USC presented the Rose Bowl with a one year lease proposal at the Rose Bowl Operating Company's monthly meeting Thursday night. 

The RBOC did not take any action on the proposal, meaning they did not accept or reject it.  Their official comment was essentially that it is in their best interests at this time to allow USC to continue its negotiations with the Coliseum.  Their point of view is also, in effect, we don't mind having USC as a tenant, but ONLY if it's cool with UCLA.

Therefore, the next step for USC, in addition to continuing to try to negotiate with the Coliseum, is to meet with UCLA and show them the lease agreement.  If UCLA signs off on it, then USC will go back to the Rose Bowl and try to finalize an agreement.

According to the statement Dan Guerrero put out recently, UCLA wouldn't mind having USC at the Rose Bowl, but only for one year, and only if it does not slight UCLA's presence at the Rose Bowl in any way.

I don't remember the exact date, but there is one date in 2008 when both UCLA and USC are scheduled for home games on the same day.  In that case, with UCLA as the number one Rose Bowl tenant, my guess is that UCLA would keep the home game, and that USC would essentially be out of luck for that day and have to figure out something else.  Who knows, they might have to give up that as a home game and play whoever their opponent is on the road, instead.

Here's what I don't get, and Joe McDonnell made a great point in bringing this up last night.  It's obvious that if USC is going to play in the Rose Bowl, it's only going to be for one year.  UCLA will not allow USC to play there longer than that, according to Dan Guerrero's statement.  In that case, USC has no leverage after the 2008 season.  If they can't play in the Rose Bowl after 2008, there is nowhere else for them to play but the Coliseum. 

The only alternative, as I said last night, is to pull a Jack Kent Cooke.  In the late 60's, Cooke was in a dispute with the Coliseum Commission when his Lakers and Kings played in the Sports Arena.  Cooke solved the dispute ... by building his own arena, the Forum in Inglewood. 

It's unrealistic that USC would build it's own stadium for many reasons.  That's why I thought that they should partner up with the AEG people.  It'll never happen, but indulge me for a second.  AEG wanted to build a new football stadium for the NFL a few years ago downtown but it got squashed by politicians.  If AEG and USC partner up to build a football stadium in downtown L.A., it already would have a guaranteed tenant in USC, and I'm convinced that an NFL team would follow shortly thereafter.  Again, it'll never happen, but something like that is the only scenario that would give USC long term leverage over the Coliseum in their current dispute.