Building a new stadium for a sports team was once considered a welcomed capital improvement and a source of civic pride.

Now it’s effectively an organized crime spree, involving extortion, harassment, misinformation, false promises, threats and, in most cases, the transport of malarkey across state lines.

Called “stadium politics,” team owners hold local government hostage by threatening to move to another city unless taxpayers cough up hundreds of millions for a new venue. There are promises of economic development, but as we’ve seen in the area around the AT&T Center, it doesn’t happen.

I only mention this because, as the latest NFL relocation hostage situation went down in Houston on Tuesday, this fine city of 1.4 million innocent bystanders was once again caught in the national crossfire between cities, teams and a league.

Most of the parties feel the problem is solved, but there’s a rogue NFL owner from Northern California on the prowl out there. He could be coming after us.

Your perspective might be that voter-financed sports facilities are bad. Or that the prestige of having an NFL team can’t be measured in dollars and cents.

Alternately, you could like football, but hate the Stockholm Syndrome.

Three teams — the St. Louis Rams, the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders — showed up in the Bayou City, asking for approval to leave their respective cities to fill two spots in Los Angeles.

By the end of the day, league owners voted 30-2 to approve a Rams’ move to L.A.

Now it gets tricky. The Chargers get first crack at joining the Rams in L.A. If they don’t do it, Oakland gets a shot.

Both the Chargers and Raiders will each get $100 million if they opt to stay in place and can get local voters to kick in the bulk of the money.

With L.A. out of the football ransom game, that means San Antonio — a city that loves lists — now becomes the nation’s No. 1 leverage city.

But before the city can celebrate its dubious ascendancy, that number might be called by the team which was vanquished on Tuesday.

Raiders owner Mark Davis, who has burned his Oakland bridges, shot them repeatedly and hanged them by the neck until dead, has a contingency plan.

He came here in 2014 to talk informally with civic leaders. He left without making a decision.

Sometime recently, Bleacher Report claims, Davis bought land between Austin and San Antonio, ostensibly to build a stadium.

Observers thought it was bluff. But as far as bluffs go, it’s not that bad. In fact, it’s pretty damned good.

Building along the I-35 corridor would draw customers from two major cities — one full of hardcore fans, the other full of high tech companies — and their suburbs. And for eight games a year, fans from South Texas and Northern Mexico would flock to Buda or Kyle or San Marcos for NFL football.

It could work.

And consider this: One suggestion that didn’t die Tuesday night — and which is probably being floated by City Hall or Bexar County — is that the NFL, in lieu of $100 million in stadium financing, might consider waiving relocation fees if the Raiders find another place to land. That includes, presumably, San Antonio.

That’s the only way San Antonio will likely get a team, said Roger Noll, a Stanford University economist who studies stadium politics. There has never, ever been any serious effort for an NFL team here. There aren’t any big money, open-wallet guys like Rams owner Stan Kroenke here who are willing to gamble a billion dollars on football in South Texas.

If you are out there, call me.

Car dealers Red McCombs and Tom Benson both flirted with moving NFL teams here years ago, but neither attempt worked. Beyond that, there’s been squadoosh on the NFL front here.

Does San Antonio have the political will to go for it? Does anyone in San Antonio want to go through the metaphorical meat grinder that comes with being taken hostage by a rogue NFL team owner? Does San Antonio want that trouble?

I’m only asking because Davis was brief in his Tuesday night comments.

“This is not a win for the Raiders today,” he said, with a smile pasted on a his grimace. “We’ll see where the Raider Nation ends up here.

“We’re looking for a home.”

rbragg@express-news.net

Twitter: @roybragg