EDITORIAL RETURN OF THE RAIDERS? L.A. TAXPAYERS SHOULDN'T SHELL OUT THE GREEN FOR THE SILVER AND BLACK.

IT'S been a long 17 years since the Raiders last played in a Super Bowl, but if they beat the Baltimore Ravens today, they'll be making a return trip.

Back in 1984, of course, the Raiders were still the Los Angeles Raiders. They were winning, and they were ours.

Now that the Raiders are winning again, there's talk about bringing them back to town.

It would be nice to end L.A.'s reputation as laughingstock of the football world. After losing the Raiders back to Oakland, the Rams to St. Louis and a promised NFL expansion franchise to Houston, recovering the silver and black would be no small feat.

It might even be worth the price of reconciling with the team's impossible owner, Al Davis.

But it wouldn't be worth a penny of the taxpayers' money.

Al Davis is a wealthy man. He owns a chunk of a team worth hundreds of millions of dollars, staffed with millionaire athletes. Neither he - nor any other professional sports owner - needs to collect welfare from the residents of Los Angeles.

If there is widespread public enthusiasm for professional football in L.A., the private sector should have little trouble raising the capital necessary to build a new stadium.

But as L.A.'s pathetic legacy with the NFL shows, that level of fan support simply doesn't seem to exist. Our contribution to the football world is the L.A. Xtreme, the local franchise of the XFL, pro wrestling's attempt to bring Smackdown! to the gridiron.

That says it all about football in L.A.

The only reason why football owners would ever need subsidies to build new stadiums would be if stadiums were a risky investment - which they usually are.

A recent University of Maryland study of 37 cities between 1969 and 1996 found that public investment in sports stadiums rarely pay for themselves. On average, new arenas generate $67 in per-capita income, but cost $73 per capita in taxes and other expenses.

By the end of the year, it's estimated that the Raiders will have cost Oakland taxpayers $108 million - and Davis still isn't happy.

We can think of better ways to spend the taxpayers' money than on costly corporate welfare. Try new roads, new freeways or new fire departments. Or how about some new schools to relieve our overcrowded classrooms?

Still, in the heart of many Angelenos, a soft spot for the Raiders remains. It would be great to see them back in L.A. But that's unlikely to happen unless the city offers to help Davis buy a new stadium. And as much as we like the Raiders, we don't like them that much.

So we wish our old team the best today. Many Angelenos will keep rooting for them in the future - but from afar.