NEW ORLEANS -- NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue initiated new negotiations Monday with organizers of an auto convention that has complicated plans to change the date of the Super Bowl.

Tagliabue and National Automobile Dealers Association president Phillip Brady met in the Washington, D.C., area -- where NADA is based -- and agreed to assign negotiators who will begin meeting Tuesday.

The talks will cover complicated issues ranging from financial compensation to resolving a variety of scheduling conflicts for the auto convention's nearly 30,000 participants and 600 vendors.

"We would certainly have to be indemnified by the league" for the cost of changing convention dates, said David Hyatt, spokesman for NADA. "There are also some major logistical problems. It's not just dollars and cents."

NADA's convention currently is set for Feb. 2-5, the weekend after the original Super Bowl date of Jan. 27. But with NFL games pushed back a week in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the NFL now is leaning toward holding the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Feb. 3.

Mayor Marc Morial has said the city cannot handle both events simultaneously, and NADA had earlier told Tagliabue that it was too late to move its convention. But Tagliabue said Sunday that New Orleans remains the top choice as Super Bowl host, even on Feb. 3.

Hyatt said NADA has not put a precise dollar figure on what it would cost to change dates. The cost of the convention is between $10 million and $15 million, but he said there are other things including contracts signed with vendors.

"If there is a way to make this happen, we are going to make it happen," he said. "The fact remains, we're looking at a logistical nightmare and who knows what kind of liabilities will be incurred. We still have to see what the league can do about those?"

It was not clear Monday how much it would cost the NFL to change the location of the Super Bowl fewer than five months before the date of the game.

In the case no deal can be reached with NADA, the NFL has contacted other cities -- Miami, Tampa Bay and Los Angeles -- to see if they could host this year's championship game. If the game were moved, NFL officials have said they would consider holding the league's two conference finals in New Orleans on Jan. 27.

Morial said the city would prefer to keep the Super Bowl, which pumps an estimated $400 million into the area economy, University of New Orleans economist Tim Ryan says.

"We will continue to work to ensure the Super Bowl will be played in New Orleans," Morial said in a written statement. "We are encouraged by ongoing discussions."

Hyatt said NADA and Morial also had productive discussions on Monday.

"It really wasn't what the mayor said as much as his attitude to do whatever takes to work this out," Hyatt said.

Since the NFL has never held two conference finals at a single neutral site, it was difficult to project how much such a scenario would compensate for the loss of a Super Bowl.

"Clearly, with two games, you have the possibility of bringing in more people, but I suspect it would not have big punch if a Super Bowl because the Super Bowl is really a corporate event," Ryan said. "The corporate entertaining is in the tens of millions of dollars."