Tag / Los Angeles NFL

by Frank Maduri

Gone Fishing: L.A. Rams Fire Jeff Fisher

The Los Angeles Rams vaulted to the top spot in the sports news stream this afternoon when they announced they had made a head coaching change by dismissing Jeff Fisher after a 4-9 start to the 2016 season. The Rams lost their fourth straight game on Sunday and they had lost eight of their last nine games.

The reason why this move came as a bit of a surprise is that the team and Fisher had just recently confirmed that Fisher and General Manager Les Snead had both signed contract extensions (Fisher was given an extension through the 2018 season). The Rams owner, Stan Kroenke, spoke today about the firing of Coach Fisher and explained that the thought process at the time of the extension (which actually was signed before this season began) was to reward Fisher for making the transition of the franchise from St. Louis to their relocation this season to Los Angeles. The Rams are set to move into a huge new stadium facility in a few years and they thought Fisher could lead them into that stage in their progression in Southern California.

This season, however, was a spectacular failure for Fisher who has been dogged by on-field and off-field issues all season. The first issue was the decision to play Case Keenum at quarterback and bench the Rams top draft pick, Jared Goff, which then led to the media pressing Fisher about playing Goff. The team had traded future draft selections to move up to the top overall spot in the draft to select Goff and Fisher kept him on the bench.

When the media pressured Fisher about this situation, it was essentially discovered that he was against the decision to trade all of those future assets to move up to select Goff. The selection of Jared Goff was supposed to represent the future of the franchise in their new Los Angeles chapter, and that player was not in the plans for the head coach of the team, that was the first sign of trouble for Fisher.

Next, the play of the team after a surprising start, began to spiral downward. The players looked unfocused, and the play turned sloppy and undisciplined in all three phases: offense, defense, and special teams. The new fan base in L.A. grew weary quickly and called for Goff to get a shot at quarterback.

Coach Fisher, under what I would assume was intense pressure from the front office and the owner, relented and started Jared Goff. The situation went from bad to worse as the turnover ratio for the team ballooned and the Rams dropped their next four games. It was unfair to Goff too, since he had not seen the field at all, and then he is dropped into the middle of an already rocky season, and he is told to essentially learn the offense “on the go”.

The offensive woes continued with the Rams getting blown out by the Atlanta Falcons yesterday in front of a dwindling home crowd. The comments by running back Todd Gurley after the game are summed up by him calling the Rams “a middle school offense”, and in my opinion Gurley should not be saying anything to the media to criticize anything because his play has been well below the expectations, his performance has been terrible this season.

The offense is most probably a main reason why the decision to fire Jeff Fisher was made at this point because if the front office was lukewarm about keeping Fisher as their coach, the sooner they transition the new offensive scheme for Jared Goff to learn, the better off they will be in the long term. I have seen this with other teams and their young quarterbacks, the management wants to avoid having them learn multiple systems, and stability is needed for success.

Furthermore, Fisher had the whole ordeal with Eric Dickerson which unraveled off the field which became a huge distraction for the team. Dickerson is a Hall of Fame running back who was a staple of the L.A. Rams in their original run in Southern California before the team relocated to St. Louis in the mid-1990s.

Dickerson was seeking some on-field passes for himself and his friends, Fisher reportedly denied the request, and a rather vocal (at least Dickerson was) and public feud between the two men ensued. Fisher was never going to win a fight with a Rams former player that carries as much clout as Dickerson, so I knew this was going to be yet another “black mark” against Fisher.

The Rams were blown out yesterday by Atlanta, as I mentioned earlier, and with that loss Coach Fisher tied Dan Reeves for the most losses in an NFL coaching career in the history of the league. It was a matter of time before the hammer was going to drop on Fisher, I thought it was going to be after the season on that Monday where characteristically coaching changes are made.

In the interim, John Fassel, the son of former New York Giants head coach, Jim Fassel, will step in and guide the team. The Rams have a game on the road in Seattle on Thursday night, which also surprised many with the timing of this decision today, it is a short week for the team to prepare. This change being made at this point translates into a situation where reading between the lines it had to have been very rough behind the scenes over the past few days.

The aftermath beyond these last three games of the 2016 debacle of a season for the L.A. Rams is that the team with a multi-billion dollar new stadium being constructed along with a huge retail and entertainment district surrounding it, which is dubbed “NFL Disneyland” needs to make a big splash again. The Rams front office needs to hire a big name to replace Fisher. They need a big time offensive minded head coach to install a system that complements Jared Goff, who they have committed significantly toward being their franchise quarterback.
Those names are Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, and Jim Harbaugh. The plan, according to reports from ESPN, NFL Network, and others if Shanahan was hired his son, Kyle, would join him in L.A. and would take the reins as head coach in a few years.

The most intriguing name, whether you like him or not, is Harbaugh. In my own opinion, I do not think that Gruden has interest in leaving his very lucrative ESPN commentary job to coach again, or else he would have done so already. I would also have some concerns if I were the Rams about whether Gruden still had the fire to coach after being away from the sideline for so long.

The Rams roster is not very good and needs a lot of work to build toward a playoff contender, let alone a championship contender. I would think Gruden would be interested in a team that was closer to winning than one that will take a bit of rebuild before it can turn that corner.

Harbaugh, though, is a name that is going to gain traction because he has lived and coached on the West Coast with Stanford and the San Francisco 49ers, and he had great success at both stops. In his current situation at the University of Michigan there have been some significant bumps in the road in that situation because Harbaugh wants to do things his way, and Michigan has resisted completely handing him the keys to do so.

The Rams, if they were very aggressive, could pry Harbaugh away from his alma mater, especially if they put enough money on the table. The fact that Stan Kroenke is a billionaire and has a significant amount of resources dedicated to making the Rams a part of the fabric of L.A. again is leverage for the next coach to utilize as well.

In a related note, now that Fisher is dismissed, Eric Dickerson has stated that he will attend Rams games again, and for whatever it is worth, he just started following Jim Harbaugh on Twitter.

