Last week, the St. Louis Rams, Oakland Raiders, and San Diego Chargers all filed for relocation to Los Angeles, which hasn’t had an National Football League team since 1994.
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After the NFL vacated Los Angeles – the second-biggest media market in the country – after the 1995 season when the Rams moved to St. Louis and the Raiders moved back to Oakland, many wondered if the league would ever return.
As the Rams entered the 1990s and talks of a departure turned into reality, Olvera said the Rams were still his team – even if they were now more than 1,800 miles away. Instead, the Chargers raised concerns with a hastily conducted environmental impact statement they felt could get tied up in court. Now, fans can also move the Rams to the City of Angels in EA Sports’ Madden NFL 16. As ESPN’s Trey Wingo notes, since 2011, the Rams have fewer regular-season wins (29) than the city’s baseball team, the Cardinals, have playoff wins (32).
“The ownership personally believes the project in Hollywood Park is the kind of project that is going to make us successful in Los Angeles long-term, the kind of stadium, the kind of facility that would bring a new kind of fan experience to Los Angeles”.
Now the Chargers and Raiders have to scramble. Instead, he now has a carrot for an early agreement – as does Chargers owner Dean Spanos, who’ll know that the sooner he signs on to Inglewood, the better a lease he’s likely to get from Kroenke. The mayor of Santa Clara Jamie Matthews welcomes the idea. “I grew up in Missouri, and there’s a lot of wonderful people in St. Louis and Missouri”, Kroenke explained.
Faulconer said the NFL’s rejection of the Chargers’ plans to build a stadium in Carson with the Oakland Raiders gives both sides the opportunity for a fresh start in what has been a bruising saga in San Diego that has damaged the team’s relationship with what had been a loyal fan base.
When NFL owners looked at the potential revenue boost from a game-changing super stadium in the USA entertainment capital Los Angeles, all the St. Louis Rams supporters and stadium plans meant nothing.
The celebration didn’t limit itself to Southern California.
The decision ends the NFL’s 21-year absence in Los Angeles. I have no hard feelings toward L.A. fans who have every right to be excited about their new NFL team – or two – but I would argue that the losing city in this year’s NFL Hunger Games shouldn’t have lost. “An LA without football has always been worth more to the league than an LA with a team”, he writes. “Just disbelief”, says Wistrom”.
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And if the Rams truly hope to succeed, it would really help for local boy Jeff Fisher to put a winning team on the field in September.
