The NFL owners are meeting in January, and there have been some reports that the league might vote on which team(s) will end up in the Los Angeles market. The St. Louis Rams, Oakland Raiders, and San Diego Chargers are the three teams vying for the opportunity, and one or two of them is expected to end up in LA sooner rather than later.
While the three teams are looking at LA, their respective current home markets have been working with the NFL to try and come up with their own solutions to retain their teams. Earlier this month, the NFL imposed a December 30 deadline for the three cities (Oakland, St. Louis, San Diego) to submit stadium proposals.
On Tuesday, the city of St. Louis submitted a plan that would include $400 million of public money, at least $250 million from the Rams, and another $300 million from the NFL. Our friends at Turf Show Times have more on that. There is no word yet, as far as I can tell, on if the city of San Diego will be submitting a plan.
And then there's Oakland. In a move that I really love, the city has told the Raiders and the NFL, they will not submit to the league/team demands for public money. The city is willing to cover upwards of $100 million in infrastructure improvements at a stadium location, but the team and league would have to pay the $1 billion and change to build the stadium.
Numerous stadiums have been built with public funding over the years, and it is a bad idea. There are much better ways to spend public funds than on a shrine to billionaire owners. The 49ers have benefited from public funding, but it is at least a little closer to what Oakland wants to do than what other cities have done. The stadium authority took out the loans, but the stadium revenues (SBLs, sponsorships, etc) are what are going to pay off the bulk of those loans. It's not the perfect option for Santa Clara, but it could have been a lot worse.
It will be interesting to see if Oakland can win out on this one. If the Raiders are unable to get something done in LA, that leaves the city of Oakland with more leverage than a lot of cities have. If it gets a deal done, great. If not, the city of Oakland can spend all that public money on things that do a better job of improving their city.