Early Tuesday, the league first updated the owners on where things stand in San Diego as well as St. Louis and Oakland on efforts to build a stadium that would keep their teams in those home markets. Owners seem taken with a $1.7 billion proposed stadium in Carson, which also won’t require a public vote, that would house the Chargers and Raiders.
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The maintenance costs of new buildings are almost always overlooked in new stadium and arena deals, and all too often wind up coming back to bite cities in their municipal asses. Owners Dean Spanos of the Chargers and Mark Davis of the Raiders spoke during their 30-minute presentation at the meetings, and Carmen Policy, a former 49ers executive who was hired to help oversee the project, said the group touted the transportation and location advantages of its proposed site, and the history of the teams.
The city and county plan calls for a $1.1 billion facility that would be constructed next to existing Qualcomm Stadium.
The NFL took another step toward putting another team in its second-biggest market, Los Angeles, after hearing presentations for possible franchise relocations, CBSSports reports.
Finally, the U-T quoted city attorney Jan Goldsmith as saying, “If they want an NFL franchise in the eighth-largest city in the nation, this is the time they make the decision”.
” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the owners had a discussion on relocation fees and the amount could be determined later this year.
“Today we’ve shown that San Diego can meet the time deadline”, Goldsmith said.
The NFL ultimately must decide on either the Carson or Inglewood projects; it doesn’t want a bunch of negative campaigning before the “election”.
The lack of a clear and present plan from Oakland puts them squarely in last place for a potential move to L.A. While San Diego representatives have pulled themselves up by their boot straps after running into red tape with the city.
“Let me say this: The Raiders and the Chargers are committed to L.A.”, Policy said.
If they don’t allow the Chargers to leave San Diego, then of course the city would be in a much better bargaining position. There is still no official timeline on when something will finally be decided and though some have pointed to the next round of owners meetings in October, Goodell, Policy, Demoff and others said the process probably wouldn’t reach a conclusion sooner than later.
“It’s a relatively unique circumstance where you have multiple teams interested in relocating to a market where there are two different solutions”, he said. In fact, Ramblin’ Fan was a part of ESPN’s Outside the Lines on Monday evening to talk about the possibility of the Rams staying in St. Louis.
The Raiders played 12 seasons in Los Angeles before going to Oakland after the 1994 season.
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The “California dilemma” was a reference to the current run-down stadiums used by the Chargers in San Diego and the Raiders in Oakland.
