Category Archives: Los Angeles NFL team

L.A. to look at redoing convention center without stadium attached

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In news that should surprise no one, the Los Angeles city council is investigating ways to redevelop the L.A. Convention Center in the event that AEG doesn’t go ahead with its NFL stadium plans. Which now looks pretty likely: Even though AEG owner Philip Anschutz announced earlier this month that he was backing off his planned sale of the company, he also announced that CEO Tim Leiweke, who was spearheading the stadium deal, was leaving the company — according to Forbes, possibly because Leiweke was trying to influence who ended up with the winning bid.

All of which makes for great intrigue, but for now, even though Anschutz says he’s going ahead with the NFL stadium plans, it’s got to be considered on life support. Add in that the NFL has hated the plan all along, and pursuing an independent expansion of the convention center probably makes the most sense — except that that’s probably a terrible idea as well.

Downtown L.A. stadium declared officially dead, unofficially

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I’m not actually how to read this, as the official NFL position on AEG’s downtown Los Angeles stadium plan has been that they’ve hated it for a year and a half now, but: Yahoo! Sports is reporting that two “sources” (one of them a “league source”) are saying that the AEG plan is dead as far as the league is concerned, as “Unofficially, the NFL believes that the cost of the AEG plan, which the league believes will be at least $1.8 billion, will make it unworkable”:

“The numbers just don’t work, no matter how you look at the deal,” a league source said in February. “It’s either too hard for AEG to make money [and pay the debt on the stadium] or too hard for the team. I just can’t see a way for it to work.”

Again, nothing really new, except that the NFL is now sending off-the-record staffers to leak the word that really, it’s time to move on to other L.A. stadium proposals. Not to mention a decidedly on-the-record Marc Ganis, the NFL consultant who might as well be a league source, who pointedly told Yahoo!: “The focus on the sale of AEG has stalled the chance for people in the area to view potential other sites and opportunities. … If Los Angeles leaders don’t move on to look at other options it will only delay the return of the NFL to Los Angeles further, possibly even years longer.”

This might be a reasonable ploy to get L.A. moving on some other stadium possibilities — or at least vague rumors of possibilities — but it’s terrible timing for the Carolina Panthers, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, St. Louis Rams, San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders, and any other NFL teams I may have left out that are currently using the “L.A. has a stadium deal ready to go!” threat to try to extract money from their current hometowns for new or renovated stadiums. I was just telling a reporter yesterday that these teams are all scrambling for stadium funds now because they have a limited window to use the L.A. threat before it either falls apart or somebody else moves there first; it looks like that window may have just begun to slide shut.

 

NFL, Dodgers have “had talks” about football stadium at Chavez Ravine

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Stop the presses!

Dan Kaplan of Sports Business Daily reported Monday that the [NFL] has had direct talks with [Los Angeles] Dodgers owner Guggenheim Partners about the possibility of a football stadium at Chavez Ravine, a concept that has been floated since the mid-1990s, when Peter O’Malley pushed to bring the NFL there.

All that remains to be done, writes the L.A. Times’ Sam Farmer: figure out a way to get ex-Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, who is 50% owner of the Dodger Stadium parking lots, to go along with a new stadium deal; start a new round of environmental impact statements; figure out whether the Dodgers would stay put or move to a new stadium on the proposed downtown site near the convention center; and wait to find out who AEG, which has proposed the downtown stadium, is ever being sold. And something else that Farmer doesn’t mention, let’s see … oh right, who on earth is going to pay for this dang thing.

All items to keep in mind before the next article alleging that other NFL teams are set to move to L.A. if they can’t extract new stadiums from their current home towns. Crap, too late.

 

Your morning great big ball of stadium stupid

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I’ve never actually heard of Pacific Standard magazine — apparently until recently it was called Miller-McCune, which I’ve also never heard of — but if this infographic is what it has to offer, then I hope I never heard of it again. Ostensibly an explanation of how to “help a Los Angeles [NFL] stadium buck the trend” of stadium projects, you know, sucking for the cities that build them, it ends up combining the interactivity of a bad Flash game with the informativeness of a USA Today charticle. Among the things readers will learn from PS:

  • On the “best to worst subsidies” graph (most of which consists of a graphic that looks to have been lifted from one of these), it says that “Public financing accounted for 50 percent of the new Lucas Oil Stadium [in Indianapolis], offset by taxes on hotels, rental cars, restaurants, and sales of Colts license plates.” Um, no.
  • The “Making It Work” chart, once you’ve scrolled over little gratuitous circles to see what the chart actually says, suggests “folding in concessions and entertainment” uses for a sports facility, pointing to the “apartments and office space” of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center as an example. Exempt that none of the apartments have broken ground yet, and the office tower was scrapped four years ago.
  • There’s a map of the U.S. with little colored markers indicating how much public funding various stadiums have received, which would be cute, except that tons of buildings are left out (where’s the Seattle Seahawks‘ stadium, for one?) and that the figures are drawn from some wildly inaccurate source (Citi Field, for example, is listed as 19% publicly funded, which really, not.)

