Chargers, Raiders propose shared NFL stadium in Carson

Damn. It just gets stranger and stranger.

Musical chairs. Some team is gonna
get left out. Who’s it gonna be?

That looks like some kind of
disco-UFO, btw.

w
v

• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by wv.

Maybe the Buffalo Bills will move to Iowa. And share a stadium with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Zooey wrote:

My first thought – after “Eww, that’s the ugliest stadium I’ve seen in my life, and why is it levitating?” – is “Don’t the Chargers and Raiders play in the same division?”

So if the Chargers and Raiders are both going to take home in the same stadium, the league is going to have to realign some divisions.

One of those teams moves to the NFC West, and the Rams move to the NFC East – stay in St. Louis – and enjoy a divisional rivalry with the Chiefs.

But – damn! – I gotta say that is some strange bedfellows, there.

I would think they would keep it to a simple divisional alignment and just swap one NFC west team for one afc west team.

But what if tampa bay shares a stadium with indianapolis? Then what?

Zooey wrote:

That is what I said. Rams and one of those teams swap. My syntax was a bit labored, I’ll admit.

Ah, so, in the end, you agree with me.

That’s all that matters.

It wasn’t worth this kind of board war though.

Chargers, Raiders will jointly pursue an NFL
stadium in Carson
By SAM FARMER
FEBRUARY 20, 2015, 3:00 AM

On the field, the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders have had as bitter a rivalry
as any in the NFL but in a sense, they’re now partners.

The teams will officially announce Friday that, while they work on stadium deals in their current
cities, they will jointly pursue a shared, $1.7 ­billion NFL stadium in Carson as an alternative.

While theirs might seem to be an unlikely pairing ­­ the Silver & Black and the Powder Blue ­­ the
Raiders and Chargers have actually been closer over the years than many people might think.
“Al is also a big reason for the strong rivalry between the Raiders and the Chargers and its
popularity among both teams’ fans,” Chargers President Dean Spanos said, referring to the late Al
Davis, legendary owner of the Raiders. “He personified the image and mystique of the Raiders,
and that image has helped build the strength of our rivalries and the popularity of our game.
There has been no one in the NFL like Al Davis.”

But the cantankerous Davis might never have believed this.

The Chargers and Raiders will continue to seek public subsidies for new stadiums in their home
markets, but they are developing a detailed proposal for a privately financed Los Angeles venue in
the event they can’t get deals done in San Diego and Oakland by the end of this year, according to
the teams.

In a statement given to The Times on Thursday, the Chargers and Raiders said: “We are pursuing
this stadium option in Carson for one straightforward reason: If we cannot find a permanent
solution in our home markets, we have no alternative but to preserve other options to guarantee
the future economic viability of our franchises.”

The teams are working with “Carson2gether,” a group of business and labor leaders. The coalition
will announce the project Friday at a news conference near the 168 ­acre site, a parcel at the
southwest quadrant of the intersection of the 405 Freeway and Del Amo Boulevard.

They plan to immediately launch a petition drive for a ballot initiative to get voter approval to
build the stadium.

This latest high ­stakes move was precipitated by St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who
announced in January his plan to build an 80,000­ seat stadium on the land that used to be
Hollywood Park.

That put pressure on the Chargers, who say 25% of their fan base is in Los Angeles and Orange
counties. The Raiders, among the most financially strapped NFL teams, joined forces with the
Chargers because they don’t have the money build a stadium on their own.

The Jets and the Giants, who both play in East Rutherford, N.J., are the only NFL teams playing
in the same stadium.

L.A., which has been without the NFL for two decades, now finds itself with three teams that could
relocate here and four stadium proposals, including the Farmers Field concept downtown and
developer Ed Roski’s plan in the City of Industry.

Even skeptics have to concede the city has never been in a better position to have the country’s No.
1 sport return, though none of the three teams has yet to commit to moving here.

Like the Rams, the Chargers and Raiders are on year ­to ­year leases in older stadiums. Prospects
for new venues in San Diego and Oakland are bleak and, as is in L.A., there is no appetite to
commit public money to build a stadium. The Carson proposal calls for the teams to be equal, as
opposed to one’s acting as landlord to the other.

The long ­vacant Carson Marketplace site is part of an old municipal landfill and has been the
subject of significant cleanup efforts in recent years. The NFL has looked into buying the site at
least three times.

In the late 1990s, entertainment executive Michael Ovitz wanted to build on that site and bring in
an expansion franchise. In 1999, Houston oilman Bob McNair outbid two competing L.A. groups,
paying $750 million for the team that would become the Texans.

The Chargers and Raiders bought the land from Starwood Capital Group. Barry Sternlicht, its
chairman, said of the project: “This is a great opportunity to return professional football to Los
Angeles, and we are going to do everything we can to make it happen.”

Whereas Kroenke and his partners have expansive plans for retail space, housing and a 6,000­
seat theater — along with the 80,000 ­seat stadium — on the 298 ­acre Hollywood Park site, the
Carson concept calls only for a football stadium, with room for more than 18,000 parking spaces
as well as tailgating.

“We’re thinking about the project as a 21st century, next­ generation stadium,” said architect David
Manica, noting that the venue and renderings are still in the early conceptual stages. “We want it
to be the ultimate outdoor event experience, which includes both sports and entertainment. And
we want it to be uniquely L.A.”

