ANSCHUTZ TO BRAVE NFL CAROUSEL.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

Are you ready to start over again with this NFL business? Ready for more belabored negotiations, back-room dealings, conflicting messages, unexpected U-turns and convoluted promises?

Precious little in the NFL is simple. The league can't formulate a simple tuck rule, so it's not difficult to fathom that anyone wanting a team would be made to feel like Theseus in the labyrinth.

Just thinking of the NFL returning makes me tired again. These people are not like you and me. They don't think so, either.

The most recent group to come forward and brave the NFL's return to Los Angeles is headed by Philip Anschutz, the media-shy Denver billionaire who owns most of the Kings, Staples Center, the Galaxy and three other Major League Soccer teams, five soccer teams in Europe, more businesses than General Electric and a couple of planets.

Tim Leiweke, president of the Kings, Anschutz Entertainment Group and Staples Center, has long said Anschutz would be interested in building a downtown stadium if it made economic sense. The interest has now advanced to forming a powerful coalition to consider a stadium location and is in what Leiweke calls the ``preliminary stages'' of determining a site.

Things remain so exploratory that Monday, Leiweke and Casey Wasserman, the 27-year-old owner of the arena Avengers, met with Peter O'Malley to see if they could interest the former owner of the Dodgers to join their group.

``Obviously, I was honored, but I explained my heart and passion was in that Dodger Stadium site because we gave it as good a go as anything I ever have, and it didn't work out,'' O'Malley said. ``And that's fine.

``However, now I completely support what Tim and Casey and Phil Anschutz are trying to do. It's a complicated puzzle. I think they have the vision and the talent to put it together.''

O'Malley wanted to build a football stadium in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium but bowed to pressure from City Hall to support a bid to refurbish the Coliseum. Oh, what could have been.

Leiweke said Dodger Stadium is one of the locations the Anschutz group is considering for the 55-acre stadium site.

``We're looking at the railroad yards, Dodger Stadium and three or four different sites out there that might have enough mass to do it,'' Leiweke said.

Adding O'Malley to the Anschutz group has a romantic feel to it, plus he was favored by several NFL owners, but he no longer owns Dodger Stadium or the team. To go there now would mean hooking up with Rupert Murdoch, who's more interested in selling the Dodgers than buying into a football team, so let's scrap the Dodger Stadium concept.

The railroad yards at Union Station make more sense, since Anschutz just happens to be the Union Pacific's largest stockholder. And it would be visible from the 101 Freeway.

If you were Anschutz and had already spent $375 million on Staples Center and were scheduled to spend $1 billion on a 27-acre downtown development near the arena, where would you want to build a football stadium?

As close to Staples Center as possible. Not that it would be slam dunk, either.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who championed the Coliseum for the expansion team, said most of the land around Staples Center is in a redevelopment area.

``It's not as though there are not other plans for downtown,'' Ridley-Thomas said. ``They have to overcome those other plans and design.''

And in an ominous comment recalling L.A.'s fractional expansion bid, he added: ``In the final analysis, the Coliseum will be a competing venue and it will be viable. There will be other groups competing.''

Yet Anschutz did build the Staples Center, has broken ground on a $120-million sports complex in Carson, and even Ridley-Thomas acknowledges his efforts must be taken seriously.

If L.A. is to get the NFL back, it should be clear by now that it will need a privately built, state-of-the-art stadium, not some worked-over Coliseum. Sort of the Staples Center of football stadiums.

Of course, it is very hard to believe Anschutz would have gone even this far if he didn't have strong reason to believe a team will follow. This week the likely candidates are the Chargers, Saints and Colts, but stay tuned for hourly updates.

Leiweke said the Anschutz group - which includes former Michael Ovitz backer and billionaire Ron Burkle - is willing to own part of the team or just the stadium.

``In theory, there are teams that want to move here,'' Leiweke said. ``At the end of the day, owning a team is not what would necessarily drive us. But if part of this is we need to be a partner to have local ownership, we're not against that.

``It's just not what motivates us. What motivates us is, can we do something that makes business sense and is good for L.A.''

That translates into few tax dollars to aid stadium construction, which is something the NFL will have to get over. When owners question L.A.'s enthusiasm for the NFL, read: Houston offered a tax-supported stadium and bid $100 million more for the expansion team!

Anschutz, 61, runs marathons, which should be excellent training for dealing with the NFL.

``The question is,'' Ridley-Thomas said, ``whether whoever competes has the tolerance for the way the NFL does business. It's very much a different animal.''

To pull this off, Anschutz and his group need the land, the financing, the team, and the backing of the NFL. O'Malley thinks it can happen.

``They have a vision and a plan to bring the NFL back here,'' he said. ``It's got to be a situation where it's good for the city, good for the NFL, good for the franchise, good for the fans. Good for everybody. I think they've got a good chance to make that happen.''

Buckle up, it figures to be another long ride.