The Rams ownership and management made a bold push to the NFL to gain relocation into the coveted L.A. market before any other team, and their first season there has been a flop. They need to make another bold move by naming the right man to coach the team moving forward and transition this team into one that will capture the consciousness of the fan base in Los Angeles. They need to right this ship before it sinks completely.

by Frank Maduri

NFL – Los Angeles Update – The Fate of 3 Franchises

The NFL returned to Los Angeles with a preseason game last week between the newly relocated L.A. Rams hosting the Dallas Cowboys in front of almost 90,000 fans at the L.A. Coliseum. The Rams, who had called Southern California home for decades before moving to St. Louis in the mid ‘90s, only to return again to Los Angeles in a landmark decision by the NFL owners committee in February.

The Rams once played at the Coliseum, so the game had a retro feel, almost like a “back to the future” kind of vibe to it, and the team showed that they have some growing to do in order to get themselves back into a contender in the NFC. The top overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, Rams quarterback Jared Goff, looked shaky and inconsistent at points. The offense features a future star in the league at running back, Todd Gurley, and the defense is young but talented.

The on-field issues for the Rams are only one piece of the equation, the bigger picture is the importance of Los Angeles to the future of three franchises: the San Diego Chargers, the Oakland Raiders, and the before mentioned Rams. The vote that landed the Rams back in L.A. and approved the plan by Rams ownership to build a gigantic stadium and other development in Inglewood has some important caveats to it.

The Chargers have the right of first refusal, essentially as part of the NFL vote, they have two separate one year options on relocation to L.A. if they cannot come to an agreement with the authorities involved in San Diego to remain in that market. The Chargers exercised their first of the two options by choosing to remain in San Diego for the 2016 football season.

The stadium proposal for the Chargers, which I covered in previous articles, centers on a waterfront facility that will adjoin an expanded convention center space for the city. The voters in San Diego will ultimately decide the fate of the team with a referendum ballot initiative on Election Day in November. The measure will decide if the public funding portion of the project, which will be obtained through tax increases on tourism and hotels, will be approved by the citizens. In the event that the measure fails, I think the Chargers will move to Los Angeles and join the Rams in the Inglewood stadium.

Conversely, an approved vote by the required majority in San Diego would make for an interesting scenario because the Chargers would remain in San Diego. This would open the door for the Raiders to potentially move to Los Angeles under the terms of the agreement in the NFL owners vote regarding the return of the league to that market.

Raiding LA?

The report I saw from Mike Florio on NBC Sports was very interesting regarding the future of the NFL in L.A. in that the sources he consulted stated that the Rams would be very reluctant to have the Raiders join them in that market. The prevailing theory being that the Raiders (who also once called L.A. their home) would quickly become more popular than the Rams in Los Angeles.

The survey data seems to indicate that the L.A. market would have a more lukewarm reception for the Chargers in that market, and the Rams would be the more popular team in that scenario. The Raiders were enormously popular in L.A. when they played there, particularly in the ‘90s when the Silver & Black represented a greater societal symbolism with the movement towards the hip hop cultural revolution at that time which fostered an ESPN films production.

The Raiders have been working on several different fronts to find a new long term stadium solution to improve their revenue streams in order to stay competitive in the modern NFL landscape. The team has been working with Oakland on a new stadium for years, it has considered a relocation to San Antonio (that could be leverage for Oakland to make a deal), and the most recent scenario involves a potential deal with Las Vegas to relocate to the desert.

The other potential option for the future of the Raiders could be a move to L.A., but that would be put on the table as an option only after the Chargers exhaust their two optional years, which would mean 2018 at the earliest for a relocation to their former home in Southern California. That could still potentially happen if they do not reach an agreement with Oakland on a stadium deal in the interim.

In my view, as I have covered this topic and the NFL and their race to return to L.A. for years now, the Raiders situation is a mess and it will remain complicated for a while until it gains eventual resolution. The team ownership, notably principal owner Mark Davis, spins the line that the Raiders have many options as far as where they will eventually call home.

Back to Reality

However, in reality, he still has to get that relocation approved by the NFL and the full body of owners. Some pundits who like to “stir the pot” will say that Davis does not need NFL approval to move the team, that if he has a break in the lease in Oakland, he can move the team anywhere. While this may be true in theory, the fact is that if Davis wants to tap into the money that the NFL would provide toward the construction of a new stadium in a different market (usually in the area of $100 million) then he would need the approval of the NFL to relocate the franchise.

Some fans may recall that when the NFL announced that the Rams were going to be moving into Los Angeles, the league provided an incentive, which amounts to a consolation prize to the Raiders and Chargers. That incentive is to provide an additional $100 million (for a total of $200 million) to both teams if they could get a new stadium deal done in their current home markets of Oakland and San Diego respectively.

It is this incentive where I feel that both teams will eventually make something work in their home markets. In the San Diego scenario, the waterfront proposal has to pass in the November referendum. In the case of the Raiders and Oakland, I do not believe that they are going to Las Vegas especially now that the powers that be in that scenario have already changed the agreement.

The original Las Vegas proposal was for a 65,000 seat domed stadium to be built near The Strip to be shared between the NFL team (in this case the Raiders) and the UNLV football team. The proposed site development plan totaled $1 billion for the stadium and the city was willing to pay close to half of that amount. Mark Davis and the Raiders were going to get $100 million from the NFL to offset his end of the financing.

In the months that followed, Las Vegas got awarded an expansion NHL hockey franchise. Some feel that this recognition of finally getting a seat at the table at one of The Big Four sports leagues led the politicians there to change their tune about the NFL stadium proposal. The public financing end of that proposal went down sharply from the initial $500 million they were willing to absorb. The site that was identified has some other issues with it (which I will not detail further) and so now the proposal has expanded to nine different sites for a potential football stadium. These developments, on balance, make it seem that Las Vegas is less serious about spending public money to get the NFL to come to them, and that was the entire reason why Mark Davis was even entertaining the notion in the first place.

