The city of Los Angeles has been trying to get back in the business of housing an NFL team since Christmas Eve of 1994. That was the last NFL game played Los Angeles — a 19-9 Raiders loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Los Angeles has been trying to get an NFL franchise back there ever since, and there has been significant talks and progressive movement for the last six years. This year, those conversations have multiplied exponentially since the Raiders, St. Louis Rams, and San Diego Chargers owners are looking for new homes. Fan bases be damned, of course. (In the case of the Chargers, I, personally, have been saying that team will leave San Diego in or before the year 2020.)
Someone is going to lose their team to Los Angeles very soon because the city just got a huge shot in the arm. CBS Sports’s Jason La Confora reported this morning that the CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, has agreed to lead the Los Angeles stadium project for the Chargers and Oakland Raiders. According to La Confora, Iger would become the “non-executive chairman of Carson Holdings, LLC and oversee all major initiatives with the venture, including stadium design, naming rights and fan experience, and will be responsible for guiding construction and operation of the facility”.
In a nutshell, that simply means that the Los Angeles stadium project now has Disney backing. Los Angeles now has all of the Mickey Mouse, Marvel, and incoming Star Wars money headed to their stadium project. Now, Iger may not be pumping acutal cash into whatever franchise, but with a name like Iger and Disney behind it, Chargers fans and Raiders fans should be really worried now. One of — if not both — of their teams have higher probabilities of moving.
In a meeting yesterday, there were “strong indications” that even if the Chargers did leave San Diego, the NFL still believes there is a market there according to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union Tribune. His column yesterday hinted at the possibility that San Diego could even become a Raiders town — much to the dismay of just about every Chargers fan I’ve ever met in my life.
The St. Louis Rams could be the team that becomes the “odd man out” in this situation because if the Iger LA project doesn’t include the Rams, owner Stan Kroenke, may consider moving the Rams to London. Kroenke is a 66% stakeholder in the Arsenal FC football club in London, and the NFL has already agreed to hold games at the new stadium being built for Tottenham Hotspur. Kroenke could theoretically take the Rams and house them there.
There is going to be a lot more conversation about NFL franchises moving and shaking the landscape over the next few months, but at least one thing is becoming clear. Los Angeles will have a team (or two) very, very soon, and there’s little to suggest that anything short of a cataclysmic disaster will stop that.
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