National Football League owners Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a relocation plan by the St. Louis Rams to move to the Los Angeles area, which includes building a stadium in Inglewood. The approval also provides an option for the San Diego Chargers to join the Rams if they can reach a lease agreement with the Rams by January 2017.
If the Rams and Chargers can’t work something out, the Oakland Raiders, who left Los Angeles in 1995, will have the option to join the Rams. Both franchises have tried without success to strike deals with their cities to replace the oldest stadiums in the NFL.
The Rams begin play in Los Angeles in 2016, but will not move into their new Inglewood home, a $1.8 billion project on the site of the old Hollywood Park race track largely funded by Rams owner Stan Kroenke, until the 2019 season. They will play in the interim at the Los Angeles Coliseum, their former home. The franchise resided in Southern California from 1946-94 before moving to St. Louis.
A Chargers-Raiders partnership that would have put those teams in a stadium in Carson, CA., was the other proposal under consideration. It drew a modicum of early support from league owners, but ultimately failed to pass.
Had the Chargers and Raiders moved to LA, it would have forced a league realignment to make sure two AFC West teams didn’t play in the same market and in the same stadium.
Such a development could have sent the Seahawks, or another NFC West team, to the AFC West to balance it out. The Seahawks played in the AFC West from 1977-02. Now, there is no need for realignment.
The vote to relocate the Rams to where they were 21 years ago, was passed by a 30-2 margin, but needed the approval only of 24 of the league’s 32 owners.
The Rams remain in the NFC West, meaning that the Seahawks will have one less 10 a.m. kickoff time and one less road trip to the Central time zone. But there is a potential long-term downside for the Seahawks franchise.
One team in Los Angeles, and perhaps a second by 2017, could serve as a lure for coach Pete Carroll to return to Los Angeles, just as his former Trojans assistant, Steve Sarkisian, departed his head coaching gig at Washington two years ago to the take the job at USC.
Carroll, a San Francisco native, coached the Trojans from 2001-09 and won two national championships before moving to Seattle. Even while coaching the Seahawks, Carroll has never disguised his loyalty to the Trojans, nor his affection for Los Angeles.
That’s a ways off. Carroll, who has been in Seattle since 2010, has a year remaining on his contract with the Seahawks, where he works for Paul Allen, the wealthiest owner in sports. The Rams have Jeff Fisher under contract. At 64, Carroll might be working his final coaching job.
If not, one or two teams eager for a splash in the nation’s second-largest television market, where he was nicknamed in his USC days as “king of Los Angeles,” could be a dramatic way to finish up.
22 Comments
The NFL again biting the hand that feeds them. I hope Paul Allen voted against relocation. LA hasn’t even started anything for a new stadium but the NFL is moving there anyways? If only Seattle could be so fortunate.
Actually the stadium site is ready to begin construction. The infrastructure…electric, water, other piping is in and they expect to begin in two weeks on the construction of the stadium. Kroneke was going even they voted it down. That is why you see the 2019 season as the opening date. The LATimes is a great resource if you want to know more. And this is in Inglewood, not Los Angeles.
I was just in this neighborhood about two months ago. It will be a much needed shot in the arm for the neighborhood economy. And you’re right, it looks ready to go. Not sure whether that casino will stay or not but otherwise the land is wide open.
It’s very likely Allen was strong-armed into a relocation vote. Former Raiders exec Amy Trask recalled seeing Goodell and other owners “strongly suggest” to owners on the fence on an issue to change their minds (dangling primetime games and no long road trips), and then once the majority’s confirmed working on the rest to get a massive vote like this 30-2 example.
Heck, none other than Mike Holmgren experienced this. When the NBA voted against Chris Hansen getting the Kings, Holmgren mentioned to KJR’s Dave Maler a similar situation. Goodell wanted Holmgren to vote for an issue Holmgren opposed; Goodell then said to vote for it because “it’s going to go through anyway”, and we needed a strong consensus.
Nasty.
Actually Allen rallied the owners to pick the Rams to be the team for the LA market. It was for his and Seattle fans best interest. Just about 15 yrs ago Seattle had to change divisions ..why so that other teams could get their way. Now that The Seahawks are entrenched into NFC west ..why should Seattle have to change again and have 2 teams in their division be 10 am starts. Now it is a true West Coast division. A team was going to move it should be advantageous for Seattle for once.
I bet he voted for it. The Rams moved there in 1994 ..St. Louis is not even close to being in the west coast time zone. By allowing the Rams to go back to LA ..It does make things less complicated then allowing two AFC teams to move there. A team or two were going to move to LA. It should be the one that make sense for the divisions that are already in place.
