The NFL’s Los Angeles committee recommends the stadium project in Carson over the ambitious proposal for a venue in Inglewood, multiple reports contend.
This bodes especially well for the hope of the Chargers to move back to Los Angeles—and strikes the San Diego fan base as especially bad news. The prospects for the two other teams vying to return to the Los Angeles market remain less clear.
The San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders pushed the Carson project as a joint stadium to house both teams, which would seem bad news for the Rams. St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke purchased a parcel of land in Inglewood several years back. The committee recommended against using his land for a new stadium. But movement grows among owners to divorce the Raiders from the Carson project and marry the Rams with the Chargers in the stadium-sharing idea.
While the Chargers seem the best bet among the trio to relocate, Tuesday’s decision eliminates neither the Rams nor the Raiders. The team or teams that miss out on playing in America’s second-largest media market may attempt to leverage their loss for money from the league for a new stadium in their current home market.
Some of the most influential owners in the league people the committee. Art Rooney of the Steelers and John Mara of the Giants, whose families’ involvement in the league combines for 173 years, Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, the only former NFL player among the owners, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, whose dad coined the phrase “Super Bowl,” Robert Kraft of the Patriots, who boasts the most Super Bowl victories among current owners, and Bob McNair of the Texans, who brought a team to Houston after the city lost the Oilers, voted 5-1 on Tuesday’s recommendation. Hunt, according to the Orange County Register, cast the lone vote against the plan under the reasoning that flooding a market without an NFL franchise for twenty years with two teams makes little sense. He refused to endorse the bid of any particular team.
The broader group of owners makes the ultimate decision, which could move none, one, or two teams to Los Angeles or perhaps table the matter for another year.