[Elvis]

Point, counter point from Bolts From The Blue. Here's Point:

http://www.boltsfromtheblue.com/2016/2/ ... e-chargers

The Raiders lost Los Angeles for the Chargers

By John Gennaro

An in-depth story from behind the scenes of the owners vote that ended with the St. Louis Rams moving to Los Angeles and the Chargers coming back to the table in San Diego shows what really caused Dean Spanos to lose the vote: The Raiders.

If you haven't yet read this amazing ESPN The Magazine article by Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr. on the Chargers, Rams, and Raiders attempts to relocate to Los Angeles, you need to. Go do that right now and come back.

That was long but amazing, right? Right.

You can get a lot from that article and all of its insight, and Jeff Siniard will probably be around later or tomorrow to tell you what he think went wrong for Dean Spanos and the San Diego Chargers in their quest to move to Carson, but here's mine.

First Misstep: Mark Davis & The Santa Clara Raiders

I don't want to copy and paste too much from the ESPN article, but here's one part that is particularly important.

Spanos needed help. So Richardson suggested that he partner with Mark Davis on the Carson project. For years, the Chargers and Raiders, both of whom play in baseball venues built in the 1960s, had failed to persuade their communities to help offset the costs of new football-only stadiums. If two teams moved together, Richardson said, it would help solve the league's "California dilemma," as owners called it.

Most owners liked the eccentric Davis, now 60, even if they knew him only as the quiet guy with the bowl cut who had pushed his father Al's wheelchair through hotel lobbies at league meetings. Still, many wondered whether Davis, who never had an official job with the Raiders until he assumed control of the team after his father's death in 2011, was up to the challenge of shepherding a stadium project alone. He had turned down many offers to partner with the 49ers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, and for years, the Davis family had resisted offers to buy the team and move it south. During one such lunch meeting in 2010, two Los Angeles businessmen pitched a lowball offer to Al Davis, who started laughing. "F--- you," he told them. "Get the hell out of here." And he went back to eating his lunch.

So on Feb. 19, 2015, six weeks after Kroenke's Inglewood announcement, the Raiders and Chargers proposed their Carson project, a football-only venue, unlike the epicenter planned for Inglewood, and financed mostly by Goldman Sachs.

First, I'd like to point out exactly how much I miss crazy old Al Davis. He was the best.

Second, there are two really interesting tidbits in that middle paragraph. One is that the other owners didn't really know or respect Mark Davis, and didn't know whether they should entrust him to own an NFL team in the country's #2 market. Two is that Davis has already turned down "many offers to partner with the 49ers at Levis' Stadium".

Stop and think about that for a second.

The Chargers were partnering with the Raiders to solve "California's dilemma". Two teams were playing in broken down stadiums, they both needed new ones, neither was going to get one from their home market. However, the Raiders were not in the same set of dire straits that the Chargers were. The Raiders had a new stadium, the crown jewel of west coast NFL stadiums, ready and willing to let them come play in it. (And, for those that are unaware, Santa Clara is almost exactly as far from Oakland as it is from San Francisco.)

The Chargers may have been in a bad way, but the Raiders were not. They had options, and they were options that didn't involve the league handing the keys to Los Angeles over to an owner that the other owners don't exactly trust or respect.

Second Misstep: The Los Angeles Raiders

Don't underestimate just how badly the NFL, run by the NFL owners, wanted to keep the Raiders out of Los Angeles.

In their first go-around in L.A., Raiders gear (and games) became synonymous with gangs and gang violence. It was just shy of an unmitigated disaster for a league that is trying to sell itself to upper class citizens that will buy its expensive tickets and merchandise. Nobody wanted that again.

There were plenty of rumors that no local venue, not even the L.A. Coliseum, would allow for the Raiders to play there temporarily while waiting for a stadium to be built.

There were reports that Stan Kroenke didn't want Raiders fans anywhere near his Inglewood site, and therefore would prefer to partner up with the Chargers, if forced to take a second team on as a partner or tenant.

