issues to
the voters who overwhelmingly defeated the measure when 84 percent of
voters.
Despite the legal fight waged by
neighbors to keep the NFL out of the Lower Arroyo, residents seem
willing to allow more high-density events, even though they would also
bring more cars and noise into their neighborhoods.
“The
neighborhood does not seem bent out of shape,” said Councilman Terry
Tornek. “There are a lot of positive aspects to this. We have some
serious moneymakers, including the group One Direction coming in for
three shows. That is huge. I think it is a good test drive for what the
Rose Bowl Operating Committee is calling a third tenant. You have the
Tournament of Roses, UCLA and the third tenants would be concerts.”
Boy
band One Direction has taken the music world by storm. Fans purchased
300,000 tickets in one day after the group announced dates for its
100-show concert tour sold in 2012, including a six-date sell-out of the
20,000-seat O2 Arena in London, which holds substantially less people
than the Rose Bowl.
Other events scheduled for
this year include an international soccer match in July, which is
expected to attract 70,000 people, according to a staff report. Later
this year, the stadium will also host Autism Speaks, an awareness event
which in the past has been attended by more than 40,000 people. In
addition, the stadium will once again host AmericaFest, the biggest
Independence Day celebration on the West Coast.
“If
you are dead set against the Rose Bowl [being used by the NFL] this is a
good thing,” Tornek said. “I think it could be a good conversation to
say ‘OK, no more NFL and what can we do for the Arroyo?’ The big picture
is the Arroyo and that is what we need to figure out; how to manage the
Arroyo.