Expansion Committee

Despite the NFL's setback in court Tuesday, commissioner Paul Tagliabue is moving ahead with the expansion process.Yesterday Tagliabue named the final three members of the expansion committee that he will chair, and he announced that the committee will hold its first meeting in July.The three new members are Hugh Culverhouse of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Rankin Smith of the Atlanta Falcons and Alex Spanos of the San Diego Chargers.Smith and Spanos have rarely played a key role in league issues, but Tagliabue has said he wants to get more owners involved in league affairs.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The wait finally is over for the long-suffering baseball fans of Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla., and Phoenix. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Arizona Diamondbacks will join the major leagues in 1998.The announcement came yesterday at Major League Baseball's quarterly owners meeting, after a unanimous vote of the 28 clubs, but the admittance of both franchises was no surprise.Tampa/St. Petersburg was a lock to be included in the latest round of expansion, and Diamondbacks founder Jerry Colangelo has been at the top of the game's potential ownership list for years.

Baltimore's NFL expansion committee is hopeful it can persuade Alfred Lerner, a minority owner of the Cleveland Browns, to become the city's lead investor over two existing ownership groups, sources said yesterday.Uncertain at this point, however, is whether Gov. William Donald Schaefer publicly would endorse Lerner as the owner of choice before the league selects its second expansion city at a meeting near Chicago Nov. 30.Lerner, chairman of MNC Financial Inc. until its sale this year to NationsBank, has been reluctant to join the expansion sweepstakes.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Major-league owners convened at the posh Breakers Hotel yesterday to work out final details for a two-team expansion in 1998, but baseball's bitter labor dispute is expected to cast a long shadow over the three-day meeting.This normally would be a festive occasion. Potential ownership groups from Phoenix and Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla., have worked and waited years to gain admittance into the major leagues, and each could see a civic dream come true soon this week.Five prospective ownership groups -- including two from Northern Virginia -- yesterday gave 30-minute final presentations to Major League Baseball's expansion committee, which then briefed the Executive Council and recommended Phoenix and Tampa Bay. The recommendation could be put in front of the full ownership for a vote tomorrow.

Two groups from northern Virginia and one each from Phoenix and St. Petersburg, Fla., made 90-minute presentations to the Major League Baseball expansion committee outside Chicago yesterday.The first Virginia group said that 51 percent of the franchise would be owned by Homestead Baseball Inc., a black-owned company run by Robert Johnson, a business consultant. There are no black-owned major-league teams.

Baltimore's NFL expansion committee has set a deadline of 11 a.m. Monday for applications and checks to be filed in its premium-seat campaign. At that point, any unfilled pledges will be replaced by names from the waiting list.The waiting list for club seats was started yesterday, said Herbert J. Belgrad, co-chairman of the expansion committee."We don't have a waiting list just because it looks good," Belgrad said, "but [because] we think we'll be able to accommodate people on the list when the dust settles.

The National League postponed its selection of two expansion cities, which were scheduled to be named next Wednesday.Today's announcement came at a time when reports said the expansion committee had decided on Miami and Denver as the sites for expansion teams that will begin play in 1993. The league said, however, that the selection will probably be made before its self-imposed September deadline.Doug Danforth, president of the Pittsburgh Pirates and chairman of the NL expansion committee, said "although the committee has essentially completed their task, the information to be reviewed by the Ownership Committee is extensive and will take more time than anticipated."

Baltimore's NFL expansion committee is asking everyone who made pledges over the weekend in the premium-seating campaign to deliver checks to the administrative entrance at the Baltimore Arena on Hopkins Place (9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) or the NFL information headquarters in The Gallery at Harborplace (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.)."In every ticket situation, everybody assumes that you hold tickets back," said Ernie Accorsi, a special adviser to the Maryland Stadium Authority. "But we can't do that. Every one of these [7,500 club seats]

The NFL's expansion committee will have a meeting by conference call today and receive an update from the commissioner's staff.The staff members have collected information on all the expansion cities and were in St. Louis last week.The expansion committee is expected to rubber-stamp the staff's findings and will make a report to the rest of the owners at their annual meetings in two weeks in Palm Springs, Calif. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has said no major decisions are expected at that meeting and will limit each group to two representatives.

