High-ranking NFL official: Carson is credible

 

Back in December a high-ranking NFL official told the Los Angeles News Group the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers will move in 2016 to Los Angeles where they will eventually share a new stadium.

The details were sketchy, and the news was soon trumped by St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke announcing he was joining forces with the developers of the old Hollywood Park race track to build a football stadium in Inglewood.

The source reiterated to LANG soon after Kroenke’s announcement, that he stood by his information and the Raiders and Chargers will be heading to Los Angeles after the 2015 season.

Two months later, it seems things might be moving in that direction.

Or maybe the Raiders and Chargers are just trying to motivate Oakland and San Diego into helping them build new stadiums.

In any event, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday the Chargers and Raiders are developing a plan to build a $1.7 billion dollar stadium in Carson at the southwest quadrant of the intersection of the 405 Freeway and Del Amo Boulevard.

A high-ranking NFL official on Thursday told LANG that Carson is a “credible” option and that it’s “not a crazy idea.”

The two clubs are working with local Carson business and local leaders on the proposed stadium, which will be privately financed. The Chargers and Raiders are each working on one-year leases and are free to move to Los Angeles at the end of next season.

An official announcement is expected on Friday.

At this point, the Carson proposal remains the back-up plan to getting new stadiums back home. Both teams are mired in long-term stadium fights in their current markets, and with the Kroenke’s bold move to build a new home in Inglewood neither an afford to lose Los Angeles as a negotiating chip or potential landing spot should they fail to get new stadiums.

In a joint statement, the Chargers and Raiders said: We are pursuing this stadium option in Carson for one straightforward reason: If we cannot find a permanent solution in our home markets, we have no alternative but to preserve other options to guarantee the future economic viability of our franchises.”

Los Angeles has been without the NFL since the Rams and Raiders moved in 1995, but it now seems the league has exactly what it wants: Two potential new Los Angeles area stadiums backed by NFL owners, each jockeying for position, and three cities feeling the pressure to get something done locally to keep their NFL right where they are.