Maryland Stadium Authority

Malcolm Glazer, the Florida businessman who refused a request from the Maryland Stadium Authority last year for $50,000 to help fund the city's lobbying effort to get an NFL expansion team, has changed his mind.Herbert J. Belgrad, the chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, said yesterday that Glazer pledged to make the contribution at a meeting on Monday.Joel Glazer, one of Malcolm's sons, said the move was a vote of confidence in the work of Belgrad and the Maryland Stadium Authority.

Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said yesterday that the city would pay part of the $150 million cost of expanding the Convention Center, a decision announced after Gov. William Donald Schaefer agreed to appoint the mayor's nominee to the Maryland Stadium Authority, which oversees the center.Mr. Schmoke would not be specific as to how much the city would kick in, although Mr. Schaefer wants Baltimore to pick up $50 million of the cost."The details of the financing plan have not been worked out, so I'm not going to get into any figures," Mr. Schmoke said.

Local boxing promoter Scott Wagner, Ravens senior director of business development Mark Burdett and Greg Smith of the Maryland Stadium Authority will meet tomorrow to finalize a bid to promoter Don King to bring Hasim Rahman's Aug. 13 World Boxing Council interim title fight to M&T Bank Stadium. Matchmaker Eric Botjer of Don King Productions told The Sun yesterday that he and King's vice president of boxing operations and public relations, Bobby Goodman, have been in talks with Wagner "for about a month" about bringing Baltimore native Rahman (40-5-1, 33 knockouts)

Professional football officially returns to Baltimore today with a hand-painted gridiron on a downtown parking lot.The makeshift football field near Oriole Park at Camden Yards will be the centerpiece of today's groundbreaking for the city's planned $200 million football stadium, which is to be home not only to the Ravens, but to the high hopes of political leaders."

A booming crack and a cloud of smoke from a small metallic device caused hundreds to scream, clutch their bodies and quickly head to the exits of M&T Bank Stadium yesterday. Soon, the parking lots outside the stadium were filled with flashing lights from firetrucks as emergency response workers tended to hundreds of disaster drill participants portraying ailing sports fans. The three-hour exercise, "Operation Purple Haze," gave 300 local first-response providers an opportunity to prepare for a terrorist attack involving a simulated nuclear weapon.

Mayor Sheila Dixon has asked the Maryland Stadium Authority to explore the possibility of building a soccer stadium in Baltimore to woo D.C. United, the Major League Soccer franchise in the nation's capital that has said it is looking for a new stadium. The letter, dated last Wednesday and received by the agency Monday, asks the authority to study the potential benefits of building a 17,000- to 20,000-seat stadium that could serve as United's permanent home, as well as host concerts, lacrosse games and other events.

Having overseen a complex $200 million demolition and construction project at Camden Yards, the Maryland Stadium Authority has been given legislative permission to take on its next challenge: Supervising a vast expansion of the Baltimore Convention Center.This is a crucial undertaking for the city. Without an enlarged Convention Center, downtown Baltimore's economy could be in trouble. Already, a number of large professional groups have decided not to come to Baltimore because convention and exhibition space is inadequate.

Baltimore's strong point in the contest for a new National Football League franchise was in the strength of its financial package, the appeal of the city and the stability and resources of its two prospective ownership groups. It's not yet clear what the metropolitan area's weaknesses were -- if any -- but it would be dumb to undermine the city's strengths in a panic effort to mend perceived flaws.Disappointment over the failure to gain the second NFL franchise after Charlotte won the first is understandable.

Football fans who put down deposits in last summer's drive to lease sky boxes and club seats at the proposed NFL stadium are being asked to let the money ride a little longer while the city tries to get a team.About $6 million of the $8 million collected during the two-month, NFL-designed sales blitz remains in interest-bearing escrow accounts, and local NFL organizers want to keep it through the end of the year. The deposits, on 100 sky boxes and 7,500 club seats, were intended to demonstrate the city's football fanaticism as part of its bid for an expansion team.

Football fans who put down deposits in last summer's drive to lease sky boxes and club seats at the proposed NFL stadium are being asked to let the money ride a little longer while the city tries to get a team.About $6 million of the $8 million collected during the two-month, NFL-designed sales blitz remains in interest-bearing escrow accounts, and local NFL organizers want to keep it through the end of the year. The deposits, on 100 sky boxes and 7,500 club seats, were intended to demonstrate the city's football fanaticism as part of its bid for an expansion team.