Ever since the 49ers came out with their stadium info for Santa Clara, things have been rather quiet. There is an election to be held in the spring to get voter approval and hopefully get things going for a new 49ers stadium. In the meantime, the folks in SoCal have seen some interesting developments in the never-ending process to bring football back to Los Angeles.
The folks at Pro Football Talk provided some interesting links indicating a stadium might be closer to getting built in Industry down near LA (really not sure where that is exactly). The way I'm reading it, individuals filed a lawsuit claiming the stadium project in Industry would have violated state environmental laws. This past week, the California Senate approved, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign, a measure that would exempt the project from state environmental laws.
Schwarzenegger has indicated he feels this is a great opportunity to create new jobs and economic activity. In fact, LA Stadium officials have stated the project would create more than 6,700 new jobs, it would create an additional $21 million in tax revenue, and it would generate $762 million in economic activity. For the purposes of this post I won't get into the fact that I'd likely call BS on those figures. I haven't looked into in detail so I can't say for sure, but usually those figures end up incredibly inflated. Believe what they say if you want.
So how does this affect the 49ers? Well the second article linked above included this paragraph at the end:
Schwarzenegger hopes developer Majestic Realty Co., the driving company behind the project, doesn't poach any California teams to play in the proposed venue. They have indicated their plan to approach seven teams in hopes of luring one to LA. The list includes the three California teams: San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers.
The 49ers are in the midst of their own potential stadium deal so it's certainly way too early to infer anything too substantial. The 49ers probably don't end up back in play until after next year's elections. I believe the 49ers are pushing to get on a March ballot, but nothing is set in stone yet.
Wouldn't it be ironic if Governor Schwarzenegger's goal of getting a new stadium indirectly led to the poaching of another California team? The Chargers are often discussed as a potential move, and the Raiders...well I don't think I can make any more jokes about that that haven't already been made. And even if it's not a California team that moves to LA, there are several other teams that often seem to be itching for a move. Florio pointed to a few of them including the Bills, the Jaguars, the Rams and the Vikings. If it ends up being the Raiders or Rams, I'd be highly amused.