Real estate, sports business bigwigs shoot for L.A.-based soccer league.

The latest attempt to form a successful professional soccer league is taking place in Los Angeles with the financial support of some big-name business -- mostly real estate -- and sports personalities.

Eight charter teams of the Continental Indoor Soccer League are scheduled to start playing this summer at major arenas in the West. Under current plans, three more teams -- including two on the East Coast -- are supposed to be added to the league in 1994.

Among the major financial backers of the league are Jerry Buss, owner of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and the Kings hockey team, and Howard Baldwin, a Beverly Hills resident who owns Baldwin Sports & Entertainment, an entertainment-industry company, and the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League.

Other local backers are James Thomas, managing general partner of Maguire Thomas Partners, a real estate development company, and managing general partner of the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association, and Stuart Lichter, a Redondo Beach resident who is a real estate developer.

Each of the local investors, who with their investment purchased a team, have put up about $1 million each for a franchise and first-year operating expenses.

The start-up and first-year operating cost of the new league is estimated to be between $9 million and $10 million, said CISL spokesman Dan Courtemanche.

The league is currently operating out of an office at 10940 Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood with a skeleton staff that is headed by league Commissioner Ron Weinstein, a 36-year-old Northridge resident who began his career in the sports business in 1978 working for Jack Kent Cooke. At the time, Cooke owned both the Lakers and Kings.

"There are no guarantees about this but we had seven years with the old Los Angeles Lazers of seeing how to do things wrong. We know about all the negatives surrounding the team and the league," said Weinstein.

The Lazers were the local franchise of the Major Soccer League that stumbled through about 10 years of existence before folding last summer. In 1985, the North American Soccer League, which featured some high-salaried, big-name soccer players, folded after a 10-year run.

Right now, there are two other professional soccer leagues in the United States -- the American Professional Soccer League and the National Professional Soccer League. Both teams have had limited success, said sports industry analysts.

Weinstein said the new league has a better chance of succeeding and its investors have a better chance of making money because of greater efforts to hold down costs.

"Teams in the Major Soccer League had annual operating expenses in the $2 million to $3 million range. We're structuring it so costs, at least in the first two years, will be kept to about $800,000 or $900,000," said Weinstein.

He said teams will play only 28 games rather than 52 as in the MSL. Games will be played during the summer on weekend nights when indoor arenas are available at costs considerably below winter rental rates when the stadiums are booked with hockey and basketball games, he said.

In addition, since most of the teams will initially be in the West, travel costs will be lower, he said, and player salaries will be capped for the first two years of play.

He said players will receive monthly salaries of either $2,000 or $3,000 for the regular season that will extend from mid-June through mid-September. If a team makes the playoffs, bonuses will be awarded to the players, he said.

"It sounds as if they're trying to do things right but the important thing is going to be selling the teams in terms of attendance because they're not going to get any big television contract," said a sports industry analyst.

"If they can attract 4,000 or 5,000 people a game and keep a lid on costs, then they might make it. But it's going to be tough because soccer has just never caught on here," he said.

League spokesman Courtemanche said part of the effort to build local team loyalty is a requirement that eight of a franchise's 13 players must come from within a 150-mile radius. He said if a team can average home attendance of between 4,000 and 5,000 with ticket prices of between $5 and $12, then a franchise and its owner should be able to make a profit.

Local team owners were unavailable for comment last week but, according to Courtemanche, the league has been in the works for the last three years by Buss and Weinstein. The two began talking about the league after the MSL Lazers -- headed by Buss and Weinstein -- failed in 1989.

Buss and Weinstein sought out National Basketball Association team owners as potential investors and owners.

Of the 11 teams that will be playing in the league by 1994, owners of seven of the potential franchises will have had major equity positions in either NBA or National Hockey League Association teams, according to CISL information.

Under current plans, the first eight teams to play in 1993 will be in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, San Diego, Sacramento, Portland, Dallas and Monterrey, Mexico. If the league succeeds, Charlotte, N.C., Pittsburgh and Las Vegas teams will be added.

Buss will own the as-yet-to-be named Los Angeles franchise that will play in the Great Western Forum in Inglewood.

Lichter will be the majority owner of the Anaheim team, which will play in the new Anaheim Arena. Baldwin of Beverly Hills will own the Pittsburgh franchise and Thomas will be the managing general partner of the Sacramento team.