By Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno, Los Angeles Times

HOUSTON -- The National Football League's return to Los Angeles began behind closed doors -- with a coin flip.

The St. Louis Rams won the right to go first, and their owner and a top executive made their pitch in a hotel ballroom, outlining plans for a multibillion-dollar stadium in Inglewood.

Next came the backers of the Carson stadium proposal -- the owners of the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders. Recruited to oversee that project was Disney Chairman and CEO Robert Iger, who spoke of his love for the NFL and his branding expertise and reminded the 32 owners that, as head of ESPN's parent company, he had paid them all plenty of money over the years.

After Iger left, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones pushed back his swivel chair and stood to address the room.

"He said he paid us. Last time I checked, that money is coming from Disney shareholders, not him," Jones said, touching off laughter.

The moment of levity was a bad omen for the Carson project.

For 11 hours on Tuesday, the owners of America's most profitable sports league -- with $10 billion a year in revenue -- were cloistered in a suburban hotel, just a half-hour from the small airport and their parked private jets.

Their mission: to pick the teams and stadium that would bring professional football back to L.A. after a 21-year hiatus.

Since the Rams and Raiders left Southern California following the 1994 season, multiple sites have been proposed for the NFL's return. They included downtown L.A., Anaheim, Irvine, the City of Industry. The Rose Bowl, the Coliseum and even Chavez Ravine. Every proposal failed.

Things changed when Rams owner Stan Kroenke bought 60 acres of land next to the former Hollywood Park racetrack and last year announced he planned to build a stadium. He didn't commit to returning the Rams to L.A. from St. Louis. But the implications were clear.

Six weeks later, a competing proposal emerged: The Chargers and Raiders wanted to construct a stadium on the site of a former landfill in Carson.

In between the two proposals, the NFL created a committee of six owners to evaluate stadium options in L.A. and oversee any possible relocation. NFL owners met repeatedly to hear proposals on the two L.A. projects as well as those in the three home markets trying to keep their teams.

San Diego and St. Louis eventually assembled stadium proposals that included hundreds of millions of dollars in public financing, although San Diego's hinged on a public vote later this year.

By the time they gathered in Houston on Tuesday, the owners were impatient for a deal. Four of the six owners on the L.A. committee had teams in the playoffs and another was in the midst of a coaching search.

The league set aside two days for the meeting, but most of the owners wanted to resolve it in one. Nevertheless, the league had reserved hotel space inDallas for the following week just in case.

The details of the dramatic daylong session were pieced together from interviews with multiple owners, team executives and league officials, most speaking on the condition that they not be identified when describing confidential negotiations.

The Rams opened their presentation with 30 renderings showing the sleek, low-slung stadium and surrounding development they wanted to build in Inglewood.

Kevin Demoff, the chief operating officer, said this would be much more than a stadium for one or two teams; the campus could house other NFL business ventures, such as NFL Network and NFL.com. Kroenke also spoke about his passion for the multibillion-dollar project.

The team's pitch closed with excerpts from two stories by Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke pleading for the Rams to return to L.A.

The Carson backers began with brief comments by Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Raiders owner Mark Davis. Then Iger talked about how he grew to appreciate the stadium's location.

In a corner of the ballroom, league staff had installed a computer and printer to generate paper ballots of new resolutions.

When it came time to begin voting, the owners had to resolve an important matter: Would it be a secret ballot?

Ordinarily, secret ballots are reserved for the most sensitive votes that owners cast -- the selection of a new commissioner and the site of a Super Bowl. By a show of hands, they voted, 19-13, to keep this one secret.

The mood was tense even though a consensus had been building among the owners in recent weeks for a hybrid option: pairing the Rams and Chargers in Inglewood and leaving the Raiders in Oakland.

The room was mostly quiet; many owners communicated by text message. Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, a member of the L.A. committee who supported Carson and orchestrated Iger's involvement in the project, said little throughout the day.

At one point, Iger ventured down from the fourth-floor ballroom to the third floor, where more than 200 media members were stationed, to get a cup of coffee. Dozens of reporters swarmed him. Someone jokingly asked, "Don't you wish there was coffee on the fourth floor?"

Before the full membership voted, the L.A. committee recommended the Carson project by a 5-1 margin. In the end, the endorsement did not affect the outcome.

Momentum was building for Inglewood. After two ballots, Inglewood was only three votes short of the 24 needed for approval. Owners saw a path toward a resolution -- no one in the room wanted to stand in the way of a project clearly preferred by the majority of owners.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell ushered the three owners seeking relocation into a private negotiation that lasted about an hour.

Sensing the end was near, Jones had beer and wine delivered to the ballroom for the remaining 29 owners. The tension seemed to have ebbed.

By the time Goodell and the three owners returned to the ballroom, the Raiders had agreed to withdraw their bid to move to L.A.

What would prove to be the final vote was taken on a proposal to pair the Rams and a team to be determined in Inglewood. It passed by a 30-2 margin. The two owners who opposed the compromise remain a mystery.

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The agreement -- which gave the Chargers a one-year option to join the Rams in L.A. and the Raiders an identical right if the Chargers decline -- was an option league staff had discussed for at least six months.

The resolution's 939 words barred the Rams from selling personal seat licenses, suites or naming rights to the Inglewood stadium until February 2017 unless a second team joins them beforehand.

Minutes after the final vote, Goodell stood at a lectern before rows of reporters and a forest of television cameras. His eyes were tired, his voice weary.

"It was a difficult decision for ownership," Goodell said. "But we also realized that this was our opportunity."