NFL VP for stadium extortion Eric Grubman hasn’t read the whole Citizens Stadium Advisory Group proposal for a San Diego Chargers stadium yet — it’s 42 pages! and there’s good stuff on TV on Tuesdays! — but he knows what he doesn’t like about it:
“I don’t think they made a specific proposal that includes all the key elements of how they get entitled and so forth and so on. So first of all, I haven’t dug into it. And second of all, I don’t know what the timing of that proposal could be.”
What Grubman seems to be saying is “Nice $647 million in land and cash you’re offering, but hurry up and tell us that you can get it all done by next January, or else we could let the team move to Carson, you know.” Not that the NFL would necessarily do that, but threatening to do that they would totally do.
And speaking of Carson, the Chargers and Oakland Raiders owners and the city’s joint powers authority closed on buying the land for a proposed stadium there yesterday, for an undisclosed sum, setting off a round of “Omigod they’re really building a stadium in Carson!” Which this doesn’t necessarily indicate — the city of Carson gets most of the land, and would keep it for some other development if the stadium doesn’t happen — but it does indicate the teams are serious enough to spend a few million dollars in hopes of advancing the three-city stadium game of chicken a bit further.
Hi Neil,
Regarding Eric Grubman’s statement:
“I don’t think they made a specific proposal that includes all the key elements of how they get entitled and so forth and so on. So first of all, I haven’t dug into it. And second of all, I don’t know what the timing of that proposal could be.”
What does he mean by ‘how they get entitled’?
He means entitling the 75 acres which, once sold, CSAG projects would generate $225 million. This seems more of a red herring than anything – city could do the rezoning by council vote. Would take an EIR but unclear it would be a huge lift….and the city would have huge incentives to get that done and not blow a hole in budget.
Bigger question is O&M and how the CSAG plan will need to be juggled to cover that so the city/County are not out several million more a year to operate and maintain the facility. I would GUESS we end up with the Rent going toward O&M and then the naming rights/advertising being rethought to help cover that gap in the financing costs.
The city already spends 15 million a year on the Q. So I guess they don’t need to count it as new money. Entitlements are zoning approvals and other mitigation approvals such as tax exemptions, environmental approvals and infrastructure upgrade approvals.
The Raiders are screwed in Carson for the simple reason they need the Chargers to make it happen.
Have you seen San Diego’s new proposal? 240M of public money (120M city/120M county). Unlike Oakland, San Diego County and San Diego City have massive surplus in the general funds to contribute to this.
Chargers owner Dean Spanos has stated he will not leave San Diego if a stadium can be had. After reading the documentation the only grey area is a land sale the NFL is not sure about as a funding mechanism.
Once that is solved, since it is not a huge piece of the overall project the stadium will get built in San Diego.
What will the Raiders do then? Carson will die immediately without 2 teams propping it up. Will Mark Davis call Stan Kroenke and share with him in Inglewood?
The irony, the NFL wanted a shared Rams/Raiders stadium in Inglewood in 1995 but Al Davis refused to do it….To have his son end up there would be very ironic 20 years later.
If I am Kroenke, I tell the Raiders no, I can do it myself and reap being the first team back in LA and get the lion’s share of suite/PSL sales and the fan base for 5-10 years.
In which case where do the Raiders go??
They screwed up royally not building with the 49ers in Santa Clara, now Davis wants to share with the Chargers? Who are in his division and sharing would force re-alignment? Stupidity in every sense of the word.
Davis will rot in Oakland for years to come, and he has no one to blame but himself for not opening his eyes and seeing the 49ers did not need him. He thought they would fail in Santa Clara and come groveling to him and Oakland….he was dead wrong.
How much in relocation fees will the NFL slap on Mark Davis? $500M?? And exactly how is his broke ass going to afford that??? If he had that kind of bankroll, he’d have his new stadia he keeps dreaming of in Oakland.
No one in the NFL owned media will touch this subject. It gets in the way of the extortion plans.