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Bunch of developments in the campaign by AEG's Tim Leiweke to rush through approval of a football stadium next to Staples Center and, he hopes, secure an NFL team to play there before Ed Roski's proposed stadium in Industry gets one. Bullet points from the LAT, NYT, Downtown News, Ron Kaye and Sign on San Diego after the jump.
- AEG is close to completing a naming-rights deal with Farmers Insurance, sources familiar with the negotiations told Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times. The pending agreement was first reported Saturday on Twitter by Sports Illustrated's Peter King.
- Times columnist Steve Lopez sat down with Leiweke and came away friendly to the idea, writing "this all still looks like a long shot, and I could go either way on a pro football team....On the other hand, I like football, and it would be nice to have another pro team to grouse about during the months that the McCourt-owned Dodgers aren't playing....I will say, though, that Leiweke makes a decent argument that L.A.'s greatest economic growth potential may be in tourism, conventions, and sports and entertainment, and it would be foolish for the city not to seriously consider playing ball with a private company willing to take on most of the risk."
- Skeptic Ron Kaye, reading the Lopez piece, says, "even more amazing is AEG's Tim Leiweke suddenly -- and without explanation -- raising the cost of his NFL stadium downtown by 50 percent from $1 billion to $1.5 billion. He offered no explanation in his interview with Lopez and apparently wasn't asked for one. The need for the city to borrow $350 million -- up $50 million from previous claims -- also is part of the storyline steadily being polished."
- New York Times bureau chief Adam Nagourney spoke with Leiweke and John Semcken, VP of Majestic Realty, which is behind the rival stadium idea in Industry. "To get from downtown to our site — 25 miles — is faster than it’s going to take to get the three blocks from the highway exit to the convention center,” Sekcken said of the Downtown satdium. Leiweke's reply: "They lie. They want to get into a war of words. They want to get into a smear campaign, and we’re not going to do it. Only desperate people say desperate things."
- The subject of bringing NFL football to Los Angeles "is sort of like the movie Showgirls. It never seems to end, and throughout the excruciating observation process you simultaneously want to laugh and cry, while also feeling the pain of all those involved," says Jon Regardie, editor of the Downtown News.
- And from San Diego: "This week brought the formal end to an unfortunate San Diego Chargers' season and the formal start of public political talks about building a football stadium in downtown Los Angeles."