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NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay


duma

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I've always said that attendance and ticket sales (two different things anyways) shouldn't and won't be any deciding factor here, but an interesting note out of St. Louis:

A team source told FOX 2 that even with all the news about the Rams possibly moving to Los Angeles, ticket sales and season ticket renewals for 2015 were ahead of 2014.

Obviously, it's early, and I'm taking this to mean the pace of sales is ahead of where they were at this time last year. So that doesn't say terribly much about where they'll end up. Still, it's interesting and probably not what I'd have anticipated.

There's more nuggets in here too about the stadium development, but nothing relative to whether or not it will happen. Just some details about the plan.

http://fox2now.com/2015/03/03/new-developments-in-riverfront-stadium-proposal/

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The Chargers have since promised to work cooperatively with the task force, which moved up its deadline to issue a plan from this fall to three months -- which would be in late-May.

The mayor has stressed that a new stadium would not be solely for the Chargers, but would also accommodate San Diego State University, the Holiday and Poinsettia bowls, and other events like soccer matches and concerts.

While Faulconer tasked his advisory group -- which includes experts in development, real estate and finance -- with choosing between a cramped downtown site east of Petco Park and the current Qualcomm Stadium location, problems with each were revealed last week.

Paul Jablonski, the president and CEO of the Metropolitan Transit System, said in a letter to task force Chairman Adam Day that it could take five years or more to vacate the downtown site, where the agency operates a bus maintenance yard. No suitable locations for moving the yard have been found and one site that could have worked has since been occupied by the Monarch School, which educates homeless children, according to the MTS.

Regarding a stadium as part of a major redevelopment of the Mission Valley location, the Chargers have said that construction would take too long for enough revenue to be generated to benefit the team and financing plan. Fabiani said more building at that location could also raise the ire of area residents and raise environmental concerns.

http://www.10news.com/news/chargers-stadium-task-force-holding-first-public-forum

The "problems" in Mission Valley are nothing but a Chargers created red herring. They openly say they wouldn't mind a stadium in Mission Valley, but fact is they want it downtown despite it being the far more expansive and logistically challenging location that has little public support and a ton of institutional opposition from hotels and the convention center. It's Mission Valley or bust.

If the Chargers end up doing a tear down and rebuild at the Qualcomm spot, where would they play in the interim? I just looked it up and the USD stadium only seats 6,000. Would they have to go to LA for 2-3 years? Would the city force renovations to LF at Petco to make that section retractable so they can fit a field in there?

Would they maybe end up playing in the Rose Bowl regardless of whether they move to LA or build on Qualcomm's spot?

They'd build the new stadium next to Qualcomm, not on it's exact location. Think Meadowlands. Qualcomm is surrounded by one of the largest parking lots on Earth, plenty of room to build.

Well apparently a huge problem for the downtown option is that the MTS says it would take them 5-7 years to remove the train yard.

I don't quite understand why the hotels would oppose it? Wouldn't increased traffic from a stadium and expanded convention center only help them? Especially if Comic Con leaves as it's saying it might do because of a need for more convention center space?

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I didn't put much stock in it when the Governor claimed the income taxes almost pay for the state's $12 million a year bond payment by bringing in $10 million. I certainly didn't put any stock in it when local sports reporters and fans started trumpeting it as proof this was a good investment.

But now I'm intrigued. This is from a publication that has generally been opposed to subsidizing this stadium, and it's from a reporter who's job isn't sports.

The debate started with an off-hand comment from Gov. Jay Nixon.

In recent months, he’s held a series of press conferences to promote building a new riverfront football stadium. At one, he detailed plans to relocate utilities, clearing the way for construction. At another, he announced a deal with labor unions to work around the clock on the project, without overtime pay. Somewhere along the line, he said that if the Rams were to leave Missouri, it would cost the state $10 million in income-tax revenue.

That started a discussion in the SLM office about whether Nixon’s number seemed right. Eventually, the conversation expanded to include the city’s earnings tax and led to phone calls with local and state officials. A detailed breakdown is below, but here are three things we learned: 1) Rams players pay the city shockingly little in earnings tax; 2) Nixon wasn’t off by much; and 3) tax rules are complicated.

Well, I suppose we already knew that last part.

http://www.stlmag.com/news/sports/earnings-tax,-income-tax,-and-the-rams/

If you read on, the number ends up being about $9.2 million.

As for the city's earnings tax, that didn't shock me at all. I was well aware of how that probably worked. I AM curious how it might change if the Rams were to move their official HQs into the city even if they continued to practice out in Earth City. Some people have suggested that would bring in the earnings tax (likely worth a few million) to the city. But I'm less sure since the players would still be doing their work in the county.

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Well apparently a huge problem for the downtown option is that the MTS says it would take them 5-7 years to remove the train yard.

I don't quite understand why the hotels would oppose it? Wouldn't increased traffic from a stadium and expanded convention center only help them? Especially if Comic Con leaves as it's saying it might do because of a need for more convention center space?