The National League announced yesterday that it was postponing its selection of the two expansion cities until later this summer, partly because it needs more time to examine the finances of the expansion finalists and partly to give Denver and St. Petersburg an opportunity to improve their ownership bids.Miami remains the expansion committee's No. 1 candidate. The status of H. Wayne Huizenga, the Blockbuster Entertainment chairman who plans to pay the $95 million expansion fee in cash, "has not changed," according to expansion committee chairman Douglas Danforth, who sat in on Tuesday's ownership committee meeting by telephone.

Two groups from northern Virginia and one each from Phoenix and St. Petersburg, Fla., made 90-minute presentations to the Major League Baseball expansion committee outside Chicago yesterday.The first Virginia group said that 51 percent of the franchise would be owned by Homestead Baseball Inc., a black-owned company run by Robert Johnson, a business consultant. There are no black-owned major-league teams.

Baltimore's failed franchise hunt probably cost more than $3 million, most of it privately donated, and may end up requiring contributions to balance its books.The effort was run by the Baltimore NFL Expansion Committee, made up of the Maryland Stadium Authority, Greater Baltimore Committee, Gov. William Donald Schaefer and Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.Committee co-chairman Herbert J. Belgrad, chairman of the stadium authority, estimates that the group ended up spending a little more than $750,000 on promotions, preliminary architectural work and staff.

John Paterakis, one of the major political fund-raisers in Maryland, threatened yesterday to pull his financial contributions to Baltimore because of treatment he describes as unfair to would-be NFL owner Leonard "Boogie" Weinglass.A member of Weinglass' ownership team, Paterakis said he is upset that the group has been held out of the decision-making process here and by reports that the city's expansion committee has been seeking new investors.The Sun reported yesterday that Baltimore's organizers are hopeful of having Alfred Lerner, part-owner of the Cleveland Browns, file an ownership application for an expansion team by Monday's noon deadline.

Baltimore's NFL expansion committee is hopeful it can persuade Alfred Lerner, a minority owner of the Cleveland Browns, to become the city's lead investor over two existing ownership groups, sources said yesterday.Uncertain at this point, however, is whether Gov. William Donald Schaefer publicly would endorse Lerner as the owner of choice before the league selects its second expansion city at a meeting near Chicago Nov. 30.Lerner, chairman of MNC Financial Inc. until its sale this year to NationsBank, has been reluctant to join the expansion sweepstakes.

ROSEMONT, Ill. -- "Did you hear?""Hear what?""They might put it off for two weeks.""No. Where'd you hear that?""Right here in the lobby a minute ago. A guy told me.""A guy?""Yeah. A guy who heard it from another guy he knows.""Interesting. But I don't think it's right.""No?""Not at all. As a matter of fact, the NFL press guy just told me he'd heard that rumor and that it wasn't true.""No?""Nope. He said to expect a decision within 24 hours, one way or another.""Interesting.""Yeah. I don't know what to think.

It's appropriate the NFL expansion decision will be made in Chicago, a city with a rich history of holding political conventions, where power brokers made deals in smoke-filled rooms.The atmosphere at the NFL owners meeting beginning Tuesday may be similar. There's likely to be a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering before Baltimore finds out if its long quest for a new team will succeed.The only thing missing may be the smoke, when 27 men and one woman (Georgia Frontiere of the Los Angeles Rams)

The owners on the NFL's expansion committee discussed a variety of expansion issues yesterday, including the franchise fee and proposed season-ticket campaigns, but deferred all decisions until the weeklong March meeting in Phoenix next month.At a five-hour meeting in Dallas, the owners also came up with some requests for more information from some of the 10 cities that have applied for franchises.The members of commissioner Paul Tagliabue's staff were instructed to get back to the officials from the cities that will be asked more questions, but those cities were not identified by league spokesman Greg Aiello.

Baltimore's NFL expansion committee has set a deadline of 11 a.m. Monday for applications and checks to be filed in its premium-seat campaign. At that point, any unfilled pledges will be replaced by names from the waiting list.The waiting list for club seats was started yesterday, said Herbert J. Belgrad, co-chairman of the expansion committee."We don't have a waiting list just because it looks good," Belgrad said, "but [because] we think we'll be able to accommodate people on the list when the dust settles.

Baltimore's NFL expansion committee is asking everyone who made pledges over the weekend in the premium-seating campaign to deliver checks to the administrative entrance at the Baltimore Arena on Hopkins Place (9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) or the NFL information headquarters in The Gallery at Harborplace (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.)."In every ticket situation, everybody assumes that you hold tickets back," said Ernie Accorsi, a special adviser to the Maryland Stadium Authority. "But we can't do that. Every one of these [7,500 club seats]