How and When It Fell Apart

So, Dean Spanos partners with the Raiders for the Carson stadium project, and the other NFL owners are thinking that the Raiders are:

1. Led by an owner that should not be trusted with a major market
2. A magnet for gang activity in Los Angeles
3. Unable to secure a temporary place to play
4. Turning down many offers to play in a brand new stadium in Santa Clara

When it came time for the owners to vote, the turning point seemed to be when Baltimore Ravens Owner Steve Bisciotti suggested that the vote be between the two options that the owners seemed to favor the most:

Chargers/Rams in Inglewood vs. Chargers/Raiders in Carson

The Inglewood plan, at this point, had become the popular option. The Carson plan, at this point, was being fiercely defended by many long-time owners (the Rooneys, the Maras, etc.). It seemed like a fair fight, until you took away the constant and realized what the vote actually was.

Rams in Inglewood vs. Raiders in Carson

Knowing how the owners felt about Mark Davis and the Raiders, this was bound to be an overwhelming vote, and it was.

And, just like that, Dean Spanos had all but removed himself and the Chargers from the equation. He had tied his ship to the idea of the Los Angeles Raiders, an idea that all of the other owners hated and an idea that was completely unnecessary, and it is what ended up making it an easy win for Stan Kroenke and the Los Angeles Rams.

[Elvis]

And here's counterpoint:

http://www.boltsfromtheblue.com/2016/2/ ... e-chargers

COUNTERPOINT: Dean Spanos lost Los Angeles for the Chargers

By Jeffrey Siniard

Make no mistake. The Raiders weren't the reason Dean Spanos lost the Relocation Derby against Stan Kroenke.

The piece on ESPN.com by Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr is a terrific piece of reporting, and should be read immediately before proceeding any further.

Now that we're back, I am going to disagree with the Bossman's assertion that the Raiders cost Dean Spanos his opportunity to go to Carson.

In my view, Spanos lost for 2 reasons. One of them is money. The other is because Spanos is risk and conflict averse, and that meant he was malleable in the eyes of his fellow NFL Owners.

In other, much more famous words... The Dude Abides.

It's Always the Money

The article says it explicitly:

The silent majority preferred the Inglewood site but liked Spanos better than Kroenke.

There were many reasons that the Inglewood site was preferred. First, it provided the "Wow" factor which many owners believed was vital, chief among them Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Second, it was the NFL's preferred plan, supported quietly by Commissioner Roger Goodell and Vice-President Eric Grubman.

Most importantly, as was said repeatedly throughout the process, Kroenke had the money to see it through.

This brings me back to Dean Spanos adding Mark Davis to the Carson project. According to the article, Spanos included Davis at the suggestion of Panthers owner Jerry Richardson. I submit this was done for one reason, above any other:

Spanos couldn't do Carson by himself.

I wrote about this back in April. As it turns out, if Dean had tried to do Carson on his own, he would've paid $1.8 billion for the stadium, at least another $550 million in relocation fees, as well as other costs associated with the move - such as physical relocation, temporary and new facilities, and rebranding. A conservative estimate puts Dean in the hole by at least $2.4 billion dollars, not including interest.

For a family valued (according to the article) at $1.689 billion, $2.4 billion is a lot of debt to assume. And if you think the NFL and the other owners didn't see that as a ginormous red flag, compared to Kroenke's $2.7 billion project against $7.6 billion in personal wealth (not counting his wife - a Wal-Mart heiress), you're kidding yourself.

If the Raiders were a millstone around Dean Spanos' neck at the end of the process (and they were, albeit to a smaller degree than others think), then it's even more true that Spanos would never have gotten as far as he did without Davis on-board to begin with.

Spanos Wasn't The Man for Los Angeles

Here's how the article contrasts Kroenke and Spanos:

The ruthlessness of Kroenke was fixed in sharp relief against the abidance of Spanos.

and here's how his fellow NFL Owners viewed Dean Spanos:

With thinning brown hair and rimmed glasses, Spanos was deeply involved in league matters, "loyal to a fault," in the words of a close friend. Now 65, he ran the team owned by his 92-year-old father, Alex Spanos. The NFL was his primary business, even if many owners wondered whether he possessed the sharp elbows of his father.

Further, as you read the article, it becomes evident that everyone in the group viewed Spanos as malleable. Jones approached him back in August about potentially partnering with Kroenke. Meanwhile, Richardson is the one suggesting to Spanos that he bring on Davis, and later suggests that Spanos (and Davis) bring Disney CEO Bob Iger aboard.