Gambling on the Desert

I thought that the Vegas option was waning but today I read two different reports: one that has the Raiders applying for trademarks around the name “Las Vegas Raiders”, and another that stated that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is looking to block the Raiders progress in Vegas because he prefers the team to remain in Oakland. This could get very sticky, very quickly. It is no secret that Goodell prefers that most teams stay in their current markets and the Bay Area is an important strategic region for the league. The issue of Las Vegas and gambling brings a whole other level of concern I think that the NFL is not willing to publicly recognize, but it is palpable internally within the league office at this point.

The San Antonio option for the Raiders, in my view and it is shared by others with knowledge of this situation, is that it is a ploy for leverage for Davis to get a stadium done in Oakland. I understand that Davis owns quite a bit of land there but the other issue to consider is the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans would vote against that relocation. The owners of those two teams, Jerry Jones and Bob McNair, are both very powerful NFL owners that would get their other friends on the ownership panel to reject this potential move. Those two teams would be reluctant to have another competitor move into their region. The San Antonio option seems unlikely as well.

That leaves the Raiders probably staying in Oakland because they have the most incentive to do so ($200 million from the NFL towards stadium development) and the history of the franchise is tied to that market. The NFL would like to keep two teams in the Bay Area if possible, so I think every effort will be exhausted toward getting a stadium deal done. The issues with Oakland are that the public appetite toward funding a stadium with tax dollars is very unpopular.

The secondary issue is the land for a stadium is limited as far as the number of suitable sites that could be developed in a reasonable amount of time. Mark Davis has floated a proposal in the past for a very intimate new stadium around 50,000 seats but he prefers the current site where the team plays at Oakland Coliseum.

The problem with the Coliseum site development is that the A’s play baseball there from April through October, so it leaves very little time to do construction at the site without conflicting with the A’s and their 82 games played on that site each season. The A’s, for their part, have signed a lease extension to stay in Oakland, but have been trying to move to San Jose for years. The San Francisco Giants have the territorial rights to San Jose and have blocked the A’s from moving there.

The Raiders were hopeful that the A’s would move across the Bay to San Jose because it would clear the path for them to build a stadium on land adjacent to the Coliseum on a faster timetable. The presence of the A’s on that site provides another hurdle to the project, but in the end, I think the Raiders will get a deal done to stay in Oakland.

Rams Reboot

The fate of the Rams is also tied to these other two teams, even though the Rams got the coveted first shot at the NFL reboot in Los Angeles. The Rams will have the inside track on all of the top corporate sponsorships and marketing opportunities. However, if they have to eventually share the market with another team that will impact them over the long term. The difference comes with which team they could potentially have to share the market with in Los Angeles.

The infamous “polls” that Rams owner Stan Kroenke cited from Twitter that allegedly displayed that the residents in the L.A. area favored the Rams over the Chargers in terms of popularity were part of the pitch that landed his team in Los Angeles. The Chargers would not be nearly as popular, according to other industry studies, as the Raiders would be in L.A. which was part of NBC Sports and Mike Florio’s excellent reporting on this situation.

A relocation of the Raiders to Los Angeles in the future would have a significant impact on the Rams and their presence in the market from a marketing and fan base development perspective. The obvious best case scenario for the Rams would be if the Raiders and Chargers both stayed out of the L.A. market for the long term. In the interim they will look to reap the benefits of being the first entry for the NFL into that huge untapped area which is the second largest media market in the US. They will also open their new stadium in Inglewood in a few years which will provide the NFL with a glitzy destination for the NFL Draft Combine, the Super Bowl, and other large scale league wide meetings.

The Olympic fever that just gripped the whole country will also benefit the future bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics where the US Olympic Committee is looking for the Rams Inglewood stadium to be the landmark centerpiece to a bid to get the Olympic Games back on US soil.

In the end, the Rams may be just beginning their new quest to rebrand themselves as “the team” in Los Angeles, but the team and the NFL still has unsettled business with the Chargers and Raiders. The fate of all three of these franchises are tied to L.A. and it remains to be seen how the political and financial forces at play will decide the chain of events regarding the future of the sport that America loves in San Diego and Oakland respectively. The next few months will provide some clarity, but for now, it is still anyone’s guess how it will be decided, and the fans of the three teams hang in the balance.

by Frank Maduri

Bolting Ahead: The Chargers Downtown Stadium Update

The San Diego Chargers path to a playing in a new downtown stadium just took a detour with a decision by the judicial system in California regarding the voting mechanism for the November ballot referendum. The Supreme Court of California recently handed down a ruling which would require a two-thirds majority for the stadium initiative to pass on the ballot this fall rather than a simple majority.

The Chargers and the city officials in San Diego quickly countered that news with an announcement that they had anticipated that hurdle and were approaching this measure prepared to gain a two-thirds majority for success. The Chargers have a petition with over 100,000 signatures awaiting verification from the proper legal authorities regarding the stadium measure needed to keep the NFL franchise in that city.

In the event that the referendum measure fails to gain approval from the voting majority, that would put the future of the team in San Diego in jeopardy. The team has an option on the table from the NFL and the Los Angeles Rams to play at the new Rams stadium being constructed in Inglewood outside of downtown LA.

The Chargers decision at the end of the 2015 season to put all their efforts into moving to Los Angeles left the people of San Diego very upset. The Chargers may not have enough votes to pass this stadium ballot initiative which is structured in a way that it would bypass the rigorous steps of environmental studies on the downtown site proposed for the stadium adjacent to the convention center. This method would expedite the completion date of the stadium.

The “Convadium” concept as it is known in San Diego is the project to build a new stadium for the Chargers and connect it to an expanded convention center for the city. This proposal has been rife with problems from the beginning and is basically still a mess at this point. The main issue of course is involving the financing of the project: nobody seems to be clear on who is paying for what portion and how the public financing component of the project will be structured.

The other sticking point is over who has the final approval of the design of the space, and whether the Chargers will include the playing surface as part of the convention space. The thought process being that they could potentially gain revenues for convention use of the stadium side of the expanded convention center, which some residents have taken issue with that portion of the potential plan for the site.