First, the stadium wouldn't increase traffic for the hotels. It's a fallacy that stadiums draw in visitors to cities other than during a bowl game or a Super bowl. Chargers fans commute and the "visiting" fans at games are usually also locals by and large. As for the expanded convention center, that's exactly WHY they're opposed to the downtown stadium. They and their conventions want an expansion of the convention center itself, not the remote annex location at a stadium the Chargers are proposing. Comic-Con in particular has made it clear they have no interest in utilizing the Chargers proposed annex and without an expansion of the convention center itself they will be leaving. All parties except the Chargers see the annex as a roadblock to getting what they want, not an asset. And the citizens of San Diego by and large appear to agree with them. Stadium in Mission Valley, convention center downtown.

And you're right, the MTS bus yard adds a new roadblock to getting it done in anything resembling the Chargers desired time table. And downtown will ultimately cost more too since you'd be adding the annex, and possible arena on top of it, nevermind having to wait years to start while costs and materials costs rise. Another hiccup, is that SDSU has shown no support of going downtown, actually proposing to build their own on campus stadium if the Chargers ultimately go downtown. The only ones pushing downtown are the Chargers and JMI realty which both have a ton to gain from it.

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AEG & Farmers Field are out: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-nfl-stadium-aeg-20150310-story.html

St. Louis's stadium effort has a website: http://stlstadium.com and Twitter account http://twitter.com/stlstadium.

It does not match their hashtag of #STLNFL because someone (wink-wink) got to it quickly. I'd like for STLNFL.com to be an objective resource for all things concerning the effort, but I'll almost certainly not find the time to make it so.

A study from the Missouri Department of Economic Development has concluded that the State would see an economic gain from incoming tax dollars (against the tax dollars spent): http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/study-state-would-see-payoff-from-building-stadium-for-rams/article_2edfa1b8-7025-5b4e-9078-bb1ddb554da1.html

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Could it be that the NFL would frown on using NFL in the Twitter handle or URL of a non-affiliated group?

They go after much smaller operations -- and individuals -- and this has the potential to be high profile. Heck, it has as many followers as I do ... and I've been at it for seven years. :)

Hashtags aren't "owned" so I see no issue there.

And it sure seems odd to see the expansion playbook used in an existing market. (OKCNBA comes immediately to mind. Or was it NBAOKC?)

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That could be it, but all kinds of analysts and wanna-be analysts or just crazy fans use NFL in their Twitter handles and benefit in reputation and followers from it. But like you said, this is higher profile and they certainly don't want to upset the league.

In any case, the reason could be that or it could be that they simply wanted it to match their domain name. I was mostly just calling attention to it since I'm the guy that took the domain name :).

It is strange to see them go that route, but as you're probably aware, there's been this very odd back and forth in the effort between keeping the Rams and remaining an NFL city. Sometimes they're used interchangeably. Sometimes it seems like there's reasoning behind it. Right now they're back to talking about the Rams as the priority.

Seems like maybe it took them a while to figure out what the right message was, but now it seems like they're message is keeping the Rams. Could be another reason to go with the Twitter handle and domain that they did.

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It's a video from Feb. 26.

"NFL executive VP Eric Grubman joins Mike Florio to discuss how the race for an NFL stadium in LA started and when a team or teams could move to Los Angeles."

But I didn't watch it so I can't add more. :) If there was something significant said, I'd like to think NBC and everyone else would have aggregated that portion and put it in a more accessible form for their at-work audience.

And STL, I'll be curious to see if you ever get a note from the NFL. Guess it depends on what you do with the site. FWIW, you could build a very good timeline of NFL stadium events (with links) from this thread and its predecessor.

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Well, let me comment on the demise of Farmers Field.

If you're AEG, and you've invested four years and at least tens of millions of dollars into the project already, why shut it down when the possibilities for a team or teamS moving to LA is higher than ever?

I mean theoretically, one of the Chargers or Raiders could stay, leaving the other to perhaps reach a deal with AEG. Or maybe Kroenke decides downtown is a better fit.

Maybe all 3 teams stay in their home markets. Leaving you yet with the possibility to host an as yet unknown team.

Why shut it down when there is so much unknown and you've already invested so much?

The only logical conclusion I can reach is that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt one of these projects will move forward and will host two teams.

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Well, let me comment on the demise of Farmers Field.

If you're AEG, and you've invested four years and at least tens of millions of dollars into the project already, why shut it down when the possibilities for a team or teamS moving to LA is higher than ever?

I mean theoretically, one of the Chargers or Raiders could stay, leaving the other to perhaps reach a deal with AEG. Or maybe Kroenke decides downtown is a better fit.

Maybe all 3 teams stay in their home markets. Leaving you yet with the possibility to host an as yet unknown team.

Why shut it down when there is so much unknown and you've already invested so much?

The only logical conclusion I can reach is that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt one of these projects will move forward and will host two teams.

AEG still has a convention center contract for the next four years and is still willing to be part if it's expansion since the covering the cost of a redesign and EIRs.

AGE is adding 750 rooms to their own JW Marriott at LALive.

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And AEG still wanted to buy a majority stake in whatever team moved into Farmers Field. I think they finally realized with the landscape of teams that could come, they were never going to get that.

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San Diego's Citizens Stadium Advisory Group has unanimously decided to recommend Mission Valley - where the National Football League's Chargers currently play - as the preferred site for a new stadium for the team. A press conference at which the group will explain the rationale for their decision has been scheduled for tomorrow.

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