Rams’ L.A. move approved by NFL for 2016; Chargers could join them
By a vote of 30-2, NFL teams approved the long-anticipated move of the St. Louis Rams franchise to Los Angeles, a city that has been vacant by the league for more than 20 years, for the 2016 season.
The franchise and league confirmed the move Tuesday night.
Team owners met in Houston on Tuesday and approved Stan Kroenke’s plan to move the Rams franchise to Inglewood, Calif., into a proposed $1.9 billion stadium. The Rams moved from Los Angeles following the 1994 season but now are moving back.
The San Diego Chargers soon could eventually join them. They have one year to negotiate a deal to move into a shared stadium. If the Chargers passed on the chance, the Oakland Raiders would have the next crack to share the stadium with the Rams.
The Rams — and the Chargers, if they come to a deal — will pay a relocation fee of a whopping $550 million.
The cash-poor (by NFL standards) Raiders are on the outside looking in for now, which is not surprising. But they won’t be left empty-handed, and neither will the Chargers if they stay put.
The meetings featured a day’s worth of presentations and negotiations, but ultimately the tandem of the Chargers and Raiders were denied their bid to enter into a shared stadium in Carson, Calif. Chargers owner Dean Spanos, after it became clear he didn’t have the support in his team’s co-bid, started to negotiate a deal with Kroenke. Spanos said at a news conference after the vote that he will take “some time” to look at his options.
The Rams and any other team that joins them will play temporarily at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum while the new stadium is built. It’s unclear if the old stadium, built in 1921, is capable of holding two NFL teams for multiple seasons, and the league has looked into alternate temporary homes.
The Inglewood site will be built on the grounds of the the old Hollywood Park racetrack, and based on the proposed specs will be the biggest in the NFL — bigger than even AT&T Stadium, Jerry Jones’ monstrous field in Dallas — at nearly a 300-acre complex. The Inglewood stadium is shovel-ready reportedly and is projected to open for the 2019 season. Its eventual cost could creep toward $3 billion.
St. Louis now has no NFL team for the first time in two decades, and San Diego might not be far behind. The Chargers have been in San Diego since 1961, moving from Los Angeles a year after the franchise’s founding. The Raiders have pinged back and forth from L.A. but have been in the Bay Area since 1994.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
