LA Billionaire plans to build LA stadium to attract a team

[A Fleshner Fantasy]

If you build it they will come


Maybe a team, but will there be fans, I don't think so

There will be plenty of fans. Maybe not hardcore ones like in Philly or Dallas, but there will still be plenty of people at the games.

[BigBadBrawler]

From what I hear, the Chargers have turned it down

The local media's been covering this thing non-stop since the story broke. The Chargers haven't turned down anything, ownership in SD just put out a blanket statement saying they want to stay in San Diego and try to build a stadium in nearby Chula Vista. That's the same process they've been going through though, and it's the funding that's the still the issue for them right now. Local reps down here still say they're the best bet for an L.A move, and SD ownership has already had preliminary talks with the group spearheading the L.A Staduim project. They also threw out numerous possibilities for potential teams that could relocate by 2011 (the ones I mentioned earlier plus JAX and a few others, all having various different probabilities attatched to them). They also stated that it's a very real possibility that they'll get a team before 2011, and have to have them play in the Colliseum while the new stadium is being built...

Like I said, I'm not getting my hopes up until a team is attatched to this, but it seems like much more of a real possibility now then when they were coming up with ideas to renovate the Colliseum, and all that crap. Plus, the prospects of turning a smaller-market or low revenue Team into a large-market, high-revenue one would probably be approved by the Revenue-sharing NFL if/when this does all come to fruition.

At least I'm finally getting to talk about football in my backyard. It's been a long while since that's been the case...

[dream_017]

OK, 2 people took my comment and disagreed with it. Well, maybe the third time will be a charm.

Hasn't a team been in LA twice before and moved? Obviously I'm not from that area and know everything that has gone on, but having 2 teams leave...in the second biggest market in the country...mean that there is an issue. If people cared and there were fans, would there be 2 teams that left There have been how many expansion teams since the departures in 1995...and none have been in LA.

Good luck, maybe you guys can keep a team this time...that is if you even get one

[BigBadBrawler]

OK, 2 people took my comment and disagreed with it. Well, maybe the third time will be a charm.

Hasn't a team been in LA twice before and moved? Obviously I'm not from that area and know everything that has gone on, but having 2 teams leave...in the second biggest market in the country...mean that there is an issue. If people cared and there were fans, would there be 2 teams that left There have been how many expansion teams since the departures in 1995...and none have been in LA.

Good luck, maybe you guys can keep a team this time...that is if you even get one

Yes Dream, technically two teams left the Los Angeles area 13 years ago, and there have been expansion teams added to the NFL since then, without Los Angeles getting a whiff interest from them. But it doesn't have anything to do with the perceived fan base or support capabilities here. They'll be able to fill an NFL sports venue in Los Angeles fairly easily (especially considering the population growth, disposable income, and other similar financial support structures that exist in college and pro sports in the area, not to mention the accessability of the new location). The issue in the 90's was that there were two teams splitting the fan base, multiple different stadium and location issues, and two pretty headstrong and crazy owners running the departed teams who just happened to be able to leverage better deals elsewhere. While L.A never came up with a cohesive or realistic plan to attract a franchise team (the NFL was never gonna sign off on using the Rose Bowl or the Colliseum as a play-site for a new franchise, no matter what renovations or upgrades were made, and the public wouldn't sign off on using tax dollars to build a new stadium), the market here was still used as leverage around the country for teams whenever they wanted public funding or new stadiums from their respective cities, exactly because we have the fan-base and media market to make that a legitimate threat. All a team had to do was say: "okay, you won't give us money, then we'll look into moving to L.A" and because the second-largest market in the country didn't have a team, it was a viable threat. This has been done more times then I can count (and I only know because I read the reports hopefully every single time), and this has been the limited extent of our NFL involvement for the last decade: basically a very expensive negotiation ploy. But again, none of the inability of the area to attract a team was/has ever been about the NFL thinking they couldn't fill a stadium here. That's the last thing anyone was worried about. It's always been about a new stadium/location, team ownership, and where the funding was gonna come from. The fan-base here is built in. They may not have the most die-hard fans in the league, but they'll have the numbers...

[Metroid]

It has to be a team lured away from somewhere else right? Adding couple of expansion team would muck up the divisions that are finally all even....no?

[Cowboys 4 life]

If you build it they will come


Maybe a team, but will there be fans, I don't think so

There'll be enough fans. The second largest media market in the country, and the site they're building it on (City of Industry) is actually accessible from Los Angeles County, Orange County, and the San Bernadino County. That's givng access to a whole lotta people who haven't had football in a long while (trust me, the gangsters out here are tired of rooting for da Raidahs). Just give us a team like Minny (sorry, Treat); Buffalo; SD; etc. and we'll fill up the stadium...

Heard this news and was ecstatic. I'm still not getting my hopes up until they actually sign a team, but with all the smaller markets out there, and all the team's wanting new staduims where the public doesn't want to help fund them: We've got a home for you guys...

I agree with BBB. I own a condo in Whittier which is not even 15 minutes from C of Industry.

This location, even though it is basically East LA, is a much better location than previous stadiums. As you said they can pull from 3 counties instead of 1.

I don't really care if it was the Cowboys playing in LA I wouldn't go to the Collesium. The area is so bad. I recall going to a Led Zep concert at the forum and coming out to 5000 cars broken into including mine. Thats like 20% of the cars in the parking lot. Security guards everywhere to most likely colluding. I won't ever go to The Forum, Collesium, sports Arena, or any other LA stadium of any sort again.

Good news plus it blocks Al Davis from moving down there again. I think if they get another team down there that isn't competing with another it will succeed.