L.A. SPORTS HUSTLERS STEWING UP BITTER POT.

Byline: Bill Wood

THERE are several pots boiling on the sports-biz stove and all could have a part to play in a stew that could arrive in Los Angeles as an NFL expansion team.

First came the death of New York Jets owner Leon Hess, an 85-year-old former kosher butcher who made money putting gas in George Patton's tanks during World War II and putting Joe Namath into Super Bowl III, NFL history and the Hall of Fame. Forbes magazine said he was one of the wealthiest men in the world with a net worth of more than $720 million. His funeral was Monday in Manhattan.

But Hess didn't want his family involved in the Jets after his death so the team will go on the block to the highest bidder. Keep an eye on Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan, an unsuccessful bidder for the Cleveland Browns expansion franchise; and Howard Milstein, who failed in a bid to buy the Washington Redskins.

Both were willing to spend more than a half-billion dollars for the exclusive right to do NFL business in Cleveland and Washington, D.C. In the case of Milstein, he was talking of spending an insane sum of nearly $900 million to buy the Redskins who play in a market far less valuable than Southern California.

The New Coliseum Venture Partners, apparent winners in the right to bid on a Los Angeles franchise, have talked about spending about $500 million for that right. Who are they kidding?

Watch Dolan's Cablevision money and learn the current reality in the sports business. He would just be the latest in a series of broadcasters looking to sports for an identity in the coming 500 channel television universe.

The model has been wildly successful for Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch. In fact, Murdoch's pockets have become so deep he offered $1 billion dollars for Manchester United, a British soccer team, to make it a mainstay on his BSkyB pay television service. The bid was withdrawn when the British government decided to look into the deal a little closer. Who knows where we would have seen Manchester United score GOOOOAAALLs!!

Professional sports has always been an enticement to do business in America. At the turn of the century, real estate hustlers would throw two barnstorming baseball teams together for a Sunday contest, the object of which was to get our forefathers to the edge of town where they might be interested in looking at and buying some land - cheap.

Perhaps to show that they, too, can cook a bubbling stew, the hustlers in Los Angeles are making overtures to retiring Broncos quarterback John Elway, a local boy who made good in Denver, to become something here in L.A.

Elway's agent says he wants to have a say in the day-to-day operations in any front office he joins. That's a far cry from beating Cleveland or selling cars to the good people of Denver but let's say it's possible. Jerry West proved to have some abilities in that area.

Still, what does Elway bring to a billion dollar table? Very little I'm afraid. And the fact the local hustlers are making overtures in his direction is an indication they don't know the business in which they're trying to involve themselves and, at least, some of our money and land.

Where the early land hustlers used sporting contests to sell land, the current hustlers - broadcasters - are using sporting contests to sell time, or commercials, if you will. They understand that their product is audience and the matrix in which they're building that audience is sporting contests.

But our L.A. hustlers are trying to use land to sell sporting contests. Why is it that developers are the only ones standing in line to acquire this dream team?

Could it be they want our land to remodel our stadium so they can own all the rentals, all the ticket prices, all the broadcasting and merchandising rights fees, all the site advertising, all control of facility events, and all the franchise equity generated through our generosity?

Certainly in the current sports-biz model, the stakes are fluid. An $800 million price tag for the venerable Washington Redskins changed everything. Even the more than $500 million fee for the expansion Cleveland Browns threw the L.A. expectations far further out on the economic limb.

But are you willing to give up valuable land in Exposition Park, at least $50 million in upfront cash, hundreds of millions of dollars in services and collateral construction, and who knows what else just to say we live in a city that has an expansion football team that cost someone more than a billion dollars to obtain?

All for the right to buy $100 tickets, $5 hot dogs, and $10 beer to cry in as the team losses week after week?

I'm not in a hurry to taste that stew.