COULD IT BE SUPER BOWL L(A)?

Byline: BILLY WITZ

DETROIT - Never mind the lukewarm reception for the first Super Bowl, that there hasn't been pro football in Los Angeles in more than a decade or that there's no suitable stadium at the moment.

When it comes time to host the golden anniversary of the NFL's biggest game, Super Bowl L could be Super Bowl L.A.

``With this being the 40th game, the sentiment is that the 50th anniversary of the first Super Bowl ought to be played in Los Angeles, which is where the first one was played,'' one team executive said this week.

Since the NFL has never been accused of acting on sentiment, the best part of this is that the 50th Super Bowl is still 10 years off and a decision on where the game will be played is probably at least four years away.

That may be enough time to get a stadium deal done in Los Angeles, where the NFL has been working on it for nearly three years at the Coliseum and 18 months in Anaheim.

The pace has been particularly brisk of late.

On Monday, Coliseum general manager Pat Lynch, consultant Rich Lichtenstein and their attorneys will fly to New York for two days of meetings with NFL executive vice president of strategic planning Neil Glat, the league's point person on Los Angeles. Glat will have a teleconference with Anaheim representatives on Wednesday.

The discussions are an attempt to get an agreement on the lease terms wrapped up prior to the Super Bowl.

``We're plowing ahead,'' Glat said.

NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in November that he'd hoped to have the agreements in hand by the Super Bowl. This was to allow them to be vetted by owners over the following six weeks so that they'd be in a position to make a decision on a site at the annual league meeting in late March. And if not then, by the owners' meeting in late May.

It's beginning to look increasingly like the latter - or even later.

At the forefront of the NFL's business plate is extending the collective bargaining agreement, which expires in March 2008. However, if a new agreement is not reached by March 2007, then the salary cap disappears - something the owners desperately hope to avoid.

Negotiations have gone on with the players' union for two years and have dominated the owners' agenda for nine months. A one-day meeting Thursday in Orlando was devoted to the subject.

Until that deal is done, don't expect any decisions on Los Angeles.

``It doesn't make sense to invest hundreds of millions of dollars without an owner, without a franchise, if there's even a chance - and I'm not suggesting that there will be - but even a chance of a lockout or an uncapped year,'' said the team executive, who attended the meeting.

``To try to start up a 33rd franchise or relocate an existing one with all this unsettled is not a pretty scenario. Is there a will to get a team back in L.A.? There's a lot of will. It just takes a back seat right now.''

In Anaheim, the NFL and the city are ``close'' to agreeing on the cost of the land adjacent to Angel Stadium that the city would turn over to the NFL, Glat said.

While there has been little design work done on the Anaheim site, that is the focus of the discussions with the Coliseum. The NFL's stadium construction consultant, Hammes Co., has been working with Coliseum architects for the last month in an attempt to implement design changes to the plans that have passed through the city's planning department.

The lease agreements would have to be approved by the Anaheim City Council and the Coliseum Commission.

``It's dull and boring, but we're moving forward,'' Lynch said of the process. ``There's no mystery: the NFL is the one driving this. When the owners are ready to go, we want to be ready to go. When that is, who knows?''