They are one of three teams, joining the St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers, hoping to make a move to Los Angeles.
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The Chargers and Raiders have teamed on a joint venture for a stadium in Carson, California.
And the end may be in sight: Key NFL owner committees are meeting Wednesday and Thursday in New York City to review the two applications, plus competing proposals to keep the teams in each hometown. The full league ownership will consider the issue, and is expected to vote on Los Angeles relocation, during its meetings in Houston next week. The Rams cite a study in which St. Louis ranks 61st out of 64 major cities in recent economic growth with the lowest population growth of any major US city since 2008.
Dave Peacock, co-chairman of Gov. Jay Nixon’s stadium task force here, cautioned on Monday against overreaction. The Rams’ analysis of the St. Louis plan contains “inconsistencies and inaccuracies”, he said.
The Rams’ application argues that trading small-market St. Louis for big-market Los Angeles would strengthen the league.
Spanos said Kroenke’s proposal to build a stadium in Inglewood was “the catalyst” in the Chargers seeking to move.
The Rams, Chargers and Raiders have all filed for relocation. “The matter is now in the hands of the NFL’s owners”. Confronted with the policy, the St. Louis Rams released their relocation application Tuesday, and it contains plenty of discouraging words about St. Louis as a football market. The office space, the statement claims, would house the NFL Network, NFL Media and NFL Digital as opposed to their Culver City location.
While, yes, it’s still very up in the air whether one, two, or any of the teams that have applied for relocation, the fact that all three teams are showing that they’re in it for the long haul should speak for itself.
The fact that the Rams are bashing the city’s proposal is nearly ironic because St. Louis was the only city to send a viable stadium proposal to the NFL by the league’s mandated deadline on December 30.
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It’s no surprise that the Rams tried to couch the stadium situation as something that has been percolating since 2002, since that’s when the Chargers actually started trying to work out a new stadium in San Diego. Desperate to get back into the National Football League, the city (represented by the St. Louis Regional Sports Authority, the Convention and Visitors Commission, who no doubt consulted with local city, county, and state officials) agreed to a lease which stipulated a ‘First Tier Promise, ‘ which, in essence, required the stadium to remain among the top 25 percent of all facilities.
