UNITED STATES—There has long been a push for Los Angeles to have its own football team. Owners held a meeting this past spring to discuss the possibilities of an LA move. According to the NFL Network, several NFL owners will hold a meeting on August 11 in Chicago to discuss further details of officially moving a team to the city.
The three teams considering the move are the Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, and St. Louis Rams. Also discussed at the meeting will be the relocation window, between January 1 and February 15, during which teams have the opportunity to declare their desire to move.
San Diego this week has issued a report from its stadium task force, while Oakland has lost time and hasn’t made any progress. Rams owner Stan Kroenke, ahead of the Raiders/Chargers project since March, has begun transactions to initiate construction of a stadium at the former Hollywood Park racetrack site in Inglewood, while the Raiders and Chargers are still working out the details of planning a joint stadium in Carson.
NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported June 4 that a major focus of the conference will be league reports on market surveys. The NFL believes that a conference between the May and October owners’ meetings is necessary, given that they are potentially moving to the second-largest U.S. market. The Raiders and Chargers, according to Rapoport, are hiring former 49ers executive Carmen Policy to help with marketing if the stadium deals with their local markets fall flat.
FOXSports.com states that the meeting will not make any final decisions about team relocation, but that the owners are expected to move up the timeframe for the teams to apply to relocate. Final decisions will not be made until their October meeting in New York.
