http://www.ocregister.com/articles/stadium-649818-grubman-louis.html
Multiple NFL teams expressing interest in a move to L.A.
Jan. 30, 2015
Updated Jan. 31, 2015 1:07 p.m.
BY SCOTT M. REID / STAFF WRITER
PHOENIX – NFL executive vice president Eric Grubman has been a regular at Hollywood Park in recent years.
Grubman hasn’t been playing the ponies but rather scouting for a different type of bet, gauging whether the site of the soon to be demolished horse track is the place for the NFL to re-stake its claim in the nation’s second-largest market.
"I’ve looked at the Hollywood site very carefully," Grubman said. "Yes, I’ve made a number of visits to Hollywood Park unannounced. I don’t think anyone knew I was there except a cabby who didn’t know who I was."
Grubman and league officials aren’t alone in the NFL in taking a hard look at Hollywood Park and the Los Angeles-Orange County market.
Multiple NFL teams in addition to the St. Louis Rams continue to express to league officials and owners interest in relocating to Los Angeles, Grubman, the NFL’s point man on the Los Angeles issue, said Friday.
Grubman also confirmed that Rams owner Stan Kroenke informed the league and its owners of his plans to build a stadium at Hollywood Park long before briefing owners in more detail during a December league meeting.
"All of the owners of clubs that are interested in relocation, whether it’s the Los Angeles market or anything else, specific guidance was given to the Los Angeles market," Grubman said. "Anyone who has serious interest in that and was going to take steps to sort of prove up or advance their chances had a requirement to keep the league informed and to my knowledge multiple clubs have kept us informed, including the Rams."
While Grubman declined to name the other franchises that have expressed an interest in relocating, the Raiders and Chargers, each with stadium issues in their current markets, are the most likely candidates. Raiders owner Mark Davis joined forces with an investment firm and entertainment company last September in an attempt to raise $200 million to purchase the Hollywood Park site, according to documents circulated with Los Angeles financial and investment firms.
Yet while NFL officials continue to talk to franchises about their interest in moving to Southern California, both Grubman and commissioner Roger Goodell emphasized that the league’s top priority is keeping teams in their current cities if those franchises can remain financially healthy in those markets.
"My concern is to do everything possible to satisfy the league’s obligations to keep a team healthy in its market," Grubman said. "And it’s much easier to keep the team you have than to get a team you don’t have, and St. Louis has the Rams so we’re in there working pretty hard with them to see if we can put a deal together that makes sense."
But whether the Rams remain in St. Louis or relocate to Inglewood, Grubman said the league is determined to have the uncertainty surrounding the stadium issues in St. Louis and other NFL markets as well as Los Angeles resolved by the next Super Bowl.
"I hope not," Grubman said when asked if he expected to be having the same conversations a year from now. "I think it’s possible, but the reason I said so quickly with a smile on my face is that whether or not we relocate this year is a different question to whether or not we’re going to stand still for a year. We should be in a very different place a year from now and talking about whatever those dynamics are. Things are not going to stand still. I just don’t know how it’s going to unfold."
Yet both Grubman and Goodell hinted that time might be running out for San Diego to hold onto the Chargers.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced Friday that he has appointed a nine-member task force to find a location to build a new stadium for the Chargers. The group, Faulconer said, will develop a "real, tangible plan for a new stadium" to be put to San Diego voters in 2016. Faulconer’s announcement is the latest in a series of moves by San Diego officials over more than a decade to find a replacement for Qualcomm Stadium, the Chargers’ home since 1967.
While San Diego city officials announced the formation of a task force to look at the Chargers’ stadium situation, Goodell in particular seemed to be running out of patience.
"(Chargers owner) Dean (Spanos) and his family have worked for 10 to 12 years trying to get a new stadium," Goodell said during a news conference Friday. "They do need a new stadium for the Chargers to be successful there long-term. It’s one of the oldest stadiums in the league, if not the oldest. And we need that for the fans also. It’s important to the franchise so they remain competitive but it’s also important to the fans because fans expect those amenities now. So it’s something we’ll continue to work.
"I’m glad to hear (the mayor has a) task force going but they’ve been working at this for 12 years. And it’s something we need to see tangible results sooner rather than later."
Grubman, however, dismissed a belief expressed by some Chargers officials that the franchise has a claim to the Los Angeles-Orange County market. A quarter of the Chargers’ season ticket base comes from Los Angeles and Orange counties and the Inland Empire. Some NFL officials and owners believe Spanos has enough votes among his fellow owners to block the Rams or any other team moving into Southern California.
"No," Grubman said when asked if the Chargers have a claim to the Los Angeles-Orange County market. "There’s no claim to my knowledge. In fact the league litigated that. All of the owners have expressed a very clear point of view in multiple league meetings that that’s a league asset, and if any club or clubs can occupy it’s going to be subject a vote."
Speculation about the possibility of two teams relocating to Los Angeles was further flamed by a Hollywood Park Land Company announcement earlier this month that they plan to build a $2 billion, 80,000-seat stadium in Inglewood that would be ready for the 2018 NFL season. The stadium would be built on 60 acres between Hollywood Park and the Forum owned by Kroenke. The Kroenke Group is one of the HPLD partners.
