[Elvis]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp ... story.html

L.A. stadium solution has never been closer, yet NFL owners are miles apart

By Sam Farmer

In less than a month, the league wants to vote on how to solve the Los Angeles riddle, to fill the vacancy that's existed for 20 years.

The San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders have teamed on a stadium plan in Carson. The St. Louis Rams are backing a competing proposal in Inglewood.

An L.A. solution has never been closer — yet the standoff among the clubs grows more contentious by the day, with other owners lining up and picking sides. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is in the middle, with no simple way to make everyone happy.

A year ago this week, the NFL informed the three teams it was pushing the pause button on L.A. and would spend the next several months zeroing in on a workable site and plan. The Rams and Raiders stayed quiet, while the Chargers announced they would spend the year working on a stadium solution with San Diego.

As it stands, there's no NFL consensus on a plan, and the Chargers and San Diego are essentially divorced, with the club walking away from the negotiating table in June.

Last week, the Chargers arranged for Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger to talk to reporters in L.A. and nationally, to tout the Carson plan. The idea is for him to oversee the stadium if that's the proposal the NFL owners choose.

During his interview, Iger disclosed it was Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson who urged him this summer to come aboard to help the Chargers and Raiders. It was an interesting revelation because Richardson is a member of the Committee on Los Angeles Opportunities, so he's especially influential in the process.

While it's hard not to see that as a conflict of interest, maybe it's just how the sausage is made in these business deals. Still, for a league whose integrity has taken a beating lately, it casts an unflattering shadow on the process.

This week, amid what appears to be a behind-the-scenes PR campaign to make Carson seem inevitable, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair — an L.A. committee member who was far more measured at league meetings this month — simultaneously slammed the city of San Diego and praised efforts by St. Louis to keep the Rams.

Evidently, someone also promised an extra $100 million from the NFL to make a stadium deal work in St. Louis, even though such a decision would require a three-quarters-majority vote of the league's 32 owners. That money was never approved — and the cities of Oakland and San Diego might be wondering, "Where's ours?"

Goodell on Thursday sent a warning letter to Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and his stadium task force, saying the notion of increasing the league's contribution from $200 million to $300 million to a St. Louis stadium is "fundamentally inconsistent with the NFL's program of stadium financing."

"No proposal has yet been presented to increase the available financing beyond the current $200 million maximum," Goodell wrote, "and there can be no assurance that such a proposal would achieve the necessary support."

Each of the three teams faces significant relocation hurdles.

Even though NFL Executive Vice President Eric Grubman said in a recent radio interview that none of the three home markets has come up with an attractive stadium deal, St. Louis has done the most to keep its team. The Rams potentially would be walking away from a significant amount of public money, and the NFL is not in the habit of doing that.

The Rams' moving to L.A. does not solve the stadium problems the Chargers and Raiders have faced for years. And Rams owner Stan Kroenke is not going to win any popularity contests among owners, many of whom were not happy when he bought the Hollywood Park land in the first place.

But it was Kroenke who got all this activity started in L.A. and the home markets, when he announced his Inglewood plan last January. He was the bold one who took the risk, tipping the first rock that became a landslide. For that reason — and the millions of dollars he's spent so far — he's not going to walk away without a fight.

The Chargers are looking to move to a market where they have no discernible fan base. When the franchise moved training camp to Carson in 2003, The Times counted 24 people who showed up to watch the first day of practice. (The crowd was closer to 75 for the afternoon session.) The team wound up returning to San Diego after two summers.

"Are we in L.A.?" joked Drew Brees, then the Chargers' starting quarterback, after the first workout in Carson. "We're just kind of right outside L.A. or a little close to Orange County, right?"

Considering the strained-to-the-breaking-point relations between the Chargers and San Diego now, it's hard to believe the current fans will be making the long slog up the 5/405 to watch games on fall Sundays. Proponents of the Carson stadium point to proximity of Orange County and the sheer number of football fans in the region.

No matter how you slice it — Raiders and Chargers, or Rams and Chargers — the Chargers will always be regarded as the other team in L.A., unless they can build a fan base from scratch the way the Clippers or Arizona Cardinals have, which can take decades. Both the Rams and Raiders have robust followings here.

Paradoxically, although Oakland has done the least to keep the Raiders, that team seems the most torn about leaving its market. The Raiders also have the least financial horsepower of the three, and the least support among NFL ownership to move.

Despite all the sound and fury surrounding this, neither of the plans has the required 24 votes to pass. If one side had enough votes to get its plan approved, this situation would be salted away by now. The NFL is deeply divided.

This won't be decided in the media. This will be decided at some point, among the owners and behind closed doors. And when those doors open, the league wants those owners to be smiling.

With the next meeting planned for Jan. 12-13 in Houston, the NFL has less than a month to go. And miles upon miles.

[Stranger]

This won't be decided in the media.

Precisely !!!

[max]

This will be decided at some point, among the owners and behind closed doors. And when those doors open, the league wants those owners to be smiling.

