Mayor Hopes for Fresh Start With Chargers on Stadium Talks

The final 30-2 vote came after the Raiders’ and San Diego Chargers’ $1.7 billion Carson project was outpolled by the St. Louis Rams’ $1.86 billion Inglewood stadium plan in the first round of voting by league owners Tuesday.

Faulconer said other locations are possible, but both he and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said choosing another location would take more time.

Stability is something that we take great pride in and in some ways, it is a bittersweet moment because we were unsuccessful in being able to get the kind of facilties that we wanted to get done in their home markets. Back in 1994, LA had issues with the blackout rules when the Rams failed to sell out Anaheim Stadium and when the Raiders failed to sell out the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Fabiani said Spanos was studying his options, which include moving to Inglewood to share a future stadium with the Rams, or pursuing a stadium project in San Diego. When a naming rights deal for a new St. Louis stadium appeared to give its backers a $158 million boost, Jones said that price wouldn’t buy a lobby at the Inglewood site.

The Giants co-owner spoke about yesterday’s vote by the owners to allow the Rams to re-locate to Los Angeles.

Early reports on the Chargers seem to indicate that they will indeed be packing their things soon, as they don’t believe the city of San Diego will offer them the support they would need to stay. A new stadium would’ve required hundreds of millions of dollars of public money. The Raiders’ lease at O.co Coliseum is up, and owner Mark Davis needs to find a place for his team to play. They are the only franchise to claim three National Football League championships in three different cities, winning Super Bowl XXXIV in the 1999 season. The Chargers could still join the Rams in America’s 2nd largest city which houses the second largest T.V. audience.

San Diego Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer and Ron Roberts, chairman of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, also released a joint statement Tuesday, saying that they “remain committed to negotiating in good faith” provided Spanos has a “sincere interest in reaching a fair agreement in San Diego”. Should the Chargers decide not to join Kroenke and the Rams, the Raiders would then have the option to move to Los Angeles instead.

Slay said he still wants to continue with redevelopment plans for the north riverfront where the new stadium would have been built.

The plan includes $150 million from the city, $250 million from Kroenke, at least $200 million from the league, and $160 million in fan seat licenses.

“That’d be fun. We won’t quite feel at home because we’ll be in the visitor’s locker room, but that’ll be fun to be there”, said Carroll.

Slay called the NFL’s Tuesday night press conference “pathetic”, noting they didn’t bother to thank St. Louis or its fan base.

The Rams left for St. Louis the same year the Raiders left for Oakland.