Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers ‘Committed’ To Los Angeles

At the same time, Stan Kroenke, the owner of the St. Louis Rams, has proposed a .86 billion, 80,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof on land in Inglewood.

NFL Executive VP Eric Grubman came to San Diego earlier this year to characterize a stadium vote as “risky” and to encourage the city to expedite funding, but San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer scheduled a vote for December.

They will also hear updates on efforts being made in Oakland, St. Louis and San Diego to keep the teams from moving.

Also made public on Monday was a 6,000-page environmental impact report, which is now available for public comment.

San Diego Chargers owner Dean Spanos sat in on meetings with city officials and the NFL on Monday, but there has not been signficant contact with local officials lately.

Stalled negotiations between the city of Oakland, California, and the NFL’s Raiders franchise may have major implications for the league’s possible return to Los Angeles.

While Commissioner Roger Goodell said no voting of any kind occurred at the meeting, it was clear the momentum was rolling toward at least one relocated team in the Los Angeles area possibly as soon as the 2016 season. The St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission lost an arbitration battle with the Rams, declining to spend an estimated $750 million on a plan to renovate the Edward Jones Dome. There are other arguments that the city could help fund maintenance by holding more non-football events at a new stadium – because somehow tons of stadium acts would materialize if only the Chargers’ stadium were newer – but at this point, we’re way past any hope that a windfall of cash would result from swapping out an old stadium for a new one.

Chargers point man Mark Fabiani criticized the “hastily prepared” EIR, saying, “The Chargers have been clear from the start that the franchise will not be the City’s guinea pig for this inevitably ill-fated legal experiment”. The challenge for the three teams then would be to honor any wink-nod agreement regarding what will be offered, and to refrain from giving in to the temptation to offer more when the time comes to make a proposal to the other owners.

“The NFL and the Raiders have a sense of urgency about this, and I’m trying to meet that”, Cappio said. The Chargers have expressed concerns about an environmental study collapsing in court.

The Chargers and Raiders, long-time AFC West rivals, are pushing a shared $1.7 billion venue involving about 170 acres in Carson, a city of 93,000 people south of downtown Los Angeles.

“We will not have an election in January unless we have a final deal that has been agreed to”, Faulconer said.

They’ll probably also talk about DeflateGate, because that’s unavoidable, but the reason for this meeting is strictly about greasing the skids for putting an actual NFL team back in Los Angeles.

“We’re a great city that supports the NFL and the Chargers. It”™s unlikely Oakland will be invited to present, as the league does not believe that city has put forth a serious proposal.