Field of Schemes
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May 05, 2011

McCourt sale to spur Dodger Stadium demolition, NFL land flip-flop?

This is so far into rumor-land that I don't even know what to do with it, but here it is, courtesy of Yahoo! NFL writer Jason Cole:

Out of all the places in L.A. available to build an NFL-quality stadium (the Los Angeles Coliseum site is out of the running with USC in charge of it), the Dodger Stadium site in Chavez Ravine is the one most coveted by the NFL. That's not new information, but the critical obstacle the past eight years has been [Dodgers owner Frank] McCourt, who the NFL has been leery of working with for the financial reasons Major League Baseball is now addressing...
There are some who see even bigger ideas with the Dodgers potentially in play. The idea of moving the team from Chavez Ravine to the downtown site where Anschutz Entertainment Group president Tim Leiweke has been proposing a football stadium has been met with some interest among people inside baseball and the L.A. sports scene...
If someone with extremely deep pockets (such as Anschutz) could buy the Dodgers, build a football stadium next to Dodger Stadium and then buy a football team, the marketing possibilities could be endless. ... Or, there's this idea: Anschutz, who NFL people think just wants another professional team to help build the traffic and convention business downtown, could buy the Dodgers and basically flip the stadiums. He could use the convention center space for a state-of-the-art baseball stadium, tear down Dodger Stadium and build a football paradise in Chavez Ravine. Of course, the cost would be problematic, but the idea for someone like Anschutz isn't farfetched because it would build the value of the downtown area.

That's all a heck of a lot of hand-waving speculation, and Cole provides exactly bupkis in terms of numbers making the case that this would cost out. (Or quotes from any named sources, for that matter.) Still, McCourt has explored the idea of an NFL stadium at Chavez Ravine in the past, so it's not entirely crazy. Unless you consider anything to do with McCourt as inherently crazy, which probably isn't a bad assumption.

COMMENTS

Why in the name of all that is holy would they tear down Dodger Stadium?

Posted by Dan on May 5, 2011 11:44 AM

That's a terrible idea. I'd hate to see Dodger Stadium go away because of a stupid football team.

Posted by Mark on May 7, 2011 02:25 PM

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