Mission Impossible

In my previous work on this topic I have compared the Mission Valley proposal to the downtown convention center proposal. This scenario came up again recently and Dean Spanos sent a letter to the city officials involved basically stating that the team will not consider the Mission Valley site under any circumstances. The letter basically spells out that it is either the downtown site or nothing at all.

The news that the team management will not consider Mission Valley as an alternative site has fueled speculation that the Chargers could eventually move to Los Angeles and relocate the franchise. I must admit that I was of the opinion that once the Chargers opted to remain in San Diego for the 2016 season that they would get a deal done with the city and remain there; now I am not so sure given the events of the past six weeks. The situation could get very negative between the team and the city and the residents hold the cards; and they are upset with the Chargers or skeptical of the value of the new stadium project. That is a bad combination.

There are rumors that certain city officials believe that if the initiative on the ballot for the downtown “Convadium” fails that they can move ahead with a plan to build a new stadium on the Mission Valley site and lure another NFL team to play there, assuming the Chargers bolt for LA. The most frequent team mentioned is the Jacksonville Jaguars in that relocation scenario, which is understandable because the Jags play in the smallest market in the league and have an uncertain future in Northern Florida – moving that team anywhere would be an upgrade over the market they are in from a metrics perspective – but I am not an advocate for relocating existing teams and alienating their respective fan base.

The Chargers management and some of the local political forces are fixated on the downtown site especially considering that would make San Diego a Super Bowl destination again which equates to big dollars in tax revenue and revenue for small businesses there as well. I understand having been to San Diego myself and being at both sites, Mission Valley and the Convention Center downtown, the differences in those areas are distinct. I also understand the trend for the NFL and other sports is moving to downtown stadiums attached to some other type of retail or commercial development property.

Opposition View

Furthermore I understand the opposition viewpoint regarding traffic on game days downtown and the environmental impact of a stadium in the convention center site. The situation is a total mess with no clear indication of how it will be resolved. The plans for the convention center and adjoining stadium development are controversial and have some definite down sides to it. The plan to raise hotel taxes to pay for the public funding portion of the stadium may or may not “play” well with the residents of San Diego in November.

In the end, the voters control the destiny of this project and hold the fate of the Chargers in their hands. It is a refreshing alternative to another stadium deal I have covered recently with the Atlanta Braves and Cobb County where the residents had little to no input and the decisions were made behind closed doors. The Tampa Bay Rays stadium quest is being closed to the public as well.

The Chargers and the city have to spend some time and resources on providing the residents with the facts and being transparent in the process for them to have success in November. The team will either be preparing to play in a new stadium downtown in a few years, or I believe if the vote goes against them they will relocate to Los Angeles. The decision has big implications for San Diego as well as for future stadium proposals that may go the way of public referendum voting and it is anybody’s guess how it will turn out.

by Frank Maduri

Left Out of L.A. – The Future of the Raiders & Chargers

The recent decision by the NFL ownership to allow the relocation of the Rams to Los Angeles has left two franchises, the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers, with uncertainty regarding their future in either of those markets. It is rather unusual for a multi-billion dollar entity such as the NFL to have such instability with their franchises, let alone with two of them in the same geographic region.

The Raiders and Chargers also bid to move to Los Angeles in a joint project for a new stadium proposed in Carson, California; this measure was defeated by a resounding vote of the full ownership panel of the NFL. However, as part of the Rams winning bid to gain the foothold into LA, the Chargers have a full calendar year to determine if they will join the Rams in their stadium in Inglewood.

The Chargers have an agreement where they will play the upcoming 2016 season in San Diego and could move to LA in 2017 because they struck a tenant agreement with the Rams. However, many NFL insiders think that it is unlikely that the Chargers would want to move to LA under that deal because they will not be entitled to the full revenues available in the terms of that tenant arrangement.

The Chargers are focusing their efforts on securing a long term stadium solution in San Diego which is anything but a sure bet. The people in San Diego are rather upset (understandably so) at the Chargers ownership for their willingness to move the team to Los Angeles. Both the Chargers and the city politicians are harnessing their energy on passing a citizen’s initiative which is a mechanism in California which allows for the public to vote in a combined measure over the new stadium and the land involved in that project. If the measure successfully passes the public vote, the lengthy environmental review process is voided.

It should be noted that this procedure was the same technique used by Dean Spanos and the Chargers management in gaining a faster approval process for the land in Carson for the proposed stadium there in the “race to LA”. It circumvents the rather cumbersome and time consuming environmental review which could delay the land for a stadium site for development for years.

The stadium quest between the Chargers and the San Diego politicians has revolved around a couple of central issues over the past fifteen years. The first issue is the location of the stadium and the second issue is the funding for the project. When you consider that those are the two main issues to moving a stadium construction forward that is why the two sides have remained in limbo for a decade and a half.

The condensed version of each issue can be summed up in this way. First, the location of the stadium has revolved mainly around two areas of San Diego (I do not believe that the team was ever going to move to the suburbs – that was strictly a tool for leverage by the Spanos family) and both sides have disagreed over that stadium location. The two areas proposed in this situation are: Mission Valley and downtown San Diego.

The essence of the situation regarding the site proposals is that the politicians favored the Chargers build a stadium on the same site in Mission Valley where the current stadium is located. The Spanos family favored the downtown site and wanted similar concessions to those given by the politicians to the Padres ownership when they built the downtown baseball stadium now known as Petco Park.

The second issue is the funding for the site and for many years the Spanos family was trying to gain public dollars for the stadium project by requesting that the politicians attach the new stadium proposal to the measure to renovate the convention center downtown. The politicians refused to combine the two proposals and felt that essentially the family had billions of dollars and should foot the bill for the stadium. The politicians also wanted the stadium in Mission Valley so that stalemate continued for years.

The current situation is still pretty messy. The Chargers formally announced their proposal for a downtown stadium adjoining the convention center site last week. The politicians responded with their rationale behind why they believe the Mission Valley site is a better fit for all sides. The main issue is that the land that the Chargers would need to fulfill the downtown project is not owned by either party in this scenario. The costs, the risks, and the potential for public approval are all significantly greater with the downtown proposal because of the purchase of the land and the associated legal costs. The financing for that endeavor becomes tricky because the public has to vote by a two-thirds majority to approve any ballot initiative that includes a tax increase. The public support may not be there for this project which will set back the entire time frame of getting the stadium built.