On the marginally less stupid front, meanwhile, let’s turn to Bill Parker of DRays Bay, who has penned an essay about the Tampa Bay Rays‘ stadium campaign that, like Pacific Standard’s infographic, starts by acknowledging that stadium deals are almost always terrible for the public before asking, gee, can we get one of them here?

I think that on some level, by now, virtually every governor, city council and county board of commissioners recognizes that it’s a bad deal. Yet, they continue to happen because there’s the fear that the team will bolt to another location, and no politician wants to be the one who was stuck in office when the team left town (which is a bad thing for real-world reasons, too; the teams do provide jobs, even if it’s a low number for their revenue brackets, and tend to have pretty active local charity arms). It’s in everyone’s collective interest to simply agree to stop doing these deals, but individual actors (cities, in this case) often have their own reasons to ignore the common good and do it anyway.

And so this keeps happening. But can it happen in Tampa or St. Pete?

Parker actually kind of punts on whether he’s rooting for it to happen there (he says as a Minnesotan, he loves the Twins’ new ballpark, but hates its public subsidies), but the upshot of the article remains the same: Stadium deals are almost always ripoffs, but never mind that, what are the odds of this one going through? Which neatly achieves the goal of stadium seekers: shift the terms of the debate from “Should we build a stadium?” to “How should we build a stadium?” Because everyone agrees that whatever it costs, the Rays totally neeeeeeeeeeeed a new stadium. (Quiet, you.)

Pasadena council approves talking about renting Rose Bowl to imaginary NFL team

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If you were wondering where an NFL team in Los Angeles would play while waiting to move into the new downtown stadium that really doesn’t look like it’s going to get built anytime soon, Pasadena has you covered: The Pasadena city council voted yesterday to allow the Rose Bowl to host an additional 13 games a year if a deal is struck to have an NFL team lodge there temporarily while waiting for a new stadium.

They did so despite more than 100 local residents packing the hearing to complain about the likely traffic and noise impacts, because councilmembers were just so thrilled by the prospect of hosting an NFL team:

“I’m not excited about the NFL, and clearly [the Rose Bowl's neighbors] are not excited, but it’s the responsible thing to do,” Councilwoman Margaret McAustin said.

Okay, actually they were excited at the prospect of an NFL team maybe paying $5-10 million a year in rent, which would help pay off the $195 million in renovation costs Pasadena is looking at for the Rose Bowl. Though given that the city would also need to add extra police on game days, and might need to spend more on amenities to make the Rose Bowl NFL-acceptable, and there’s no guarantee that a team would agree to pay $5-10 million in rent in the first place … well, all that can be worked out if a team decides to move to L.A. and needs a temporary home and decides to negotiate a short-term lease with Pasadena. All the city has done at this point is metaphorically hung out a “Have stadium, will rent to NFL for food” sign — which was instantly metaphorically defaced by local residents. And a Happy Thanksgiving was had by all…

Owner announces Panthers not moving to L.A., setting off “Are Panthers moving to L.A.?” headlines

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It’s been almost two months since the Carolina Panthers hinted at wanting public subsidies to upgrade their privately built stadium, so you know what that means it’s time for: anonymously sourced rumors that the team is going to move to Los Angeles!

High-powered California political officials have been courting Carolina owner Jerry Richardson in the hopes of bringing the Panthers to Los Angeles with no luck to date, said one source familiar with the discussions.

Richardson has been polite and steadfast that he is committed to Charlotte and is not moving the Panthers.

The only scenario in which he would listen would be if Charlotte balked at helping him with some of the stadium renovations the Panthers have been seeking, the source said.

Richardson doubled down on the non-threat threat on Sunday, saying, “It has always been my desire that the Carolinas would be the home of our Panthers,” which, you know.

As the L.A. Times’ Sam Farmer notes, this is common practice for sports team owners:

This is a telegraphed pass. The way for teams to fire a shot over the bow of their home cities is to bring up L.A. – or have it brought up for them. It’s no accident that in his statement Richardson doesn’t completely rule out the possibility of leaving. He leaves that door unlocked, by simply saying that it’s his desire to stay.

Last week, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis expressed his willingness to consider putting tax money into Panthers stadium upgrades, and local officials are already arguing about whether only Charlotte taxpayers should be taxed to pay for it, or whether those in surrounding counties should be, too. In other words, all is proceeding right according to schedule. I’d set the over/under for Roger Goodell to fly into town and give his boilerplate “If you want to keep your team, you’d better provide some stadium money” speech at, oh, April 2014?

AEG buys off Los Angeles stadium opponents, lawsuit withdrawn

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That lawsuit against AEG’s proposed downtown Los Angeles NFL stadium didn’t last long, as the Play Fair at Farmers Field coalition has agreed to drop its environmental suit against the project in exchange for $15 million in donations to a low-income housing trust fund.

With legal challenges now extinguished, AEG president Tim Leiweke declared, “We could literally push dirt tomorrow.” Except for the part where the NFL still won’t approve the plan, and AEG is up for sale and no one knows what the new owner will do. Maybe he meant pushing something else.

