In two years, Los Angeles could have as many as three new sports teams.
While the arrival of the Los Angeles Rams in Inglewood and the possibility of the San Diego Chargers or Oakland Raiders joining them has garnered all the headlines, a third football franchise is quietly preparing for business: Los Angeles Football Club.
The Major League Soccer expansion franchise, sporting a roster of 25 co-owners, is building a $250 million complex in Exposition Park – the most expensive privately financed soccer facility in the country. Upon its completion in 2018, the complex will include restaurants, a soccer museum and, of course, a 22,000-seat stadium on the South L.A. site of what is now the Sports Arena adjacent to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the Rams will be playing until the Inglewood stadium is ready in 2019.
For comparison, the Inglewood complex, as drawn up, will cost $1.86 billion, seat more than 70,000 fans, feature a roof that doubles as the world’s largest electronic billboard as well as be part of a 300-acre site with homes, shops, restaurants and entertainment offerings for pre- and postgame festivities.
Both the Rams and LAFC are going through a similar preparatory process, according to one of the soccer team’s co-owners, Peter Guber, chief executive of Mandalay Entertainment and co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Golden State Warriors.
“We have the same problems, the same challenges, the same risks. It’s exactly the same,” said Guber. “The fans that measure their experience say, Was the parking good? Were the concessions good? Was the stadium up to date? Was the environment conducive to the best experience? That transcends size.”
For Guber, ensuring that fans enjoy their outing to see the team play matters most – and he’s confident that can be achieved without a National Football League-size bank account.
“You don’t say, That movie cost $100 million to make and that movie cost $25 million, so the $100 million one must be better,” said the former Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and chief executive. “It’s about experience.”
Guber said the relocation of an NFL team hasn’t changed LAFC’s calculus.
“They compete for attention from an audience for sure, whether it’s seats, eyeballs or sponsors,” he said. “But they’re not concentric circles. They have a great division of interest and I can’t imagine them both not being successful in this market.”
New era
But this won’t be the first time a new MLS franchise has attempted to make Los Angeles a two-team soccer market alongside the Los Angeles Galaxy.
Club Deportivo Chivas USA, which launched in 2004 as an offshoot of popular Mexican team Club Deportivo Guadalajara, shared Carson’s StubHub Center with the Galaxy for 10 years as it sought a toehold in Southern California by appealing to Latino fans. While Chivas USA games initially drew crowds of approximately 13,000, interest waned as on-field performance tanked, the club’s finances plummeted, and the Galaxy hogged the spotlight with multiple MLS titles and superstar signings such as David Beckham. Things got so bad that Chivas began the 2013 season with no local TV deal in place.
The club folded after the 2014 regular season and was bought by MLS, which then sold the franchise to the current owners of LAFC for a reported $100 million later that year.
LAFC is trying to distance itself from that past with a high-profile ownership group that includes veteran sports executives and businessmen such as Guber, venture capitalist Henry Nguyen, former National Basketball Association executive Tom Penn as well as big-name former athletes Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Mia Hamm. Even actor Will Ferrell is on board.
But revitalizing the area’s soccer scene might not be smooth sailing. And a winning team will certainly be part of the equation.
“Going to the postseason is a good sign. If not, you’re going to see a falloff,” said Steve Shiffman, senior director of ticket sales for the Kansas City Royals and chief executive of Leading Edge Sports Consulting in Los Angeles. He noted that a strong team would be one of the most important factors in driving interest.
Finding an audience will also be key.
“You always have that thing that once people come and get acculturated they’ll lose their taste for soccer,” said Dean Baim, a professor of economics at Pepperdine University, referring to the large international population that LAFC will primarily court as its audience base.
But there are reasons to be optimistic on that front. The average attendance at MLS regular season games in 2015 was 21,574 – an increase of 13 percent year to year. And while the Galaxy franchise isn’t going anywhere, many feel that LAFC’s home near downtown will help the club distinguish itself from its local rivals.
“It’ll give the Galaxy a run for its money,” said Steve Webster, chief executive of Manhattan Beach sports publicity agency CMPR, who suggested the team’s well-known co-owners should be able to put together a competitive team to rival the Galaxy.
“Soccer has a good place in the marketplace,” added consultant Shiffman. “The timing is perfect, because it’s really caught on in the last three to five years.”
But he did add a caveat.
“Does it compete against NFL?” he said. “Not quite.”
The debut of LAFC will also be a boon to the South L.A. neighborhood of Exposition Park.
“There’s no question about it. Exposition Park never really died, but I can assure you this will be a significant shot in the arm,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose district encompasses the area where the new MLS stadium will be located.
Bigger picture
According to a study commissioned by owners of LAFC, the team will create an estimated 1,800 full-time jobs and have an economic impact of $130 million annually, with as much as $3 billion over the next 30 years at the state, county and local levels as a result of the construction of the stadium.
Regardless of the team’s success, however, its addition alone could help write a new page in local sports history.
Should a second NFL team join the Rams, the greater L.A. (including Anaheim) would count 10 major professional sports teams, boosting its credentials as the second-biggest sports market in the country; the New York metropolitan area has 11 franchises.
The construction of stadiums will also spur progress toward L.A.’s next goal: securing the 2024 Summer Olympics.
“We certainly have the venues,” said Pepperdine’s Baim, ticking off a list that included the LAFC and Inglewood stadiums, a newly renovated Coliseum, StubHub Center, Staples Center, Rose Bowl and Pyramid in Long Beach, among others. “That’s probably our strong point.”
Ridley-Thomas agreed, adding that the region’s expanded public transportation system will allow visitors to get to all those far-flung venues.
“I’d like to think of this as synergistic,” he said, adding that the Expo Line from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica will open in the coming months.
“It’s all coming together in a fabulous way.”
