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Raiders And Chargers Propose Another SoCal Stadium That Will Never Be Built
It's another day that ends in "y," which means it's time for yet another NFL stadium proposal in Southern California that will never happen.This time the plan comes to us as the joint project of two teams that are normally bitter rivals on the field, but otherwise have the same goal: the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers. The two franchises have proposed a joint-use stadium in Carson, just across the 405 freeway from Ikea. In a joint statement to the L.A. Times on Thursday, the teams make it clear that, for now, the plan simply exists as leverage to get public money from their current cities to build new stadiums:
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.
Both teams play in two of the older stadiums in the NFL (only Chicago's Soldier Field and Green Bay's Lambeau Field are older), and have been struggling to build new stadiums for years. While moving to Carson and sharing a stadium may seem like an easily, catch-all solution to their problems, it's important to remember how many stadium plans in Los Angeles have been announced with much fanfare and never come to fruition. Remember AEG's Farmers Field in downtown? The one that's always been proposed for the City of Industry? These plans simply exist as leverage for teams that are threatening to move unless local governments pony up the money to build a new stadium. So far, that has worked out pretty well for the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons.
As much as the NFL would love to get back into the Los Angeles market, which has been without a team for 20 years at this point, it's still a league run by the owners who simply don't want to put up the money to build stadiums (reminder: the NFL makes about $10 billion a year). The joint Carson stadium plan says it will be privately financed, but even privately-financed stadiums come at the cost of tax breaks and subsidies.
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The joint-stadium plan in Carson has long been discussed as a possibility but always been vague. Less than a month ago, it was simply a rumor according to Curbed LA's roundup of the current plans on the table for an NFL stadium in L.A. According to reports, the Stan Kroenke's announcment to build a stadium in Inglewood seemed to be what pushed this Carson proposal out into the wild.
But hey, we all can dream. Especially Raiders fans in L.A., who haven't had anything good to root for in over a decade. They've turned this morning's press conference into a pep rally by showing up in droves:
Lots of Raiders fans and Teamsters at this NFL stadium press conference in Carson. An interesting combination. pic.twitter.com/ZV9whig0m8
— Ben Bergman (@thebenbergman) February 20, 2015
Raiders fans have shown up at the Carson press conference, chanting, "Bring them back!" pic.twitter.com/VPJZ4gJOH1
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) February 20, 2015
Finally, here's a pretty silly video rendering of the futuristic-looking stadium, complete with Sims-like humans tailgating in the parking lot:
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