NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

On 1/29/2016 at 11:18 AM, McCarthy said:

Still hanging on the wall in my childhood bedroom of my parents house is this poster from 1995 with all 30 NFL teams.

 

 

It has the Oakland Raiders, Cleveland Browns, and Houston Oilers on it. The funniest thing is on my poster they left the city space for the Rams blank because at the time of printing they must've been unsure of where the Rams would play.. It's probably not worth anything, and mine is beat to hell, but it's still a fun snapshot of a volatile time in the league. 

 

Beauty...I've got one hanging in my mancave/garage, but it's got the Ravens on it, but still Houston Oilers. Also, the Eagles helmet/font is updated and with black. Everything else appears to be the same. Would be from the 1996-97 season? I had an NHL one too, but I don't think it survived my moving out. I might have to check my parents' basement.

[FiddySicks]

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

So let's see:

 

- the Rams are putting down roots first and getting tons of goodwill, in the meantime, no one in greater L.A. seems to want the Chargers either out of apathy or goodwill toward their San Diego brethren

- Good Guy Dean seems to have put away Mark Fabiani, California football's answer to Roy Cohn, for this little letter

- moving to Inglewood would cost money he doesn't have for a partnership or take revenue streams away as a tenant

- the NFL is giving him $300MM to figure it out in San Diego

 

 

I think we're going to wind up with what I said the NFL should do all along, which is the Los Angeles Rams and the other two staying put. All these complicated maneuvers, with the 5-1 toxic waste committee and voting down the Rams moving alone and we're just going to get what should have always been for a market that, population notwithstanding, is just not conducive to two NFL teams given the circumstances and on top of everything else there is in the area. One is fine, one is all they needed, glad it's the right one.

 

With the state of the Raiders, they would do themselves well to just be tenants in Santa Clara, Los Angeles, or hell, as you've mentioned before, BOTH. If they're going to end up getting bent over (which they probably deserve just as much as the Chargers), they might as well make it an all California pig roast. San Diego can watch. 

[colortv]

I think we can cross San Diego off the list of places the Raiders could go. There's no way the public would vote to give them public funds if they won't vote to give them to the Chargers.

 

I think Davis will work for Oakland or LA, and if he can't get that done just go to Santa Clara. He would save relocation fee and all the costs of setting up and doing business elsewhere.

 

The 49ers owner said a couple days ago the Raiders are welcome but it's up to Mark to decide what he wants to do.

[2001mark]

You know it's bad for the Chargers when the Raiders aren't the biggest maroons of the trio.  Srsly, the Raiders could land anywhere west of Missouri & probably garner a following.  Chargers are only making enemies everywhere they go & leave.

[STL FANATIC]

Can anyone find the wording of what Goodell said the deal was for the extra $100 million? Basically, what I can't recall is whether he said they'd give $100 million to BOTH San Diego and Oakland, or whether he said it in a manner that assumed one of them would move. Meaning did he say they'd give $100 million to the market that didn't lose their team to LA?

 

Still unclear to me how the Raiders stay in Oakland if the city of Oakland stays strong and doesn't offer to subsidize them much. Gotta think that if Spanos is in San Diego on January 16, 2017, Mark Davis will jump at any deal Kroenke has on the table in LA.

 

And the Raiders—perhaps unlike the Chargers—probably wouldn't suffer from the Rams being their first. The Raiders will have LA fans regardless. (Also, by then the Rams franchise will have been exposed for the disappointment that it is. But the honeymoon will get another kick start when the new stadium opens. True disappointment won't set in for LA Rams fans until about 2020.)

[Gothamite]

He said that the extra $100M will be made available to any team towards a stadium deal in its home market.  That could be either the Chargers or the Raiders, or both, or none.  

 

I'm not clear on whether that would be a gift or an extra helping of G4 money.   But that's to the team, not the market. 

 

[The_Admiral]

Kroenke doesn't want Raider Nation lowering the property values. If he's been dragging his feet in negotiations with Spanos, he'll flat-out chain himself to a boulder to keep the Raiders away.

[colortv]

Kroenke has no choice but to give a fair deal to to the Raiders or Chargers. It was mandated in Houston and the league will step in to facilitate negotiations if necessary.

 

The major details of the Chargers tenant or equity partner agreement with the Rams are in the article I posted above.

 

As for the Raiders in Oakland. Davis wants to the city to give him control of the land(In lieu of public money which he knows he won't get) to bring in a developer who can help fund the cost and recoup it's investment through ancillary development. There's a lot of complications with that such as the city not wanting to give up control, the A's, parking etc.

[Gothamite]

We'll see.  There might be a good solution in there, where the city doesn't have to give him taxpayer dollars and Davis still gets enough to make a stadium work.  Clock is ticking. 

[The_Admiral]

7 hours ago, colortv said:

Kroenke has no choice but to give a fair deal to to the Raiders or Chargers. It was mandated in Houston and the league will step in to facilitate negotiations if necessary.

 

Kroenke was supposed to negotiate in good faith with a city that had gone so far as to circumvent democracy in order to give him free money and he didn't do that, either. There's probably not gonna be an AFC team in Los Angeles, nor should there be.

[colortv]

7 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Kroenke was supposed to negotiate in good faith with a city that had gone so far as to circumvent democracy in order to give him free money and he didn't do that, either. There's probably not gonna be an AFC team in Los Angeles, nor should there be.

 

Well considering he's apparently given the Chargers a very fair deal going by the parameters outlined above your St. Louis analogy doesn't make any sense.

