It’s become a three-way race to see who ends up as the NFL’s Los Angeles franchise. Actually, there are probably two spots open, seeing as how the league would like to see two (but not three!) teams taking advantage of L.A.’s massive market. The Rams have long eyed a move out of St. Louis, and the Raiders and Chargers — both of whom are in negotiations with their current cities to secure stadium deals — have proposed moving into the same L.A. digs in lieu of taking money from the taxpayers of Oakland and San Diego.
It’s a weird, nebulous situation, because even though the NFL claims they have final say over whether a team can move cities, that’s really not the case, and all three ownership groups likely know how much more valuable their franchises can be in L.A. On the other hand, three teams in one city is overkill, and stupid, and would leave three former NFL cities without a team, which sucks.
There is an alternative, however. Rams owner Stan Kroenke seems intent on moving from St. Louis despite whatever the city can come up with. But that doesn’t mean another team couldn’t take advantage of that situation. As floated by ESPN’s John Clayton (emphasis ours):
The way it looks now, I would say it would be the Chargers and Rams moving to the Los Angeles area. That could put the Raiders in a position to possibly move to St. Louis. The pressure is on the cities of San Diego and Oakland to come up with stadium plans to keep their teams. The city you worry about is St. Louis. What if St. Louis comes up with a good stadium plan and the Rams still move to Inglewood, California? Rams owner Stan Kroenke doesn’t appear to be listening to the St. Louis plans. He wants the Los Angeles move to happen.
For whatever reason (dollar signs?), Kroenke seems to be beyond staying in St. Louis. So the Rams will become the L.A. Rams, again. And the Chargers could become the L.A. Chargers. And then the Raiders could become the St. Louis Raiders. Got it?
The bottom line here, as always, is money. If St. Louis doesn’t give Kroenke enough money, the Rams are gone. If the Raiders can get more money from St. Louis than from Oakland, they’ll be gone. Fans in St. Louis will have to adopt the Black Hole, because what else will they have? There don’t seem to be many winners here except the owners, who will get richer.
And then we’ll all keep watching football anyway, because it’s football.
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