Meanwhile, the Mission Valley site is where both the city and the county proposed a $1.1 billion stadium project on land that is city owned. The viewpoint of the city officials is that this project site will provide a smoother and more cost effective option to development of a new stadium. The Chargers, according to ESPN and other news outlets, have been working with JMI which is the same real estate developer that helped the Padres develop Petco Park.

According to JMI they estimate that the cost of the expansion of the convention center and the new football stadium downtown to be at around $1.4 billion. In a move to push back against the city and county officials, JMI claims that the cost to develop both sites, the convention center and the Mission Valley stadium would cost the city close to $1.8 billion dollars for two separate, stand-alone buildings.

The Chargers are pushing for the downtown site for two reasons: better access points for fans and the inclusion of the convention center and the other areas surrounding it in the downtown Gas Lamp district would provide for a great setting for the Super Bowl and other large scale events. The Chargers know that to keep the franchise in San Diego they need to be able to compete with Los Angeles for those big events, and a new stadium in Mission Valley will not achieve that objective. The public vote in November is the next big hurdle in this scenario.

Out of Oakland?

The Oakland Raiders have also been left without a long term solution for a place to call home for their franchise. They did just agree to a new stadium lease that allows them to keep playing in Oakland Coliseum until another arrangement can be made.

The team owner, Mark Davis, has explored relocation to San Antonio and has just met with officials in Las Vegas recently as well. The main issue with remaining in Oakland is that the city and county have basically zero money to allocate for the stadium project and the public appetite towards public finance of a stadium in any form, whether it comes from an increase in a hotel tax or via another mechanism, is not very likely at this point.

Davis has scaled back his proposals to Oakland with the last proposal seeking land for a smaller venue that was more intimate for fans. The Oakland politicians are concerned about the viability of any project because they also feel pressure from Major League Baseball to figure out a new stadium solution for the A’s.

The developers in Oakland had once pitched the Coliseum City project which would have encompassed 800 acres and included new stadiums for both teams. That proposal, which you can read plenty about if you wish because many news outlets in the Bay Area covered it extensively, died out and is no longer an option.

In all my research and in covering both the NFL’s “race to LA” and the Raiders and Chargers over the years, I just do not see a way for the Raiders to stay in Oakland. I also thought they had a slim chance of going to LA because of the grudge that the NFL owners have for the Davis family built over years of hostilities.

Conversely, I have had a gut feeling over the years that the Chargers could wind up staying in San Diego. The community there is very supportive of the team and they have built a history there spanning decades. It is a great city for the Super Bowl because of the climate and location, but it needs an upgraded stadium to host that event in the future. I think that the Chargers could end up making it work there with the downtown site.

In the event that the Chargers and the San Diego officials cannot make it work, then I think the Raiders have a chance of going there next year if the Chargers leave for Los Angeles (they have a one year option to do so). The Raiders could end up going to San Diego and leveraging the city and county into a new stadium once the Chargers have moved on.

The San Antonio option for the Raiders is interesting because Mark Davis owns land halfway between San Antonio and Austin where he could build a stadium and take advantage of a rapidly growing area in football crazy Texas. However, the political NFL reality is that it is unlikely that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones or Houston Texans owner Bob McNair would vote to approve such a move. They are both powerful owners with friendships with other owners, so Davis probably faces a steep hurdle to gaining approval for that endeavor.

The Las Vegas option is interesting and could gain some traction. The Raiders had discussions there regarding a new project that potentially would build a domed stadium on land on the Vegas Strip for a facility that would be shared by the UNLV football team and an NFL team and cost close around $1 billion. The big casino and hotel resort owners are backing the project because they see the potential for that investment to be paid off by having new visitors who would otherwise not come to Las Vegas. This new untapped customer base could be worth a significant return in hotel rooms and additional tourist dollars for having a stadium capable of hosting large scale events.

Mark Davis came away impressed and called Las Vegas “a global city” so that is speaking directly to the league office which has sought different ways to grow the NFL internationally in recent years (i.e. games played in London, Canada, and Mexico). That is a subtle play by Davis to try to leverage that sentiment from the owners for a potential relocation bid.

In my view, I would be surprised if the Chargers left San Diego at this point, unless the whole thing falls apart with the public financing for the downtown site, because even if the team could play in a bigger market in L.A. they would be sharing that market with the Rams. Furthermore, the Rams will have had a full year in the L.A. market and have gained all the top sponsorships. The Chargers would be a tenant in L.A. and stand to make less on the ancillary revenue streams due to that type of arrangement; where by staying in San Diego they are the only team in the market and they would have their own stadium with full access to more revenue streams.

The situation bears watching as it is very fluid in the case of both franchises involved. The end game will be that both Oakland and San Diego work with the teams to keep them in those markets, or two new cities will be on the NFL map in the future.

by Frank Maduri

NFL To Los Angeles Update: More Twists & Turns

The ongoing quest of the NFL relocation process to Los Angeles took a few more twists and turns recently following a set of meetings between the league, the owners, and the parties from three NFL teams interested in gaining a foothold into the nation’s second largest media market.

 

Those meetings took place in the Chicago area and presentations were made by the Chargers, the Raiders, and the Rams regarding potential relocation to Los Angeles and their respective stadium proposals. I have reported on this topic for a few years now and I can attest that the situation is an evolving one, to put it diplomatically.

 

In order to provide some backdrop for readers who are not aware of the relocation scenario with the NFL and Los Angeles it essentially boils down to back room politics within one of the most profitable sports leagues in the world. The Rams, who initially played in L.A. and moved to St. Louis for a sweetheart deal on a new stadium in the mid-1990s, are now positioning themselves for a move back to Southern California. Their owner, Stan Kroenke, has made a huge land purchase in Inglewood on the site of the former Hollywood Park horseracing track (see my earlier article which focuses exclusively on this deal) with the aim to build a world class football stadium on the site.