 

The LA market is twice the size of the bay area, it certainly can support two teams, and the way the NFL has set this up it is more likely than not one of the Chargers or Raiders will be going there.

[STL FANATIC]

21 hours ago, Gothamite said:

He said that the extra $100M will be made available to any team towards a stadium deal in its home market.  That could be either the Chargers or the Raiders, or both, or none.  

 

I'm not clear on whether that would be a gift or an extra helping of G4 money.   But that's to the team, not the market. 

 

 

Thanks, I couldn't remember.

 

And yes, it was always expected to be to the team, not the market, I believe. That's largely semantics, I'd think, but nonetheless, you're right.

[Gothamite]

This will be a pretty easy negotiation - "You want to be an equity partner?  That'll be a billion dollars, thanks."

[STL FANATIC]

1 hour ago, Gothamite said:

This will be a pretty easy negotiation - "You want to be an equity partner?  That'll be a billion dollars, thanks."

 

Equity in the context of ownership of something doesn't require equivalency.

 

In other words, If Spanos (or Davis) can only afford to pony up say $500 million towards the roughly $2 billion stadium, I imagine you could see a scenario in which they're 25% owners of it. The NFL would probably require some equal treatment in terms of decision making, regardless, but the financial picture could very well be skewed where Kroenke gets 75% of the revenues (in my simple example).

 

The league probably is requiring Kroenke to offer an equal partnership, but that doesn't mean it's the only partnership on the table. In fact, I'm sure Kroenke would prefer a partnership in which he takes on Spanos or Davis as a minority partner if that's all they can muster.

[Gothamite]

You may well be right.  We'll see.   That would work well for Stan but from Dean's perspective there's diminishing returns for a minority partner.  Don't forget that before he's even sunk dollar one into the project itself he'll already be a half-billion in the hole to the league.  I don't know how liquid Spanos is, so I presume he'll choose the extended payment plan for that.  But he may still need help financing his stadium share, and if he's paying off those two bills it would be nice to have a serious City of Champions coin coming in, not just a 15 or 25% share.   Worst yet would be if Stan let him buy into the stadium but he couldn't afford to join the larger project that will provide the bulk of future revenues.  Talk about on the outside looking in. 

 

I've read that the handshake agreement he has with Spanos is as a tenant, not a partner.  Considering Dean will have to pony up thay half-billion just to move, that could seem likely.  Unless he can convince Goldman Sachs to finance his buy-in. 

 

Sure looks like like a whole lot of ways he can lose. Talk about a Stan-atos Gambit. 

 

 

[TheOldRoman]

On ‎1‎/‎30‎/‎2016 at 6:11 PM, Mac the Knife said:

 

Perhaps, but I think if that were true, why the delay in moving?  Why stretch it out yet another year, especially when you already have league approval to go?

 

What's going to be the 2016 Chargers ticket base in San Diego if significant progress isn't made on some front, and fast?  5,000, maybe?

 

This is a huge gamble for Spanos.  He still thinks a stadium deal in San Diego is possible.  If he didn't?  No way does he keep them there for what could be a truly disastrous lame duck season.

 

I've also been saying this for while. LA wanted the Rams back as much or more than they wanted the NFL. LA doesn't really care about the Chargers. Not only did the Rams get the outpouring of love for returning home, but they beat the Chargers to it (by at least a year). The LA Chargers would be a disaster.

 

Spanos wanted to move to LA and was willing to take the Raiders with him just to block the Rams. But when the owners sided with Kroenke, Spanos's path was set to return to San Diego. He wasn't going to go to LA on anybody else's terms. And as much of an afterthought as the LA Chargers would have been in 2016, they'll be twice as much in 2017. Spanos knows this. He was ready to move to LA with the Raiders immediately, but as soon as he found out he'd have to play in Kroenke's stadium, he suddenly needed more time to give it a college try in San Diego.

 

He'll posture a whole lot, but the SD government is willing, so something will get done and he'll reluctantly take a stadium deal in San Diego.

[STL FANATIC]

I think everyone vastly overrates the Rams getting to LA first as being meaningful. LA is going to support a winner.

 

If the Rams predictably flop, and the Chargers happen to get their stuff together, there will be an opening in that market. It's as simple as that.

[rams80]

3 minutes ago, STL FANATIC said:

I think everyone vastly overrates the Rams getting to LA first as being meaningful. LA is going to support a winner.

 

If the Rams predictably flop, and the Chargers happen to get their stuff together, there will be an opening in that market. It's as simple as that.

 

 

 

 

Yeah.  That's going to happen.  At least that shows you are holding true to your vow to not give the NFL the time of day anymore.

 

[TheOldRoman]

11 minutes ago, STL FANATIC said:

I think everyone vastly overrates the Rams getting to LA first as being meaningful. LA is going to support a winner.

 

If the Rams predictably flop, and the Chargers happen to get their stuff together, there will be an opening in that market. It's as simple as that.

The Chargers are a worse organization than the Rams. And while pretty much any city will support a winner, LA is full or Rams fans who waited to root for the Rams again. Sure, there's a young generation which never actually saw the Rams play in LA. but they'll largely be swept up in the hysteria and nostalgia of everybody else. The absolute only way the Chargers could have succeeded with the Rams in LA was to beat the Rams there by at least a year and have a good season. Get the kids pulling for the Chargers and hope they don't jump ship when the Rams come. But with the Chargers coming after the Rams, their ceiling would be Football Clippers.

[Josh.0]

Vegas not off limits by the NFL.