Is LA In The NFL’s Future?

Los Angeles has lost two NFL teams and been without a franchise of its own since 1995 when the Rams and the Raiders both left. Chat with L.A. residents and you’ll be hard-pressed to find an overwhelming number who want one team, much less two.

But the NFL is bent on a return to L.A. Bent out of shape, it seems. It won’t expand to accommodate the nation’s second-largest market, so it must allow franchises to move. Three are contenders for the right to be the two latest L.A. failures – the Rams, the Raiders and the San Diego Chargers. Whoever goes leaves behind angry fans who will feel betrayed.

The Rams exited Anaheim for St. Louis. Now their owner wants to build a stadium in the L.A. burbs for two teams. The Raiders left Oakland for L.A., and then L.A. for Oakland. Don’t they ever learn? The Chargers, as an American Football League team, were born in L.A. but moved down the I-5 to find success.

There’s no new stadium on the horizon in St. Louis or Oakland or San Diego, and the latter two have creaky, old and unsuitable venues. That’s not to say the local taxpayers or the state should pay for the stadium, but it’s difficult for the franchise to thrive when the revenue generated may be so much less than its competitors’.

The league met Wednesday outside of Dallas to discuss the three-into-two scenarios. It still needs proposals from the three clubs by Dec. 28 and then 24 of the 32 clubs must vote, maybe at a meeting in mid-January. If each owner of a franchise that wants to move has nine friends, this could be a perpetual logjam.

“It’s hard to see one of the proposals as getting 24 votes,” Colts owner Jim Irsay told reporters on Wednesday, adding: “I don’t think we’re extremely close right now.”

Twenty years after the Rams and Raiders left L.A., and after 20 years of study, stadium plans and argument, the NFL is still not “extremely close” to putting two teams in an area where two teams failed and most fans don’t want one.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .