Please note: This commentary was revised on 3-22-05.

Richard Sandomir covered the breakdown in negotiations between the "New York" Giants and the Jersey Sports Exposition Authority on 3-10-05. In his article, he mentions, almost as an afterthought, that the Giants would reluctantly listen to offers from the Jets regarding a possible joint venture on the proposed West Side Stadium.

Then I read the tabloids. All three, the Daily News, the Post, and Newsday reported in depth that the Giants were, in fact, openly suggesting the possibility that they could move to Manhattan. The sources used by all three articles included John Mara, the Giants' executive vice president and chief operating officer, as well as New Jersey acting Gov. Richard Codey.

Now, I wasn't at the press conference that the Giants held on Wednesday, so I don't know what was said, but it seems to me that Sandomir was guilty of not being aggresive enough in his coverage.

The effect of the Giants-New Jersey negotiation-breakdown on the possible West Side Stadium was the story of the day, unless you read only The New York Times.

SPORTS MEDIA AND BUSINESS

The Giants May Find a Warmer Embrace Elsewhere

he implosion of the Giants' stadium deal with New Jersey on Wednesday has created the peculiar possibility that the team will join the Jets as an equal partner in a proposed $1.7 billion stadium on the West Side of Manhattan.

It would be, in a historic sense, a reverse commute, like the Raiders' return to Oakland, or Los Angeles, or Oakland. The Giants departed the Bronx for the Meadowlands in 1976 and were followed eight years later by the migrant Jets, a team in search of the clean lavatories that had eluded them at Shea Stadium.

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For now, envisioning both teams in their ancestral state is a fantasy. The prospects of building the Jets' stadium are more akin to the chances of sinking a 3-point heave than the slam dunk they once appeared to be. And the Giants would have to find a way to escape the strictures of their lease on Giants Stadium, which expires in 2026.

The Giants should also prepare themselves to leave the Garden State Circus, where Richard J. Codey, the acting governor, tossed two monkey wrenches Wednesday into a deal the team believed was all but done, for the Cirque du Manhattan, where the ringmaster, James L. Dolan, throws cream pies at the Jets.

There may be a viable argument that two teams are better than one. Sixteen games a year, instead of eight, would mean more revenue and more taxes, and two teams to share the cost of a $200 million retractable roof. If the Jets and the Giants contribute equally, they may reduce the $600 million the city and state will contribute. Each team could ask for the maximum $150 million from the National Football League's G-3 loan program for new stadiums; lending to two teams for one building would set a precedent, but the owners would at least consider their requests.

Wherever the teams get their money, the rising cost of what is called the New York Sports and Convention Center may obviate any savings to the public subsidy. The project had a $1.4 billion price tag not long ago.

But more games would invite more traffic and surely more protests. A two-team project could prompt a new environmental impact study that would stress the effect of the busiest football stadium in the league. Until now, the project has been pitched as a convention center with a little football on the side.

Doug Turetsky, chief of staff at the city's Independent Budget Office, added another caveat. "The biggest revenue-generating source of the sports and convention center would be conventions," he said. "If two teams played there, it would be impossible for them to have more profitable activities during the same time, so two teams might not pan out to be much of a revenue boost for the city."

Threatening a move to Manhattan is one option for the Giants. The team has a whopper of a hammer in its lease: a clause that requires the landlord, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, to keep Giants Stadium "state of the art." The Giants can look at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia or the renovated Lambeau Field in Green Bay and say: "Lookie there - and there. That's state of the art."

Or, if the Giants do not move to Manhattan, they can invite Codey and the sports authority board to gaze across the Hudson River at the Jets' stadium (if it is built) and say: "We want that. Start building. That'll be $1 billion. Thanks."

Perhaps a fear of what that clause meant led the sports authority to file suit yesterday in state Superior Court, asking for a declaratory judgment that would define its financial obligation to making the stadium modern and competitive.

The sports authority is arguing that the language of the clause is not crystal clear and that the financial obligation may not be all theirs. John K. Mara, the Giants' chief operating officer, chuckled yesterday at the authority's reasoning. "That's laughable," he said by telephone.

Mara negotiated that clause 10 years ago, a shrewd swap he made for extending the Giants' lease from 2016 to 2026. The Giants say that renovating the stadium to 21st-century standards would cost the state $300 million - the authority figures it would be less - a stunning bill that the authority cannot easily afford.

"They've always accepted that it's 100 percent their obligation," Mara said. "Now they realize it would be so expensive, they're trying to poke holes in an obligation they agreed to years ago, and that's been fully understood ever since."

The lawsuit constitutes a third unexpected condition that the state has lobbed into the stadium pot in the past two days. Even Carl Goldberg, chairman of the sports authority, admitted that the subject of the state agency's obligation to upgrade the stadium never came up in the collapsed talks over the Giants' spending $700 million of their own money to build a new stadium. He said the lawsuit was filed "to understand, in an amicable way, what the renovation possibilities are, if negotiations were not put together and a new stadium did not result."

If nothing else, Goldberg and Codey seem to have pushed the Giants one small step out of East Rutherford and one giant leap toward Manhattan.