 

The Chargers and Raiders moved quickly following Kroenke’s land move to secure land for a joint stadium project in Carson, California which has been fast tracked through the government permit and environmental review stages to be a more “shovel ready” project at this point than the Rams proposal. The Chargers have worked with San Diego (though some in San Diego municipal government claim the Chargers never worked in good faith) on a new stadium for 15 years with no progress being made in that time period.

The Raiders have worked with Oakland for a similar time frame (if not longer) to find an acceptable proposal to replace the aging Coliseum but with no success. The Raiders have positioned themselves well in the “race to L.A.” because they do not want their own stadium, they prefer to be a partner or a tenant in whatever stadium bid gets accepted by the NFL.

 

The NFL would prefer to have two teams in the market and not three, so somebody is going to be left out of this equation, and it is looking more likely that it is not going to be the Raiders. In the mainstream media press conference after the Chicago meetings regarding the L.A. relocation, an NFL Vice President was quoted as stating that the Raiders have no viable way of staying in Oakland.

 

Horse Race

 

The horse race to L.A. was viewed prior to the meetings in Chicago by NFL insiders as scenario where the Chargers/Raiders proposal in Carson being the lead proposal for acceptance by the league ownership. The rationale being that both teams are based in California and have worked diligently to remain in their current markets with no progress seen in that regard.

 

The view prior to the meetings was that Kroenke’s move with the Hollywood Park land purchase was too bold and aggressive. It also should be noted that St. Louis has put together a viable option for a new stadium on the waterfront for the Rams to remain in Missouri that has intrigued NFL owners and league executives.

 

However, according to sources in the mainstream sports media, after the meetings in Chicago it appears that the Rams proposal for the stadium at Hollywood Park in Inglewood has gained significant traction. There is also some movement by San Diego to put together a proposal for a new facility to keep the team from relocating.

It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out between now and the expected official decision on which teams will be in L.A. which is expected in January 2016. The Giants owner, John Mara, stated to the media that he expects a team to be playing in L.A. by 2016 in a temporary venue.

 

Alternate Plans

 

Once the two teams that are approved by the NFL to relocate to Los Angeles are announced, the issue becomes finding a temporary home for the teams while the construction of their long term home is being undertaken. The Rose Bowl has, according to mainstream reports, told the NFL that they are not interested in temporarily hosting a NFL franchise. The LA Coliseum apparently is willing to serve as a temporary venue for a relocated franchise to the city.

 

Then, on Monday, in a strange turn of events, San Antonio has stepped up and announced that they would be willing to host the Raiders temporarily if they get relocated to LA because their lease with Oakland ends at the end of this season. The Carson stadium will not be ready for another two years and the Inglewood stadium could take three years to construct.

 

My first thoughts when I saw this news earlier was that it was strange, but the more I thought about it, it represents a really smart move by San Antonio. The Raiders owner, Mark Davis, has already visited San Antonio and met with officials there as a potential relocation site for the franchise (see my earlier article on the Oakland stadium) though that turned out to be a maneuver to gain leverage so that Oakland would approve funds for a new facility for the team.

 

The scenario in Oakland between the municipal government, county leadership, and the Raiders executives has gone downhill rapidly from bad to worse. The Coliseum is known throughout the league as the worst facility and the appetite in Oakland for spending public funds for a stadium is tepid at best. The NFL beat writer for the Raiders reported to CBS Sports that Mark Davis went to the Oakland officials with a reduced stadium plan purposing an intimate venue with 50,000 seats versus some other NFL stadiums which have close to 70,000 capacity. The smaller facility would have a reduced price tag and environmental impact, the two sides could not come to agreement on that proposal.

 

The Raiders may need a temporary home for a few years until the move to L.A. and it may need to be outside of Oakland with the state of the relationship between both parties. In the hypothetical scenario that the Rams and Raiders are both awarded L.A. relocations by the league, the Rams would most likely play at the LA Coliseum on a temporary basis. It may be difficult to schedule two teams to play at that facility, so that is where San Antonio is making their sales pitch at this point.

 

When you think about it, it makes sense for both sides. The Raiders could gain exposure to a whole new demographic of fans and due to their success earlier in their franchise history they already have a national following, they could add to that fan base by playing in Texas. The NFL let a study gain media attention a couple of weeks ago where there was a survey done of Raiders fans, and the majority said that they would support the team regardless of where they based their operation. It was an obvious placement by the NFL to soften the ground for the LA relocation of the franchise, but it could also play a role for San Antonio to appeal to both the Raiders and the league that they can be a viable temporary home.

 

It makes sense for San Antonio because they would gain tax revenues from the team operations, game days, and an increase in tourism/ hotel stays from the team playing there temporarily for two to three years. The Alamodome would be the site for the games and that facility is undergoing an over $40 million dollar renovation including wider concourses, a new scoreboard, larger locker rooms, and other amenities in preparation for the stadium to host the NCAA basketball Final Four in 2018. The Raiders would be able to play games indoors in an upgraded facility that is far nicer than Oakland Coliseum at this point. The local fans in San Antonio would get NFL football for two to three years right in their city, and the city would be able to show the NFL that they can handle an expansion or other relocated team on a permanent basis down the line.

 

Switching Places

 

On Monday night a report emerged regarding the Chargers – Raiders joint project in Carson. The NFL has reported that if that stadium initiative is accepted by the league, then the teams will no longer remain in the same division, the AFC West in this case, or the same conference. The NFL would realign the teams so that one would most likely join the NFC West.

 

In that scenario, in order to keep the conferences and the divisions evenly balanced in the four divisions with four teams in each conference, another team would have to change conferences as well. Carmen Policy, who is heading up the NFL to LA movement at this point and was heavily involved in the presentations in Chicago related in this report that several intriguing realignment options are on the table at this point.

 

I had thought about this scenario while writing an earlier article on this topic. In many ways, approving the Inglewood project is a much more streamlined process for the NFL because the Rams would relocate to Southern California and remain in the NFC West, and the Raiders would most likely be their co-tenant and remain in the AFC West with no realignment of the league being necessary.

