Mr Bairn Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 Figured this deserves its own thread, with the NFL finally on the cusp of returning to Los Angeles after over 20 years. The 32 owners will meet this Tuesday in Houston to sort out exactly what's going to happen. Three teams - The St Louis Rams, San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders - are currently homeless after their stadium leases ended. All three of these have applied to relocate to Los Angeles in time for the new season in September. The Rams (Stan Kroenke) are proposing to build a 70,000 seater stadium in the Inglewood area. Kroenke is desperate to leave St Louis with recent leaked documents showing that internal communications between him and other owners suggesting he thinks it will be near impossible for any NFL franchise to be profitable in the city going foward. Division rivals Raiders and Chargers (Mark Davis and Alex Spanos) have played out a bizarre public orgy over the last 11 months since announcing plans to move jointly build a 65,000 seat arena in Carson. If this project was approved and both teams move to LA together, the Chargers would have to move to the NFC West with the Seattle Seahawks or Arizona Cardinals going to the AFC. Each teams relocation will be voted on separately and each team requires 24 of the 32 owners to vote in their favour. At this point it seems neither project has the support of enough owners to be approved, but both projects have the 9 votes necessary to block the other project, leading to the current stalemate. Oakland has been unable to generate any kind of stadium proposal to stay at home and the Rams proposal in St Louis appears to be unworkable. The issue is that Davis and Kroenke aren't likely to jump in to bed together and Davis probably doesn't have the funds to go it alone in Carson. Another issue is that there can only be one team in LA in 2015. Only one stadium has emerged as a temporary venue (USC's LA colisseum) and the school have said they would only be willing to accept one tenant in the interim. This combined with the fact that no team will be relocating anywhere other than LA this year means that - barring a stadium deal being announced in one of the cities - two of them will be back home on year-to-year leases which is exactly what the NFL doesn't want given that the lame duck status of all three franchises led to dwindling attendances in 2015. My best prediction is that Spanos jumps out of Davis's bed and into Kroenke's and the Inglewood project goes ahead with the Rams moving to LA now and playing at the coliseum. The Chargers play a couple more years in San Diego as a lame duck and the Raiders sign a new one year lease in Oakland whilst continuing to use San Antonio (And possibly San Diego/St Louis) as leverage towards a new stadium in Oakland. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelmen Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 why would the chargers need to change conferences? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightmare Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 why would the chargers need to change conferences? The NFL doesn't want two teams from the same city in the same conference or especially the same division. In the event of the Carson plan going ahead, it could still be the Raiders who switch to the NFC West instead, but considering the Raiders, Broncos and Chiefs are all historically great rivals, it's far more likely that the Chargers would be removed from the division. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Bairn Posted January 8, 2016 Author Share Posted January 8, 2016 why would the chargers need to change conferences? It's to do with TV scheduling AFC games are shown on CBS, NFC games are shown on Fox. It's a rule that the local team MUST be shown in their local area. For example, the Denver CBS channel always shown the Broncos, the Atlanta Fox channel always shows the Falcons. Thus, if you have two teams in the same city, they must be in different conferences. This is why the Jets and Giants, 49ers and Raiders, Ravens and Redskins, etc, are all in different conferences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 It's shit that they don't want teams from the same city in the save division. Have a proper local derby nobheads! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Bairn Posted January 8, 2016 Author Share Posted January 8, 2016 It's shit that they don't want teams from the same city in the save division. Have a proper local derby nobheads! The derbies in the NFL are more about history than locality. The Packers and Bears, Cowboys and Redskins, Steelers and Ravens are probably the most intense rivalries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelmen Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 cheers buddy, suppose it makes sense, esp if the raiders/chargers move goes ahead they could be deemed as getting additional home games when they play each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 The derbies in the NFL are more about history than locality. The Packers and Bears, Cowboys and Redskins, Steelers and Ravens are probably the most intense rivalries. I'm aware of that but if they're starting, effectively, two new teams, may as well give them a derby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightmare Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 Whoever the Chargers are playing when they're in LA will be getting an extra home game anyway. The derbies in the NFL are more about history than locality. The Packers and Bears, Cowboys and Redskins, Steelers and Ravens are probably the most intense rivalries. Raiders-Chiefs is a far bigger rivalry than Steelers-Ravens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee4Life1893 Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 Yup. In my opinion if there was any realignment to accommodate expansion teams I'd have the steelers going back to their traditional AFC Central with the Ratbirds back in the East. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CountyFan Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 League meetings to discuss relocation are today and tomorrow. Sounds like the 'Committee on LA Opportunities' has recommended the owners vote for the Chargers/Raiders proposal. theres no guarantee that the other owners will vote that way, and even if they do, Kroenke will probably move the Rams anyway. This could get really, really messy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swarley Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Has there been any rumours/talk of where else the Rams would move to if not LA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CountyFan Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Loads, none of which make much sense. Kroenke's burnt his bridges with StL tho, I think he'll go ahead and move. If the league tries to stop it he'll go to court and challenge the antitrust exemption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
invergowrie arab Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Has there been any rumours/talk of where else the Rams would move to if not LA? London !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellfan09 Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 So Rams to LA is official, Chargers have the option to move also Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raidernation Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 OK, now what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Bairn Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 OK, now what? The Rams have relocated to Los Angeles. The St Louis Rams no longer exist. The Chargers have a one-year option to join them. They have around 6 weeks (Until 23rd March) to decide if they wish to move to LA for 2016. If they don't exercise it by then, they stay in San Diego for 2016, but they still have until one year from today to exercise the option and move in 2017. If they choose not to exercise the option at all then the Raiders get the same one-year option starting a year today. Both the Chargers and the Raiders will be given $100m compensation for the failed Carson project. This can be used towards part rent of the Rams stadium in Inglewood (i.e. exercising the option), a new stadium in their home market, or a new stadium elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swarley Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 So we could have the LA Rams and the LA Chargers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerSaint Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 Where do the Rams play for the next couple of years while their stadium is being built? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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