30-2 was the vote, with Oakland and San Diego voting no.
The stadium property has been purchased and I understand the plans are already through permitting.
I don’t see Carroll walking out on what he has built, especially with a QB like Wilson and JS as the GM. Too perfect a situation not easily duplicated. He has more championships in him, in Seattle.
Yeah, I tend to agree. Carroll passed on a number of NFL opportunities waiting for the perfect situation. I doubt the Rams’ ownership would replicate what he was offered here. It doesn’t sound like the Rams’ owner is all that easy to deal with either.
St. Louis got screwed again! First was the NBA St. Louis Hawks, then the St. Louis Football Cardinals now the Rams bail. At least they have the NHL Blues and the Baseball Cardinals nice going Kroenke. As for Coach Carroll he’ll be smart to keep with the Hawks.
The baseball Cardinals likely usurped all of the sports karma in St. Louis. Both the football Cardinals and the Rams, Super Bowl 34 aside had rotten postseason luck; I don’t think the Cards ever had a home playoff game. The Blues are consistently good but can never quite reach the Stanley Cup. Heck, its soccer history is as rich as Seattle’s but they keep getting passed over for MLS.
Did you say this when the Rams left LA?
No due to the city needed a football team to fill in the gaps. I was wrong to think a mediocre team would fit in where the baseball team has been world champions numerous times. Plus I never understood why the owner had to move in the first place. But that’s all said and done now I’ve been a Hawks fan since 1980 however, the St. Louis Cardinals and Blues fill in for base ball and NHL hockey. GO HAWKS!!
Remember when the chaos at USC and the slow Seahawks start somehow meant he was going to bolt Seattle and return to the college ranks? I know we’re not getting a lot of sun around here right now, but maybe it’s time to start to stop spinning every bit of football news into implausible nightmare scenarios for Seattle sports.
reunite pc and reggie bush and then get to the bottom of that usc scandal that blew up just as pc was heading north.
uh, right……
When I was a kid I had a #44 Browns jersey. Dam I was proud of it. In these parts no one knew who it was. I swear I wore that thing 5 days a week, to school, the grocery store, I played football in the yard in it, out on the neiborhood street in it.wherever. Everyone would look at the kid and wonder, who the heck is that. I had them all 1-upped. For those of you wondering, it was Leroy Kelley–darn good football player. I had his football card. I had a lot of football cards, I chewed a lot of stale gum that came with them. You wonder what my point is. It carries to today. I am a purist. Most of us–probably many of you–are from that generation. We like our football outdoors in the elements, we like to see jerseys get muddy, we like to see a ball sail against the backdrop of a blue sky rather than gray construction beams, and raiders are from Oakland, and the giants are in new York, the oilers are in hhouston. When the random machinations of these owners shake our world, it causes us to think, and raises doubt. The cardinals are in Arizona, no wait, weren’t they in StLoius? No that was the rams. No the rams were in LA. No wait, the rams were in St Loius. There is no St Louis. Ah to hell with it. The movement of the teams carries a degree of randomness, and they lose meaning. Do any kids today play football in their yards, or in their streets? When our generation is gone, who will take our place? a bunch of amazon coders? yeah right. NFL owners, beware of what you ask for. It might not happen today, or next year, but some day in the future, there will be a price to pay for your machinations. Your palatial stadiums will be half empty, and you will wonder what went wrong.
Teams moved around in your time too old man. This is just of a case ..” the older I get the better it was…”. When you are young everything was better … why don’t you throw your computer and TV set away and just listen to all the games on radio like the past? Owners move for the markets and money like they did in the past. It sucks for the fans but there is still more ways to enjoy. Now do you also want to go back to the NFL when there was only 8 teams? The national TV contracts in the NFL are shared and huge. They make money despite half empty stadiums.
Exactly right. As long as we are dwelling in the past, NO franchise moves have EVER been bigger than the Dodgers and Giants moving to LA and SF in the 50’s, and why? To both open the West coast to BB but also for the money – big markets not served by MLB.
Pro sports are a business: You go where the $$$ is and St Louis “ain’t” LA.
How about some Ken Behring for you too?
So you were okay with Ken Behring backing up the moving vans up to the front door in Kirkland? if you say yes, then you’re a liar. Or maybe you weren’t alive back then son.
No …It would upset me as a fan. Just like what the NBA did. Now I don’t watch the NBA. I would of moved on from the NFL. It is entertainment. I would of moved on from the M’s too. Owners and their leagues threaten markets all the time and extort money. When it comes down to it …It is only entertainment! St Louis gladly accepted the Rams. Now they lost them. LA area tax payers expect their pro sports pay for their stadiums. See how long that lasts.