We also know that Dean Spanos is very conflict-averse in how he runs his business. One needs to only look at Chargers history to see that Spanos tends to avoid conflict at all costs, even when the cost to his own franchise is catastrophic. Remember his inability to resolve the feud between then General Manager Bobby Beathard and Head Coach Bobby Ross during the 1990s? That failure was followed almost exactly a decade later by another feud between then General Manager A.J. Smith and Head Coach Marty Schottenheimer.

In both cases, Dean's failure to act decisively and solve those problems damaged the two most successful runs of the franchise during his stewardship.

Now, back to the opening of the article:

At Mastro's, the two men met to determine whether they might have a shared vision for Los Angeles. Kroenke was enthusiastic about a 60-acre tract of land in Inglewood, nestled between the Forum and the soon-to-be-closed Hollywood Park racetrack. Earlier in the year, Kroenke had driven around the site at 5:30 a.m. and raved about its potential to Rams chief operating officer Kevin Demoff and to Jones. Spanos, though, was cool on the Inglewood location, citing concerns about parking and traffic.

Still, both men, and their associates, saw the convivial dinner as a promising first step toward a potential partnership. They agreed to be in touch.

But after the dinner, Spanos called Kroenke several times. Kroenke never returned any of the calls.

It's my opinion Kroenke needed only that dinner to realize that Spanos didn't have the vision to see what could be done in Inglewood, and therefore wasn't the right guy to help him get to Los Angeles.

Even now, back in San Diego, Spanos has refused to say decisively which stadium site he wants to pursue. Does he prefer downtown? Yes. Will he pursue it at all costs, against a political establishment (and public desire) which wants him to stay in Mission Valley? That remains to be seen, and becomes murkier with each passing day.

Let's also not forget that Spanos was thisclose to closing the AEG deal for Farmers Field back in 2011, and walked away at the last moment.

Lastly, I'd suggest Dean got exactly what he always really wanted:

Kroenke had land, money and, most of all, the shrewdness required to relocate. He was willing to sacrifice his relationship with Rams fans and with the state in which he was raised -- something that Spanos, for all of his fights with San Diego politicians, seemed reluctant to do.

The chance to get a deal in San Diego while having a guaranteed fallback in Los Angeles.

Cash-strapped (compared to other NFL owners), risk-averse, indecisive, malleable, and "loyal to a fault" to his home market. Is this who the NFL wants running Los Angeles?

In Closing

Now, let's come back to the point made earlier about financial risk. Spanos decided against going rogue following the outcome of the meeting, and instead accepted the decision of his fellow owners.

Then, when presented the opportunity for a true partnership in a better project with a financially secure owner as a backstop, did Dean take the risk?

Nope - he is likely to accept the lower risk option of becoming a tenant in someone else's building, if he ends up moving to Los Angeles in 2017.

In so doing, he validated the concerns of every owner who'd argued on behalf of Kroenke and the Inglewood project and proved he wasn't (and had never been) the right owner for Los Angeles.

[Hacksaw]

Siniard lays out a clear view of what is going on, His conclusions seem tight.

I wish I had a clearer understanding about senior Spanos during the year of relocation madness. I might have had fewer ,,,, err,,, concerns.

[Stranger]

The Raiders lost Los Angeles for the Chargers

Fabiani doing his blame-game thing again?

[Hacksaw]

,,, or, Spanos lost LA by being Spanos.

[den-the-coach]

You're judged by the company you keep and partnering with Mark Davis was a huge mistake, but Spanos needed somebody he could control and Davis is a puppet on a string. These two reminded me of a great combination of yesteryear:

Spanos & Davis back in the day:

[Elvis]

As much as Spanos looks like a failure and a clown (to me) i think he has a pretty good case that he's in a much better position today than he would've been without Carson...

[Hacksaw]

As much as Spanos looks like a failure and a clown (to me) i think he has a pretty good case that he's in a much better position today than he would've been without Carson...

Agreed Elvis, His charaid(er) earned him a cool $100 mil. Not bad for a years paycheck. He has everyone's undivided attention behind the shield but more so in San Diego and he has an alternate plan in his back pocket. He still pales by comparison to our owner when it comes to decision making, wealth and clout..