This is the most important quote in Farmers article.

Somebody tell me how those owners will all be smiling if Kroenke gets shut out of LA?

Kroenke getting shut out of LA is a winner take all result, and by definition that means both smiling and non-smiling faces.

[bubbaramfan]

"The Chargers are looking to move to a market where they have no discernable fan base". Exactly. Spanos just trying to block any other team from LA. So do the owners really want to do LA or not? If he moves the Chargers to LA, he'll piss off his fan base in SD and he knows it. The only way to do LA right and limit the possible chaos is awarding Inglewood.

[snackdaddy]

This will be decided at some point, among the owners and behind closed doors. And when those doors open, the league wants those owners to be smiling.

This is the most important quote in Farmers article.

Somebody tell me how those owners will all be smiling if Kroenke gets shut out of LA?

Kroenke getting shut out of LA is a winner take all result, and by definition that means both smiling and non-smiling faces.

The one smiling would be Spanos. His number one priority is keeping Stan out of LA. Its more of a priority than a stadium itself.

[69superbowl]

Smiling like that dog of yours Snack. (see above).

[Stranger]

Right, guys. Everytime you analyze this based on its real merits, ESK wins. It's all very logical.

But when you add in the noise being perpetrated by a few pyschpaths, who have sportswriters on (paid) leash, it confuses and defies logic. Again, perhaps this is why I stopped paying attention to news and the media approx 12 yrs ago - I got sick of the noise. I strongly suggest others consider turning it off as well, it's really a nice feeling once you get used to it.

[bubbaramfan]

You know what that dog is smiling about? He's thinking "wait til snackers puts on his shoes!".

[Hacksaw]

You know what that dog is smiling about? He's thinking "wait til snackers puts on his shoes!".

Right, guys. Everytime you analyze this based on its real merits, ESK wins. It's all very logical.

But when you add in the noise being perpetrated by a few psychopaths, who have sportswriters on (paid) leash, it confuses and defies logic. Again, perhaps this is why I stopped paying attention to news and the media approx 12 yrs ago - I got sick of the noise. I strongly suggest others consider turning it off as well, it's really a nice feeling once you get used to it.

Last time I did that I found out the Rams were in StLouis while watching Sunday ticket.

Seriously. We were all getting bummed out by the barrage of articles coming out saying more of the owners backing Carson, and Iger made all the difference,, yada yada. Then Dickardson and McHairless come out with their spin putting legitimate faces to it.
The part I like is that we now see that it was just them. Sure there will be those that align themselves with them but they should be careful not to get to close so not to be perceived as in cahoots with the colluders.

[Hacksaw]

Just another writers spin..

All the Reasons the Chargers, Raiders, and Rams Might NOT Move to Los Angeles
Friday, December 18, 2015, by Bianca Barragan

In January, NFL team owners are expected to vote on which teams will move to Los Angeles. As the date approaches, it's becoming ever more clear that the owners don't have a consensus on which team or teams (if any!) it will be uprooting and sending to Los Angeles to fill the football-shaped hole in our collective hearts that's been open for about 20 years now. The Chargers and Raiders could go to Carson, the Rams could end up in Inglewood (possibly with a second team joining them), but with no clear frontrunners for relocation and the pressure to make a decision soon (so that a team or teams can move in time for the next season), "The NFL has a mess on its hands," the LA Times explains. There are plenty of factors working against each team's bid to head to LA.

The Rams
—St. Louis has tried really hard to keep its football team, flashing some some serious cash in the Rams's direction. "The Rams potentially would be walking away from a significant amount of public money, and the NFL is not in the habit of doing that."
—If the relocation hinges on some kind of popularity contest, Rams owner Stan Kroenke would lose; he rankled plenty of owners just by buying the stadium land last year, the Times says.
—At the same time, Kroenke got this disaster train rolling and it's suspected that he's going to fight tooth and nail for the Rams to move because he's spent so much money and has so much otherwise invested in the move.

The Chargers
—The Chargers have "no discernible fan base" in LA; when they moved their training camp to Carson (briefly; they moved back to San Diego after two years), 24 people showed up to watch their first practice, according to an LA Times count.
—"[T]he Chargers will always be regarded as the other team in L.A." and changing that perception could take years and years of work.
—They've also strained relations with their San Diego fan base, so those fans probably won't be making the trip up to Carson to watch their ex-team play in their new home.

The Raiders
—Even though Oakland has done the least bending-over-backwards to keeps its team in the Bay Area, the Raiders "seems the most torn about leaving [their] market." (Granted, it's not hard to seem torn compared to the Rams and Chargers. The mayor of St. Louis has said Stan Kroenke won't take his calls; the Chargers and San Diego "are essentially divorced," says the Times.)
—The Raiders have the least "financial horsepower" of all the teams trying to move to Los Angeles.
—The Raiders are also at the bottom of the (short) list in terms of owner support for relocation.

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2015/12/l ... s_rams.php