 

However, that still leaves the Chargers in a potentially untenable situation in San Diego, which the NFL certainly internally knows much more about just how dire that situation is, certainly more than I do. That may be the impetus behind the drive for the Carson project, to resolve the Chargers stadium issue  as well as the Raiders issues all in one bold sweeping move.

 

I know that Jason LaComfora of CBS Sports first reported this several months ago, and it is an intriguing idea. He thinks that if the Rams move to LA and the Inglewood project goes ahead and the Rams leave St. Louis, then the team that is left out of the LA market could wind up moving to St. Louis and playing in the new proposed riverfront stadium. In light of recent events, with the NFL open to realignment, all options could be on the table. The Chargers could wind up moving to St. Louis and staying in the AFC West where they would have a regional rival in their division in the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chargers would also still play the Raiders and Broncos in that scenario twice per season as they currently do.

 

In my view, that would be the biggest issue with the Carson project is having to shift multiple teams and realign the league. That would eliminate the rivalry games that NFL fans look forward to from back in the old AFL days, fierce rivalries between the Broncos and Chargers or the Raiders and Chiefs.

 

The other point that I have to mention here is that the NFL does not want 3 teams playing in the Los Angeles market, and if they decide to keep the Rams out (it seems Kroenke is set to go there) how will the league prevent a billionaire from moving the operation of his team from St. Louis to the nation’s second largest media market and the entertainment capital of the world?

 

The issue is further complicated when consideration is given to the fact that the Rams once played in Los Angeles and they have a passionate following and supporters there that want the team to return to Southern California.

 

In that scenario, what happens to St. Louis and their plans for a new riverfront stadium? Some within NFL circles question whether St. Louis deserves another shot at a team because they lost the Cardinals previously, so if the city loses the Rams as well, are they the right market for an NFL team?

 

This situation certainly is a delicate one for the NFL and for three franchises who are vying to gain entry into a coveted and largely untapped marketplace. It will be interesting to see how the NFL, the owners, and the executives from the three teams involved handle the next steps in what has become a race to get NFL football back to Los Angeles.

 

(Some background information courtesy of CBS Sports.com)

 

by Frank Maduri

TV Markets and the Expansion of Sports – Part 3

The role of TV markets in the potential expansion of professional sports has been well documented in the first two parts of this series. The first part dealt with the potential expansion of the NBA, the second part dealt with the potential expansion of Major League Baseball, and this third part of the series will deal with the potential expansion of the National Football League (NFL).

 

The focus on the NFL is timely, since the expansion discussion was again central to the media coverage of the league recently. The NFL began playing regular season games in London calling them the “International Series” beginning in 2007 (www.nfl.com). The most recent game in London was played on October 27, with the San Francisco 49ers taking on the Jacksonville Jaguars.

 

In the media events leading up to this game in London, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke openly about the determination for the NFL to place a team in London and Los Angeles. He added that he did not care which city went through the process first, but that they are both targeted areas for the NFL to have a presence within in the future (www.cbssports.com).

 

The initial expansion talk for the NFL began around the Super Bowl in 2012 when the Commissioner discussed the league expanding from 32 to 34 teams. In recent months, the NFL owners committee has stated that they like the league at 32 teams and that any changes would most likely come by relocation of struggling franchises.

 

 

Current Situation

The NFL is currently made up of 32 teams split into two conferences of 16 teams each. In each conference the teams are split into four divisions of four teams each, so the schedule is perfectly balanced. The alignment makes sense and they have an excellent system for rotating the schedule for inter-conference and inter-divisional games.

 

The NFL is the most watched sport in the United States, and has a huge level of interest that dwarfs the other members of “The Big Four” major sports leagues. The number of people to support and watch additional NFL teams is there, so the debate will always rage on about potential expansion of this tremendously successful league.

 

The NFL frequently has seven or eight of the Top 10 most watched television events every year. The Super Bowl, of course, is the most watched television event on the calendar in the United States. It has set records in recent years for TV viewership, which some reports have speculated is driven by the recession in the U.S. and more people staying home to watch it in smaller groups.

 

Sunday Night Football on NBC is the most watched network primetime show every year. The importance of the medium of television to the NFL is very crucial for an expansion market, more so than with other sports.

 

Potential Expansion Markets

 

The potential for expansion in the NFL is a much shorter list than for the other leagues because the league has publicly stated that it does not want to expand much beyond the 32 franchises they have currently. This is also due to the fact that the owners do not want to split the revenue sharing “pie” too much further.

 

Here are the most likely candidates for an NFL expansion franchise:

(TV markets data courtesy of www.stationindex.com , Metro population data courtesy of www.census.gov and the Fortune 500 data courtesy of www.money.cnn.com )

  • Los Angeles, CA – The largest city and the largest TV market without an NFL team. It has been on the NFL expansion radar screen for a long time. At one point the city had two NFL teams that both left, which is why support for a replacement franchise lagged for many years.

TV Market Rank: 2nd

Metro Population Rank: 2nd

Fortune 500 Company HQ: 10 (in general area)

 

Synopsis/Outlook: The Los Angeles bid is a very likely expansion or relocation destination for an NFL franchise or two. The population density, the huge TV and media market, and the corporate sponsorship capabilities are definitely sufficient to support 2 teams. The plan at this point would be that those two teams would share a stadium similar to the Giants and Jets currently. The downtown stadium plan supported by AEG has lost support politically and will not happen. The City of Industry plan is still on the table and is the most likely site for a future state of the art NFL stadium. The temporary stadium would most likely be the Rose Bowl in Pasadena until the new stadium construction is completed. The most likely relocation candidates would be the Oakland Raiders (who have a major stadium issue with the Coliseum and no public dollars to fix it in Oakland), St. Louis Rams (who have an “out clause” in their lease after next season and are fighting with the city of St. Louis over a renovation plan for their current stadium), and the San Diego Chargers (they are just a couple of hours down the road and they have been working on a new stadium deal for over 15 years now). The NFL and the owners have all made statements indicating that they will be in L.A. sooner rather than later. One final note, MSG Network interviewed former basketball legend and current L.A. Dodgers part-owner, Earvin “Magic” Johnson during halftime of the NY Knicks game recently, and he publicly stated that he wanted to help bring an NFL team to Los Angeles. When high profile men with money and connections start talking about their desire to do it, we have all seen that it is only a matter of time before it gets done.

