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April 17, 2008
To LA, or not to LA; That's the NFL Question
It started as SB 1771, a bill that would implement a program teaching homeowners how to navigate through the current mortgage crisis. Then, all of the sudden, it was about the NFL in the City of Industry. It may seem tricky, but that's the game when it comes to "spot bills," or placeholders with text and intentions that may be the goal or not.
Developer Ed Roski Jr., owns 600 acres of land in Industry and wants to develop the land into the "Los Angeles Stadium." It could be completed by the 2011 NFL season and only cost $800 million. The cost is half the normal price for a project of that scope, but since the stadium will be built into a hill, less steel is used, therefore less cash, according to Roski.
But the question comes down to who gets to pay for it, even if the price is cheaper than usual. Not Roski. Well, he is offering to loan $150-million. He, the 195th richest American, according to Forbes, is the other half of the Staples Center along with partner Philip Anschutz. Roski is estimate to be worth $2.3 billion.
LA Times sports columnist Sam Farmer says Los Angeles is not even near the top of their priority list. "Moving back to L.A. isn't among the NFL's top three priorities, and I'd be surprised if it were in the top five... L.A. won't reappear on the NFL's radar screen until an owner stands up and says he can no longer get it done in his current city, and the prospects of staying are so bleak that his team can be more successful in Southern California -- even when saddled with the cost of a new stadium, an astronomical relocation fee, and heaven knows what else."
Proposals for the NFL have come and gone many times to Los Angeles. This is just the next one. But is it the final?
Photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP
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Please, no.
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We already have UCLA and that other school, why do we need the NFL? Oh, because our tax dollar could help some schmo ownership out?
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What a stupid idea. Hopefully it will be built. That way, when it fails miserably in 2015 we'll be guaranteed another 20 or 30 glorious years without a pro football team. By that time Zach will be a seasoned county supervisor and we'll have such a killer public transportation system, it won't matter where the stadium is located.
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c'mon. City of Industry? Rly?
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RFK stadium worked for years in one of the worst parts of DC. ...thanks to their awesome public transportation system.
They won't be able to justify the tax dollars for it for another 30 years anyway when they can't even pick up the trash on what they're getting now.
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It seems to me that perhaps the NFL has already "lost" LA. The comments at the end of the article about how LA is not even on a top 5 list is probably due to the fact that there has been no realistic prospect at a real stadium being built.
That being said, just because a new stadium and/or convention center is built in some craptacular neighborhood with the hopes of sprucing the area up, doesn't always work (see: Washington DC Convention Center... Scary).
I for one, hope a pro football team could at some point come to SoCal, just because it seems ridiculous that there isn't, and I'm a huge football fan. That being said, if LA could become the new hotbed for American Soccer with a stadium not in Carson, that'd be cool too.