Rams officials also informed the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission this week that they will convert their lease for the Edward Jones Domes to a year-by-year agreement, enabling the team to relocate after the 2015 season if Kroenke is able to secure approval from three-quarters of the league’s 32 owners.
A task force appointed by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon also revealed this month plans for a nearly $1 billion, 64,000-seat downtown St. Louis stadium.
The St. Louis plan calls for between $460-535 million of the new stadium’s cost to come from extending current bonds on the Edward Jones Dome and tax credits. Between $400-450 million would be paid by the NFL and the Rams, with the remaining $130 million coming from seat licenses.
"There’s no line in the sand but you sort of see the logical steps being put together with the looking at Los Angeles and there were many sites, but you couldn’t put together a deal that made sense financially," Grubman said. "We got a longterm labor deal done. We got longterm broadcast contracts that de-risk some of the broadcast aspects and some additional sites have either changed hands or otherwise gotten themselves into the position where they could be viable. So the next catalyst is: Does something fall into the control of either the league or one of its member clubs? If that happens, then somebody’s making progress and it increases the likelihood that something can happen. That’s really as far as I can go without speculating and something has happened that’s different and control of a piece of real estate has come into the hands of somebody inside the NFL family."
Goodell and Grubman, however, said they believe St. Louis is still a viable NFL market with a new stadium.
"We want all our franchises to stay in their current markets," Goodell said. "That’s a shared responsibility. That’s something we all have to work together on. The league has programs. including stadium funding programs that we’ve made available. And we will work and have worked with communities including St. Louis. We also will make sure that we’re engaging the business community, the public sector, in a way that can help us lead to solutions and make sure it works for the community as well as the team."
Grubman has been actively involved in discussions with St. Louis and Missouri officials about their plans for a new stadium. "I think St. Louis has demonstrated over a long period of years, decades that it’s a wonderful sports market and a terrific business market. From a regional standpoint there’s a lot of American culture there that’s very, very strong. So they still have to put all the pieces together as they did 20 years ago.
"They still have to put those pieces together and they know that. But they don’t have to do it all. They have a role, the leadership has a role, the fans have a role, the business community has a role, the league has a role, the team has a role. Everybody’s got to carry their load and that’s what is being looked at. And it’s not easy to do and I think the only unfortunate thing is how long it took before the serious efforts started to come together."
Grubman said there’s no reason to formally measure whether a team has satisfied what’s required to be allowed to move, or whether a city has done what it needs to to keep the team, until the team applies for relocation, which the Rams have not.
"Now we don’t have our heads in the sand, we’re looking at this, we’re analyzing it," he said. "We’re talking to the community and the leadership and we’re talking to in this case the Rams. So there shouldn’t be any surprises, but the measurement hasn’t been made, and by the way I’m not the measurement arm. The owners are the measurement arm through their votes."
The Rams were able to opt out their lease after the 2014 season because of a trigger clause in the 30-year agreement the team signed when it relocated from Anaheim in 1995. The "first tier" clause in the lease requires the dome be among the top 25 percent of NFL stadiums, a standard the venue has failed to meet.
Negotiations between the Rams and the St. Louis commission over upgrades for the dome broke down in the last year. The commission proposed $200 million in improvements and asked the Rams to pay half the bill. The Rams’ countered with a larger scale plan that included a sliding roof, a proposal that some commission and city officials said came with a $700 million price tag. The commission rejected the Rams’ plan.
But critics in St. Louis charge that in refusing to meet with the Nixon-appointed stadium task force and other Missouri and St. Louis officials, Kroenke has violated standards and guidelines set by the NFL before the league would consider approving relocation. Kroenke’s refusal to meet with local officials and the revealing of the Hollywood Park stadium plans, critics claim, are proof of the Rams owner’s attempts to undercut public support in the case of a election on funding for the proposed St. Louis stadium, enabling him to move the team to Inglewood. Kroenke, his growing number of critics in St. Louis insist, has already made up his mind to head west.
"I’m not going to speak for Stan or the Rams, the club or the owner, so you should ask him that question on whether he’s made up his mind," Grubman. "I think that’s speculative. My concern is not what people might do in the future."
"Stan has been working on the stadium issue in St. Louis for several years," Goodell said. "They’ve had a very formal process as part of their lease. That process, they went through that entire process. It did not result in a solution that either works for St. Louis or the team. So I don’t think the stadium is a surprise to anybody in any market that is having these issues. There’s been quite a bit of discussion about it and St. Louis representatives seem determined to build a stadium. That’s a positive development something we look forward to working with them."
Grubman said the Anschutz Entertainment Group’s plans for Farmers Field, a downtown stadium adjacent to Staples Center, also remains on the table. AEG last year received a six-month extension from the Los Angeles City Council last year, giving the company until March to secure a team for the stadium.
"The AEG site is viable," Grubman said. "We have not and don’t play anything out publicly, but we were aware of their desire to extend their exclusivity and we talked to them before they did extend it, and so they have the opportunity to attract a team or teams."
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sreid@ocregister.com
