NFL Owners Love LA: Quick Return to City of Angels Looking Likely

PHOENIX—The NFL’s return to Los Angeles is picking up steam.

Breitbart Sports caught up with Jets owner Woody Johnson at the NFL annual owners meetings to get his take on the league’s probable return to Los Angeles.

“The LA situation is to be resolved,” Johnson said. “It’s going to involve an owner’s vote. We’re going over all the permutations. We’ve been at this for 20 years, 15 years. It’s a complicated set of issues. I think we will make progress. You’ve got a couple of teams that are actively interested. Unless you have a team that is interested, it’s not happening.”

NFL VP Eric Grubman, who oversees relocation of teams, addressed the NFL owners Monday on the topic, at the annual league meeting taking place at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix.

“The idea for this particular session was to make sure they were comfortable and knew what has gone on so far, that they knew the involvement of the Los Angeles committee,” Grubman said. “And they knew all the different work streams that the league and the clubs are undertaking to look at Los Angeles as well as to look at the three markets—I call them home markets—in San Diego, Oakland, and St. Louis.”

So, the NFL has made it clear that the Chargers, Raiders, and Rams are all candidates to move to the City of Angels.

New York Giants co-owner John Mara, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, both said they expect NFL football back in Los Angeles by next year.

“I think there’s going to be one-to-two teams playing in Los Angeles next year,” Mara said on Sunday.

“I really believe within the next year, we’ll have two teams in this [Los Angeles] market,” Kraft said on Monday.

“There is a lot of work to do,” Woody Johnson explained. “We haven’t taken a vote and it’s going to require a vote. So when that is done, you will have a better idea. You have to have the vote to move.”

In order to move an NFL team to a different market, you need 24 of the 32 owners to approve.

That vote isn’t going to happen at current league meeting, which wraps up Wednesday.

So when should we expect this issue to be resolved?

“Not tomorrow,” said Johnson.

But perhaps by next year.