Philip Anschutz built LA Live and hopes to build a stadium by the LA Convention Center (Courtesy Creative Commons)

Seventy-two-year-old Philip Anschutz is the private owner of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, better known as A.E.G. Anschutz, who made his wealth in oil and then in entertainment entrepreneurship, has a net-worth of $7 billion and is the 47th richest man in the U.S., according to Forbes.

Anschutz and A.E.G. had built LA Live and finished the Staples Center in 1997. By the completion of the project, city officials had only met the shy Anschutz a few times, with most of the correspondence happening with his CEO Tim Leiweke.

The next goal for Anschutz is to bring a NFL team back to LA. The city has not had a professional football team since 1995 when the Rams and Raiders left after growing tired of playing in outdated facilities.

A.E.G. can change all that. Anschutz has pledged that he would spend more than $1 billion to build both the stadium and to buy a NFL team.

"Phil is now completely engaged in this process," Leiweke told the LA Times. "And the only thing he won't do is get leveraged to the point of doing a stupid deal on a team. But if this is about finding a win-win for the NFL and Phil Anschutz, he is prepared to write that check now, subject to getting done with the [environmental impact report]."

Leiweke considers the NFL stadium the “final piece of the puzzle for LA Live”. The stadium would be built adjacent to the LA Convention Center and will include a deployable roof. The venue will house football games, international soccer games, wrestling matches and may even house Super Bowls.

The stadium would be named Farmers Field after Farmers Insurance, which will offer $700 million over 30 years. Leiweke hopes the stadium would be completed by 2016.

The NFL has not seen eye to eye with Anschutz, who originally offered to own only part of the team but collect stadium revenues, a benefit usually reserved for owners. With Anschutz announcing that he will actually buy a NFL team, the NFL will likely be appeased.

The next step would be to find a team to move to LA. Among those on the potential list are the Vikings, Rams, Chargers and most likely the Raiders whose owner Al Davis died recently.

“It’s not a lack of interest. It’s a lack of facilities,” said Leiweke, who revealed a completed environmental plan 10,000 pages long and worth $27 million last week. The plan details how A.E.G. would handle the additional traffic brought to the downtown area because of the football games. A.E.G. is offering $35 million to help expand the 101 freeway and developing a train station.

The report estimates that the stadium would bring 11,000 permanent new jobs to LA, while offering thousands of construction jobs.

Anschutz, Leiweke and A.E.G. consider the plan the first major milestone towards building the stadium and completing their vision of LA Live by bringing a football team back to Los Angeles.

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Reach associate news editor Jerry Ting here.