The Work Begins

"Does Ovitz know a football from a grapefruit?"

"They expect to field a team this season?"

"Who was the woman onstage?"

Nolan scrolled through the comments on an early sports forum. Madden had been right. The expansion announcement had attracted attention, but not the confidence Grace had hoped for. She stood behind his chair with Katherine, Kelsey and Mia, reading the same small screen.

One poster had already drawn a cartoon of Ovitz trying to coach with a movie script. Another asked whether the club planned to play on a soundstage. The jokes were easy. The concern beneath them was harder to dismiss. Los Angeles had lost teams before. Its fans had no reason to buy a fresh promise from a man they associated with Hollywood deals.

Nolan thought of his brother's new film-rating site, built after he left the disc-rental business. Every industry seemed to be moving onto these crude pages, and everyone with a modem could weigh in. He could remember a later internet, much louder than this one. That did not make today's comments harmless to Grace.

"I shouldn't have said we'd be ready so soon," Grace said.

"You said we'd try," Nolan replied. "That's what we're going to do."

"People heard a promise."

Katherine put a hand on her shoulder. "Then we give them evidence. A name. A venue. People who know how to run a club."

"And a team," Kelsey said.

"That, too," Nolan said, turning off the monitor.

He could afford to ignore a stranger's opinion. He could not afford to spend the coming season on the sidelines while the franchise spent two years choosing paint colors. The league still had conditions to approve, and the Cowboys' side of his move remained unfinished. Every week mattered.

Mia went to check on lunch as Ovitz arrived with another folder of documents. Nolan introduced Katherine as the lawyer who would review them, not merely as the daughter of an investor.

"The provisional rights paperwork came through this morning," Ovitz told her. "I'd like you to see it before anyone signs."

"Send the underlying schedules, too," she said. "A trademark is only as useful as the rights attached to it."

They worked over lunch. Nolan took temporary offices, a training site and a game venue. Grace would lead the name, logo and uniform process with experienced event staff she knew from the Independence Bowl. Ovitz would handle city negotiations, land and stadium planning. Kelsey would organize auditions for an adult cheer squad. Katherine would keep the agreements, releases and league filings aligned with what the others promised. Mia took the finance function for Columbia Sports Development, the company formed to run the football operation.

Grace asked for a deadline on the name. Kelsey needed it before she could brief costume designers; Katherine needed it before filing a mark. Nolan gave Grace a week to reduce the submissions to a shortlist, not to rush a final choice. Ovitz wanted a preliminary venue announcement earlier. Katherine stopped him before he could turn a negotiation into a press release.

"We have an expansion award with conditions," she said. "We don't have a lease. Until we do, say we're evaluating sites."

"You're going to make every interview sound like a deposition," Ovitz complained.

"Only the ones where you promise a stadium."

Mia wrote the tasks beside the figures. A football team spent money long before it sold a ticket: coaches, scouts, insurance, training equipment, payroll, travel, and a place to put all of them. She did not need Nolan's memory of future television deals to know they could not spend the same investor dollar twice.

"I want a weekly cash report," Nolan told her.

"You'll get one," Mia said. "You may not enjoy reading it."

"I enjoy knowing what we can pay for."

Ovitz gave him a look across the table. "You and I should discuss which expenses belong to the club."

"Absolutely. The property development isn't going to borrow from player salaries."

"I wasn't proposing that."

"Good. Then the agreement will be easy to write."

Katherine made a note. Ovitz let the argument rest until they had figures in front of them.

...

A few days later, Nolan stood with Katherine, Grace and Kelsey beside an Inglewood parcel that Ovitz wanted for a permanent stadium. Empty buildings faced a wide stretch of pavement; aircraft moved across the sky beyond them. The development drawings showed far more than stands and parking. Shops, housing and other commercial properties crowded the margins.

"The site is promising," Grace said. "But the stadium isn't a building yet."

"The city process alone will take time," Katherine added.

Nolan traced the proposed roads on the plan. He knew from another life what a stadium in this part of Los Angeles could become. That knowledge did not put shovels in the ground in 1999. Ovitz saw a district as much as a football club, and the development partners expected returns from it. The team needed a separate budget or it would always be the excuse used to acquire land.

"There are homes on the drawing that don't depend on a kickoff," Katherine said. "He'll have investors interested in those even if the first game is elsewhere."

"I don't begrudge him a return," Nolan replied. "But when we need linemen in August, I won't accept a story about money tied up in sidewalks."