The projected capacity for the stadium is about 68,000, expandable to more than 72,000.
Manica, president of Manica Architecture, was formerly at HOK Sport, where he led the design of
the Texans’ stadium, the renovation of the Miami Dolphins’ stadium, and the seating bowl of
Wembley Stadium in London.

One early concept for Carson is clear seats that reflect the color of the lights shining on them — the
seats could be silver and black for Raiders games, and powder blue for Chargers games.

More pressing are the steps developers would need to take, including working with the coalition to
support a ballot measure that would allow the venue to be built. If the clubs can gather the
required signatures to place the stadium initiative on the ballot, approval can be attained either
through a public election or by a vote of the Carson City Council.

Kroenke is further along in that regard, having already collected the signatures for a ballot
initiative. Inglewood’s mayor has said that rather than holding a public election, the council would
vote on the initiative, perhaps as early as Tuesday.

The NFL long has contended that it will control the process of any return to L.A., including which
team or teams will be allowed to relocate, and which stadium proposal will get the green light.
How much control the league actually has is up for debate, as it does not have a strong track
record of stopping teams that are determined to move. League rules stipulate that any such
decision requires a three ­quarters majority vote of the 32 teams.

The Chargers and Raiders said they have kept the league’s new Committee on Los Angeles
Opportunities, and the commissioner, fully informed about their joint effort, and that they intend
to strictly adhere to the relocation procedures.

The Chargers have been seeking a stadium solution in the San Diego area for nearly 14 years, a
period spanning seven mayors and nine proposals. The relationship between the club and the city
has grown especially strained in recent days, as the Chargers have pushed the city to contribute to
a new stadium.

The Raiders have been working on a stadium solution with Oakland and Alameda County for about six years but have not made much progress. The club, which has said that remaining in the
Oakland market is a priority, has venue concepts but no taxpayer money has been committed. The
Inglewood and Carson proposals do not involve any public money.

The reason the franchises would be able to privately finance a stadium in Carson, as opposed to
their own cities, is that the L.A. market could better support the sale of hundreds of millions of
dollars of preferred seat licenses, one ­time payments for the right to buy a season ticket. The teams
would also get revenues from naming rights; sponsorship and advertising would be far more
lucrative than in smaller markets.

It’s widely speculated in NFL circles that a franchise that moves from a smaller market to L.A.
could end up being worth 150% of its current value. Franchises would probably have to pay a hefty
relocation fee, although the league has never specified an amount.

The three teams all previously played in L.A., with the Raiders and Rams leaving Southern
California after the 1994 season, and the Chargers, then in the old American Football League,
calling the Coliseum home in 1960, their inaugural season.

All signs point to the Chargers and Raiders — like the Rams — targeting the 2016 season for
relocation, should those teams not get acceptable deals to remain in their current cities. The NFL
has long held that L.A. is a two ­team market, and it’s almost inconceivable that the league would
allow three teams in such close proximity.

The NFL has ruled out any teams’ relocating this season, and is strongly opposed to a franchise’s
enduring more than one lame ­duck season in a market about to be vacated. A team or teams
moving to L.A. would play for at least two seasons in a temporary home — most likely the
Coliseum, Rose Bowl or possibly Dodger Stadium — while a new stadium was under construction.

Twitter: @LATimesfarmer

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-nfl-stadium-20150220-story.html#page=1

rfl wrote:

I don’t see the division rivalry issue as a problem.

The Clips and Lakers share a building (I think) but remain competitors in the NBA West (I think).

But what will the television executives think?

If I’m FOX, I think I want one of those LA teams to be in the NFC.

It would be funny if
StLouis built a new stadium and the Rams stayed,
Oakland built a new stadium and stayed in Oakland,
San Diego built a new stadium and stayed in SD…
…and LA…well…ya know. O dear.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

I just saw that that isn’t what I said at all. I said the Rams move to the NFC East which, of course, was supposed to be the AFC West. Dunno how my brain did that, but there ya go.

It gets even stranger.

When you corrected ME I just assumed I misread YOU so just made a joke about it. The joke being, I misread you, you corrected me, so I pretended to misread THAT and act like I was haughtily acknowledging agreement and not being corrected. That would be a joke at my own expense, with me pretending to misread again. Yuck yuck.

Try saying THAT 10 times fast.

wv wrote:

It would be funny if
StLouis built a new stadium and the Rams stayed,
Oakland built a new stadium and stayed in Oakland,
San Diego built a new stadium and stayed in SD…
…and LA…well…ya know. O dear.

w
v

I truly think that St. Louis has the best chance of getting local support for a new stadium. In a sane world, the Rams stay in St. Louis if there’s a viable stadium proposal. But, in the world we live in, I could see the L.A. area getting three teams … even if the NFL doesn’t approve both stadiums. Does anyone think that SK is going to adhere to NFL guidelines at this point?

The Raiders/Chargers plan would seem to be more fragile because there are more variables in it. If either one of those teams gets into serious talks with their home cities, it blows the other team up. And, as I said earlier, I think some realignment will be in order if both those teams move to LA. That’s just another layer of junk to work out. I don’t know anything about the Carson site – other than that the NFL has looked at it before – but I read somewhere that the cleanup on the site was costly. It’s a former dump, I think. In any event, fwiw, it seems like these are strange bedfellows, and it smacks of desperation a bit. (But desperation – even if present – isn’t a disqualifier in itself). This plan, apparently, started back in November, and I’m guessing the NFL has known about IT all along, as well.

Sitting on that committee will be interesting.

Again…I don’t think Stan will go rogue.