lure the NFL back to Houston. 1998 In March 1998, McNair learned that the NFL officially awarded Cleveland its promised expansion franchise, making it the NFL's 31st team; NFL Commissioner Tagliabue said that the league would likely add a 32nd team in the next two years, with the three top candidates being Toronto (which would have been the NFL's first franchise outside the US, and the fifth largest market in North America), Los Angeles (North America's second largest media market, and the victim of two relocated franchises in the 1990s), and Houston (which was the fourth largest media market in North America and whose Oilers had been the most recent victim of franchise relocation). Houston officials worried that Los Angeles would get the nod because of its media market size; in early May, those fears became reality as entertainment guru Michael Ovitz announced he would lead a largely privately financed $750 million project to build a stadium in Carson, California in hopes of landing the expansion team. However, both McNair and Ovitz stated that they needed to know the NFL's intentions regarding expansion by early 1999, lest they lose public support as a result of long delays while the league developed its plans. In late October 1998, Tagliabue announced that the NFL owners would indeed expand the league to 32 teams, and would decide by April 1999 which city would be awarded the NFL expansion franchise. Meanwhile, Ovitz now had competition coming from his own market, as real estate developer Ed Roski announced a rival bid for a future Los Angeles team; his proposal centered around putting a 68,000-seat stadium inside the shell of the historic Los Angeles Coliseum. 1999 On March 16, 1999, the NFL owners, by a 29–2 vote, approved a resolution to award Los Angeles the expansion 32nd franchise. However, the award was contingent on the city's putting together an acceptable ownership team and stadium deal by September 15; if the parties could not reach an agreement or be close to doing so, the committee would then turn its recommendation to Houston. A month later, NFL executives flew to Los Angeles. The executives were shocked at the lack of progress – Los Angeles would not allow tax dollars to be used for a new stadium, the competing groups were locked in a standoff as neither would concede its bid to the other nor would the groups agree