They walked the perimeter. The empty buildings would be easier to clear than the approvals, utilities and traffic plan that followed. Grace photographed the access roads for her venue staff. Kelsey looked beyond the fence and imagined the first home crowd arriving. Nolan imagined the same crowd being turned away because someone had announced a completion date no contractor had promised.

"Michael can pursue this," Nolan said. "We're looking at Santa Clarita for offices and a training site. We need a place we can use now."

"And the games?" Kelsey asked.

"We're negotiating the Rose Bowl as a temporary home. Nothing gets announced until the lease and the league approvals are real."

Katherine folded the plans. "I'll make the separation of funds explicit."

"I'll make sure nobody sells seats we don't have," Grace said.

Peter had been waiting by the car. He asked whether they were going home. Kelsey asked for one stop at Century City. Grace immediately agreed; she had been sorting through thousands of name submissions and needed an hour away from them.

The mall had changed since Nolan was a teenager. Katherine found the shop where she had bought his first serious pair of cleats. Grace remembered driving from the school where she had once worked to watch him practice. Kelsey listened to them trade stories, then decided they were all overdue for new clothes.

"You bought him cleats?" Kelsey asked Katherine.

"He'd worn through the old pair. He said they were fine. The soles were coming apart."

"They lasted the season," Nolan said.

"The new pair did."

Grace told Kelsey what Nolan had been like in the weight room as a student: impatient with instructions, patient with any drill he could measure. They laughed at him while he stood close enough to hear. Their memories belonged to different years of his life, and for once nobody competed to tell the most important one.

Peter acquired the first shopping bag, then four more. By the time they found a place to sit, he was calculating how to fit the purchases into the car. Nolan offered to carry half; Peter refused until the women came back with another round.

"You're paying me to look competent," Peter said. "Don't undermine me in public."

"I can put that in your performance review."

Katherine returned with a small package for Peter's wife. When he thanked her, she waved him off.

"Nolan paid. I'm the one who remembered her."

Mia's birthday was coming up, and that sent the women back into the stores. Katherine chose a watch on Nolan's behalf; she and the others kept their own gifts hidden from one another. It was a small competition Mia would understand as affection. Nolan tried to guess what Grace had bought. She refused to tell him.

Peter sat beside Nolan while they waited. He looked at the growing row of bags, then at the price on one receipt.

"I should have asked for a percentage of what I carry," he said.

"You would have negotiated that before today if you knew Katherine."

"I knew. I didn't know the three of them could agree on a store."

They could, Nolan thought, whenever one of them mentioned Mia. Mia had kept the family steady through years when football was the least of their problems. He was glad Katherine had chosen the watch; on his own he might have bought something expensive and called the job done.

At home, they ate with Mia and the children. The finance report waited on the kitchen counter. Nolan left it there for the evening. Later, after the household had settled, Katherine, Grace and Kelsey came downstairs together, still laughing about something they had discussed while getting ready for bed. They were all adults, and whatever uncertainty they sometimes felt about sharing his attention had not prevented them from asking for it on their own terms.

"You're still lifting?" Grace asked, looking at the weights. "I thought you were finally taking a night off."

"It's early. There's no game tomorrow."

"Exactly," Kelsey said, trying not to smile. "Save a little energy for us."

"For what?" Nolan asked, though her expression gave her away.

Kelsey flushed. Grace told him to stop pretending he hadn't understood. Katherine watched them for a moment, amused, then offered Nolan her hand.

"You can put the weights down whenever you're ready," she said.

He did. They went upstairs together, with no more appointments or team business between them and the rest of the night.

In the morning, Nolan woke as Katherine was getting dressed. She bent over him, her hair brushing his cheek, and kissed his forehead.

"You were worn out last night," she said. "Sleep a little longer. We'll handle the morning."

Grace and Kelsey were already on their way out, both in better spirits than they had been in days. Nolan thanked Katherine and turned back under the covers. When he rose later, Mia and the children were at home. Mia had taken a call from the accountants; Grace was reviewing mark submissions; Kelsey had another audition schedule. Katherine had gone to Ovitz's office with the league paperwork.

Nolan opened an email from Dave Campo. He had spoken to several coaches willing to consider a Los Angeles expansion team and had arranged introductions. Nolan called him immediately.

"You told them we don't have a practice field yet?" Nolan asked.

"I told them you'd get one."

"That's not the same sentence."

"It's the sentence that'll get them in a room with you. Now give me an afternoon."

Nolan looked at his calendar. "Today. We need to know who's ready to build from nothing."