NFL zeroing in on Dodger Stadium site?

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Just when you thought things couldn’t get any screwier in the NFL-to-Los Angeles rumor wars, CBS Sports’ Jason La Canfora reports that owners at the league meetings don’t like either of the two proposed sites, and would rather see a stadium at Chavez Ravine:

Several league sources expressed doubt that the would-be buyers of AEG — the entertainment giant is for sale and could fetch upwards of $10 billion — would be willing to pour massive amounts of money into the downtown project, as the current deal for prospective funding required AEG to do. A change of ownership at AEG could also lead to a more viable agreement at that site, some inside the effort to build in Los Angeles suggested, though there remain significant issues regarding parking and infrastructure in this area.

Areas around Dodger Stadium, where parking and space is abundant, are highly desirable to the league, sources said, and discussions in that regard are ongoing. This site has not received the national attention of others, but is very logical, particularly if the Dodgers were to move downtown. I asked commissioner Roger Goodell about the area around Dodger Stadium during his post-meeting press conference, and he called it “a terrific site” and seemed enthused about the possibility. One highly-connected source maintained that Dodger Stadium has been and still is “the preferred choice” of all the current options.

That’s pretty thin sourcing to base a story on, but it’s an indication of some interest, anyway. Recall that there were rumors a little over a year ago about the Dodgers moving to AEG’s downtown L.A. site and the NFL building atop Dodger Stadium; that never went anywhere, and now that the Dodgers are pursuing imminent renovation plans, isn’t all that likely to soon. Building an NFL stadium in the Chavez Ravine parking lot, though, could work — though you’d still be stuck with the same problem of who would pay for it. Things were so much easier in the days when building a stadium was as easy as hopping in a helicopter, pointing at some land, and saying, “Give me that.”

Whoever had “Los Angeles Angels to Industry” in the next-team-move-rumors pool just won big

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Anybody at all, tell me you saw this coming:

Angels officials have had preliminary talks about moving the Major League Baseball franchise from Anaheim to Industry, according to a source with close ties to Industry City Hall…

While officials at Majestic Realty Co. are still working hard to bring a National Football League team to Industry, they are open to building a baseball stadium instead, according to the source.

This is still just off-the-record talk of the existence of talks, so file it under deep rumor for now. (Sports economist Robert Baade tells the L.A. Daily News that it should be viewed as a “negotiating chip” in talks with Anaheim about Angel Stadium, which was renovated way back in omigod, 1998.) And also keep in mind that Angels owner Arte Moreno was spotted earlier this year kicking the tires on a stadium in downtown L.A. And that neither set of talks has advanced as far as how to pay for the damn things, which is what’s held up plans for NFL stadiums on those two sites.

If nothing else, though, it’s a sign that the Industry folks are considering a Plan B to go along with their stalled Plan A. Add it the current turmoil over AEG and what it means for the future of its L.A. stadium plan, and you might want to shut the engines on the NFL moving vans: Whatever eventually happens in L.A. around stadiums, it looks like it’s going to be a while yet.

Anschutz puts AEG up for sale, throwing L.A. stadium plans into even more uncertainty

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Reuters dropped a fairly major bombshell last night, reporting that Philip Anschutz is considering selling his Anschutz Entertainment Group for a price of “several billion dollars,” a report later confirmed by Anschutz’s own execs. That’s the AEG that owns the Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Galaxy, the Houston Dynamo, a chunk of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Staples Center, and the nation’s second-largest concert promoter — and which, not incidentally, is currently trying to build a football stadium in downtown L.A. So, a slightly big deal.

Everyone concerned has rushed to insist that even if Anschutz is selling off his sports and entertainment business, nothing will change for the L.A. stadium plan: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said, “I have the commitment from both [Anschutz and AEG president Tim Leiweke] that this sale will not affect plans for an NFL team to return to Los Angeles in the near future and will not affect my support for moving ahead with Farmers Field and the Convention Center site.” And Leiweke released a statement that said in part that AEG’s “virtuous circle” of entertainment businesses “uniquely positions us to execute new, world-class projects that no other company can imagine or attempt.”

It’s certainly possible that this won’t affect the stadium plans, especially if Leiweke remains at the helm of AEG: If you read the New Yorker’s long profile on Anschutz’ empire earlier this year, you’ll recall that the whole downtown sports/entertainment zone concept is Leiweke’s puppy, and Anschutz is just signing the checks. L.A. Times sportswriter T.J. Simers actually takes this so far as to speculate that if biotech billionaire (and Lakers minority owner) Patrick Soon-Shiong is a potential buyer as rumored, he’ll immediately move to buy the San Diego Chargers and relocate them to a new downtown L.A. stadium.

Speculation aside, though, anything could happen in a sale, and there’s no guarantee Leiweke will remain in place, or if he does that he’ll still have a boss who’s willing to sign blank checks for his construction projects. This is a major, major wild card, not just for L.A.’s NFL hopes but for the arena world in general, where AEG is one of two concert superpowers (along with LiveNation). The landscape is about to shift, and it’s anyone’s guess where it’ll end up.