Wondering how exactly the negotiations between the city of Carson and the owners of the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders went before those teams’ surprise announcement of stadium plans in February on the heels of St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke declaring his interest in a stadium in nearby Inglewood? So was the Voice of San Diego, so it asked Carson city officials, and this is what it was told:
What did those negotiations consist of? Not a single email, text message, memo or anything on paper at all between the teams or the NFL and any elected official in Carson, according to city officials…
Carson is not saying that written communications between its elected officials and the Chargers, Raiders and league should be shielded from public view because they are part of real estate negotiations or other legitimate exemptions from the state’s records laws. No, they’re saying that there are literally zero electronic or paper communications between Carson’s elected officials and the NFL.
The VoSD is now suing to force the release of documents that it’s sure must exist. The entertainment value here is potentially awesome, so stay tuned.
Is the St. Louis plan alive? That plan is dead. It is no more. It is bereft of life. It has gone to meet its maker. It is a stiff. It has joined the choir invisible. It has kicked the bucket and is pushing up daisies. It has shuffled off this mortal coil. In a word, it is a non-stadium plan!
Has the Carson stadium plan leaped ahead of Inglewood? Leaped ahead !!?? That plan couldn’t leap if you strapped a jet engine to its renderings. It couldn’t leap if you blasted 10 million volts through it. The interns at Goldman Sachs have to hold it up to keep it from falling onto the floor. (Screams at the renderings: “Wake up pretty stadium; time to leap ahead.” Nothing happens.)
With room being made for Hollypark development and Inglewood stadium, it’s clear as day where the NFL is heading.
Stan Kroenke will eventually buy the Denver Broncos, sell the St. Louis Rams to local ownership group who will tie the stadium with a St. Louis MLS expansion team. At that point, San Diego most likely gets the Spanos the stadium they want and they stay. Mark Davis is either force to sell and the Raiders move into the Inglewood Stadium or he refuses and relocates to San Antonio. I don’t think the NFL to LA is a surefire lock. Inglewood officials have already said that they’re building the stadium with or without a team which is a pretty insane idea.
Inglewood officials have already said that they’re building the stadium with or without a team which is a pretty insane idea.
Kroenke is building it on his land not the city, without him there would be no stadium. STL had their chance, lost in arbitration and then spit in both the arbitrator’s and Kroenke’s face. And, btw, how are the Rams their team? They paid to get them from LA; why shouldn’t the owner move when the terms of the deal are totally flaunted and the agreed upkeep not performed?
The fact is that one or two teams ARE moving to LA. That means one or two of STL, SD or Oakland are losing a team regardless of how good an offer they make. STL is by far the smallest, poorest, slowest growing and has the fewest large corporations and wealthy individuals of that group. To say nothing of flat reneging on a signed contract that called for settlement of disagreements by arbitration.
Flaunted = showed off
Flouted = violated
I agree with that general line of thought. The Rams are practically a given at this point, and I have more faith in the Chargers getting something done over the Raiders. San Diego isn’t going to build a new stadium and moving to LA is a minimal move as it is, I believe they said 25% of their fan base is in LA as it is, and San Diego is a mere 2 hour drive. It’s SD or LA for them, I can’t see the Chargers moving out of SoCal and I don’t see them getting their own stadium in either city.
Raiders…who the hell knows with Mark Davis as their owner.
Now I really want to set up a betting line on this, and take the field for myself.
Not only Carson is a high crime area but it happens to be one of the least sophisticated cities in the LA basin. How embarrassing for such city to take such position. Now the interesting part is that NFL owner in San Diego has claimed that he never had any prior talks with Carson in 2014 for fear of alienating San Diego. So I guess we have the first case in US sports history of a stadium parthenogenesis (virgin birth); a stadium’s spontaneous birth with complete absence of paper trail. How nice!
Check this out. Chargers talking to Carson dates back to 2013. Therefore Chargers have lied when they said that Carson was a response to Kroenke’s Inglewood stadium plan. A Big Lie.
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/sports/Tough-Negotiations-on-Chargers-Stadium-Start-Tuesday-305780461.html
You’re the real deal, Neil. It rhymed.
I think Los Angeles is about to get the Rams (fo sho), and then the Raiders.
Take that Oakland.
There are so many twist and turns ahead. What everyone is seeing/hearing now is NOT gonna be what happens. Just remember, you heard it here first. It will all make sense within a year.
So if something happens that wasn’t expected, does that now mean that it was expected by Kevin D, and therefore can’t happen? Has there ever been a stadium deal that’s been overturned by a logical paradox?