 

  • San Antonio, TX – The second largest city in the country by population without an NFL team. The city has a diverse group of potential fans, and the area is known for being very loyal to their other professional team, the Spurs of the NBA.

TV Markets Rank: 36th

Metro Population Rank: 25th

Fortune 500 Company HQ: 5

 

Synopsis/Outlook: Many reports I have read throughout the media reference sources from within the NFL that believe that San Antonio and Toronto are the only other markets outside of L.A. which could successfully support an NFL team. The issues with San Antonio and a potential bid for expansion are still numerous: the city is in the territorial rights zone for the Dallas Cowboys, the metro population is good but the suburbs are non-existent, the TV market is good but not great (though the NFL has current franchises in much smaller TV markets), and the stadium is problematic as well. In order for a bid to be successful, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would have to approve the move into his territory (he has made statements of support in the past). The right ownership group would have to emerge with enough capital to compete against the Cowboys (who are immensely popular in the entire state) and the Houston Texans (who play about a 2 hour drive away). The final piece is the stadium, they have the Alamo Dome currently, but it was built several years ago. It would need by some estimates between $100 million to $500 million in renovations to be an NFL level facility. Most people believe that for a San Antonio bid to be accepted, the Alamo Dome would be used as a temporary home while a brand new stadium would be built for the NFL team. The government willpower and support is there to undertake that project, they have a growing economy, and the corporate sponsorship for such a venture is there as well. If the right pieces fall into place, this is also a very likely future expansion location for the NFL.

  • Toronto – Intriguing potential expansion opportunity for the NFL to fully integrate into Canada.

Synopsis/Overview: The TV market and other demographic data are not applicable for this Canadian city. The potential bid does have some very strong attributes. Toronto has a very diverse population base which appeals to the NFL and their strategic interest in growing the sport internationally. The city currently hosts one regular season game each year under an agreement with the Buffalo Bills. The game in Toronto regularly plays to a sold out crowd, so the demand is there for the NFL product in Canada. The other potential avenue outside of expansion is the potential for the Buffalo Bills to relocate to Toronto. However, the City of Buffalo just committed a huge amount of money and resources to the renovation of Ralph Wilson Stadium and the Bills signed a new lease in Buffalo as well, making that relocation rather unlikely. The stadium in the short term would be the Rogers Centre (formerly the SkyDome) and then a new stadium would be built for the expansion NFL franchise. Corporate support would not be an issue, nor would the right ownership group. A solid potential bid.

  • London, United Kingdom – The London bid is gaining tremendous momentum at this point. It would bring the NFL into the global stage faster than the other major U.S. sports leagues.

Synopsis/Outlook: The situation in London is similar to Toronto, the TV markets and other demographics do not apply. The NFL has an “International Committee” which has been studying the potential for international growth of American football for years now. Some sources inside the NFL in the reports throughout the media say the committee should be named “the London Committee”. London is really the only viable option for international expansion. The corporate support, with London being a major financial and commercial hub in Europe, would be excellent for a future NFL franchise. There are fans who question why the NFL would want to put a team in London and believe that it is a bad idea. If you take away all the other positive attributes about the city, the only statistic needed for the rationale behind why the NFL wants to have a full time presence in London is: population. Some estimates have the population of London within city limits at 9.7 million, the greater metro area estimates are 13 million to 21 million people (courtesy of the Greater London Authority). The NFL is not currently in LA, so after the New York/New Jersey metro area, the next largest metro area the NFL has a franchise in is Chicago at approximately 9.5 million people (www.census.gov). The potential expansion to London would add another market with the population base of New York or Los Angeles. That offers the NFL a very unique way to expand the league into a very large marketplace. The bid would be solid as the team would have several potential ownership groups and they could play at Wembley Stadium at least initially. In fact, Fox Sports, reported over the weekend that the London based professional soccer club, Tottenham Hotspur, is proposing to build a brand new 65,000 seat stadium that could be shared with a future NFL franchise. When that sort of project is being proposed it validates that the NFL and the city of London have had several behind the scenes meetings about the expansion possibilities there. The relocation route could be another potential avenue into London, with the Jacksonville Jaguars being the most likely franchise for relocation there, according to several media reports. The owner of the Jaguars, Mr. Khan, has ties to London and the Jaguars have the lowest merchandise sales in the NFL. They also currently play in the league’s smallest market, Jacksonville, and they have committed to playing 3 games in London over the next 3 years.

 

Final observations

 

 

The NFL is the most popular professional league in the United States, and it is poised to expand into a few of the remaining markets left that they have not tapped. In my opinion, I think the NFL needs to be in Los Angeles, the game translates so well to the medium of television and it makes no sense to not have a franchise in the second largest TV market in the country.

 

Furthermore, I think the league would do very well with a team in San Antonio, but I do not think it will happen for a long time. The Toronto move is less likely now that the Bills are staying in Western New York, and the London move is complicated. On the surface, I understand why they want to make the move over to London, but logistically that would be a major headache for the NFL.

 

Every U.S. based team that played over there would have to have a bye week the following week, and the London based team would have to fly over here and spend three to four weeks straight on the road in various regions of the U.S. (Northeast, Midwest, etc.).

 

An additional consideration is the conversion rate of the currency, if the contracts for the players are in U.S. dollars, and they are living during the season in London and using the Euro, that is going to be a problem. London is also one of the most expensive cities to live in, so most of the players would opt to leave their families back in the U.S., which I think will definitely impact how the team in London would be able to attract top players to sign to play over there.

 

So each expansion possibility has unique issues here, even the L.A. bid, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the NFL. The next part of this series will focus on the National Hockey League (NHL) and the potential for that league to expand, which is very realistic in the near future.