Hail Mary for Los Angeles Football?

The city council is inching its way toward voting on a deal that could bring professional football back to Los Angeles. But amid all the excitement (and muffled protest), it's good to pause, take a breath, look at where we've been and where we're planning to go.

Even if the council seals the deal with the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which plans to build a $1.2 billion stadium-convention center combo at its L.A. Live complex downtown, there is still the challenge of coaxing an NFL franchise back to town.

If all of this gives you a strong sense of deja vu, you're right. We've been this close to a deal before only to see it fall through. The politics of competing proposals, the lack of an expansion team that needs a home, and having a stadium plan that doesn't meet the National Football League's rather stringent criteria have all factored into the collapse of prior deals. Then there is the issue of how much public money will be put up to finance the endeavor, perhaps the most persistent theme in this never-ending story.

And that is, more or less, the topic of this week's SoCal Rewind. Take a look.

SoCal Rewind is an on-going series bringing you past reports on the issues of today. By drawing on KCET's extensive archive of Southern California news, culture and public affairs, we seek to inform current events by providing a little historical perspective, and maybe answer the question: Is there anything new under the SoCal sun?