- Jan 8, 2006
- 30,560
- 33,906
I really don't think he's going back to college
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With No Stadium on Horizon, Chances Dim for a Move to Los Angeles in 2015
By KEN BELSON
December 14, 2014
The chances of an N.F.L. team’s moving to Los Angeles next season may be dimming.
The Oakland Raiders, the San Diego Chargers and the St. Louis Rams are considered the leading candidates to settle there because they have the potential to exit their stadium leases next year.
But Commissioner Roger Goodell said last week that while the league continued to look for a site for a new stadium to host a team, no resolution was in sight.
“I’m not at the point where I would tell you that anything is imminent or that we have a solution identified at this point in time,” Goodell said Wednesday after team owners met in Irving, Tex. “There is progress, but we’ve all heard that before.”
Discussions with league officials and owners on the sidelines of the meeting confirmed that the prospect of an N.F.L. team’s playing in 2015 in Los Angeles — which has not had a team for two decades — was increasingly unlikely.
AEG, which has proposed building a stadium downtown near Staples Center, received a six-month extension in October to try to work out a deal with the city, which wants a new convention center on the site to replace the aging one there now.
The N.F.L. favors that site over others that have been suggested in Carson, Inglewood and the City of Industry. But in a game of cat and mouse, no one appears willing to build a stadium until a team has committed to moving.
Complicating matters, Los Angeles’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, has said he is unwilling to subsidize the construction of a stadium.
At various points, the Rams have been considered front-runners to move to Southern California, in part because the team’s owner, Stan Kroenke, bought a large plot of land in Inglewood where, in theory, he could build his own stadium.
The Rams were unable to reach an agreement with the regional sports authority in St. Louis to refurbish the Edward Jones Dome, the team’s current home.
But before Thanksgiving, Dave Peacock, the chairman of the St. Louis Sports Commission and a former chief executive of Anheuser-Busch, met at the N.F.L.’s headquarters with Eric Grubman, the league’s point man on Los Angeles.
Peacock shared with Grubman preliminary plans for a stadium near the Mississippi River and north of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, as well as ideas for other potential sites, according to several people with knowledge of their meeting.
Peacock and other business leaders were appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri to come up with plans for a new Rams stadium in St. Louis by the end of January.
According to the league’s relocation rules, owners must negotiate in good faith with their host cities about stadiums until all possibilities have been exhausted.
It is unclear whether the plans shown to Grubman were conceptual or fully developed. As in all cases, finding the money to pay for a stadium is critical.
Nixon said last month that funding for a new stadium was possible because the bonds issued to pay for the Edward Jones Dome would be retired in a few years.
The Rams are not the only team in search of a new stadium. The Raiders, who play in the old O.co Coliseum, have struggled to find a new stadium in Oakland and have spoken with officials in San Antonio. The Raiders also remain popular in Los Angeles, where they played in the 1980s and ’90s.
When asked about the possibility of the Raiders’ returning to Los Angeles, Grubman said, “The Raiders name is so storied that it would benefit the league.”
Isn't college worse with all this supporter pressure? I won't be shocked if he goes to Miami or Michigan. Let's hope his wife wears the khaki pants in the relationship.
What you guys think about Brian Kelly?
I hate schefters tweet, no real info about what direction. its got my mind wandering.
No Holmgren. We need someone from this generation.
I didn't expect Gruden to want to come back. He's said he doesn't want to many times yet people kept saying "well you know he might come back if...". Hire Jim, Rex as D Coordinator and Trestman as O Coordinator and I would go crazy.
No Holmgren. We need someone from this generation.
Even as a GM?
Didn't know that about Schefter...smhAdam is a Broncos fan he was the main guy starting the Gruden rumor. Just give me Jim or Rex. I'm not sure about Holmgren