Albert Breer article on possible team moves to LA

[BillnutinHouston]

I believe this is just the lastest in a long line of outsiders looking in and trying to speculate, but here it is FWIW:

 

NFL.com article

 

Buffalo Bills

 

Owner Ralph Wilson, who is in his 90s, has said the team will not be moved while he's still living. The club's succession plan is to put the team in a trust and sell to the highest bidder. Still, the club is negotiating a new lease and renovation plan, and its regionalization efforts have been largely successful. Thirty-two percent of the club's tickets sales have come from Rochester, an hour away, and Southern Ontario, and the league is interested in continuing to cultivate the Toronto market.

 

Down the line, could a new deep-pocketed owner swoop in, and whisk the team away? It's not impossible. But chances are, that won't happen any time soon.

[RyanC883]

Good to see some positive news on that front. I don't see the team moving. It would kill the new interest the team is getting from Southern Ontario. The Regionalization has worked, and there really is no reason a team can't be successful here.

[drinkTHEkoolaid]

It's an objective analysis and slightly reassuring, its not doom and gloom

[ganesh]

It's an objective analysis and slightly reassuring, its not doom and gloom

 

Due to the ownership situation, the Bills will always be in the LA conversation.

 

The Bills, Jags, Rams and Raiders have question marks about long term ownership and hence LaLa land will always be enchanting to the new buyer...Who will not, when they look at the opportunity in LA vs Buffalo. Until one of these teams actually move to LA, the rumors will never go away.

[Dragonborn10]

Due to the ownership situation, the Bills will always be in the LA conversation.

 

The Bills, Jags, Rams and Raiders have question marks about long term ownership and hence LaLa land will always be enchanting to the new buyer...Who will not, when they look at the opportunity in LA vs Buffalo. Until one of these teams actually move to LA, the rumors will never go away.

Well said. It is interesting though that TV ratings are huge in LA because they get to put on the best game all the time. If the LA team is awful TV ratings might fall dramatically. I'm sure this won't stop a team from eventually ending up there but I never even thought of the TV angle in that way.

 

Unfortunately the Jags lease looks quite favorable for the city. Our best hope is expansion(very very unlikely to happen), a local ownership group and RW's family's willingness to sell to them, and the Rams moving back to LA. St. Louis is a baseball town with a declining population.

[Shoutbox]

To me, the answer is very simple: it's going to be the Raiders and Chargers sharing one privately funded stadium in L.A. within the next 5 years.

[Wayne Cubed]

To me, the answer is very simple: it's going to be the Raiders and Chargers sharing one privately funded stadium in L.A. within the next 5 years.

I agree with half of that statement.

 

I think San Diego ends up going to LA. The city of San Diego has absolutely no plans to give the Chargers a new stadium. The Chargers could move to LA without losing a lot of their fan base, being that San Diego and Los Angeles are only 120 miles apart(think a little less than Buffalo to Syracuse, roughly). Returning the Chargers to the former home, I think happens.

[Shoutbox]

I agree with half of that statement.

 

I think San Diego ends up going to LA. The city of San Diego has absolutely no plans to give the Chargers a new stadium. The Chargers could move to LA without losing a lot of their fan base, being that San Diego and Los Angeles are only 120 miles apart(think a little less than Buffalo to Syracuse, roughly). Returning the Chargers to the former home, I think happens.

 

You don't think the Raiders will join them? They would stand to make FAR more money sharing a stadium in L.A. than the one with the 49ers. Plus they already have a solid fan base in L.A.

[Wayne Cubed]

You don't think the Raiders will join them? They would stand to make FAR more money sharing a stadium in L.A. than the one with the 49ers. Plus they already have a solid fan base in L.A.

Maybe. I agree their fan base in LA is big, I just don't see Davis Jr. moving the team anytime soon.

[CSBill]

Due to the ownership situation, the Bills will always be in the LA conversation.

 

The Bills, Jags, Rams and Raiders have question marks about long term ownership and hence LaLa land will always be enchanting to the new buyer...Who will not, when they look at the opportunity in LA vs Buffalo. Until one of these teams actually move to LA, the rumors will never go away.

 

exactly

[Insomniac99]

One of the largest Metro areas in the world, and they've lost 3 NFL teams already. Yet they're threatening a team in a small market that has kept its team for the entire 40+ years it's been in the NFL. The only city here I see as undeserving of a team is LA.

[BRAWNDO]

I agree with half of that statement.

 

I think San Diego ends up going to LA. The city of San Diego has absolutely no plans to give the Chargers a new stadium. The Chargers could move to LA without losing a lot of their fan base, being that San Diego and Los Angeles are only 120 miles apart(think a little less than Buffalo to Syracuse, roughly). Returning the Chargers to the former home, I think happens.

This

 

Due to the ownership situation, the Bills will always be in the LA conversation.

 

The Bills, Jags, Rams and Raiders have question marks about long term ownership and hence LaLa land will always be enchanting to the new buyer...Who will not, when they look at the opportunity in LA vs Buffalo. Until one of these teams actually move to LA, the rumors will never go away.

 

Peter King mentioned these four teams as well, but he did not see any of them moving

[OCinBuffalo]

Why would the NFL ever move a team to LA? Seriously, think for a sec. LA is the ultimate threat, as we have just seen with Minnesota. You take away LA, and it becomes very difficult to get stadiums built, revenue shared, and pretty much everything else that Goddell wants to accomplish.

 

The best way I heard it: "IF they ever do build an NFL stadium in LA, it should be called Stalking Horse Stadium" And don't tell me about San Antonio, as though they can fill the LA stalking horse role. There's no way in hell Jerry Jones allows that. He had to go along with the Texans, because there was a precedent with the Oilers. But 3 Texas NFL teams? No.

 

LA's NFL TV ratings are already off the chart...so it's not like the NFL loses much by continuing this situation. They get all of the revenue with practically 0 cost.

 

It's been 17 years without a team in LA...and somehow, the world has stayed on it's axis. What this comes down to is: LA residents and worshipers don't like the fact that their "LA is the best" theme, and/or LA is just as good a sports town as NYC/Dallas/Chicago...or even...Pittsburgh theme...are eternally challenged by having no NFL team.

 

There are well-founded reasons why LA has no team, and that is largely due to the fact that LA is an inferior sports town, as they have proven, over and over. They are a bandwagon town. You can't invest the kind of money it would require to do NFL in LA, deal with the poor political attitude and poor politicians, plus buy a team, move it, and then have an empty stadium/blackouts. Even one year of that and it's over. That's the long-term view that anyone with business sense has. Short term, it may work, but if an LA team misses the playoffs for 2 years in a row, given the propensity for the image-conscious to run things there, associating oneself with a loser....is very bad for the image.

 

Plus, all you have to do is look at the Dodgers situation with the fans/police/stadium, and the mayor they have elected who routinely fails, yet keeps being supported, and the propensity for the entire state to support FAIL, to know that if there is any sort of NFL team in that area....it will be the Los Angeles Stalking Horses of Anaheim, not the LA Stalking Horses at best. The minute the economy is less that perfect, or trans-gender...its?...don't get their own bathroom in the stadium, it will be Stalking Horses' fault because...well, it's LA, so (insert irrational, non-economic or business based reason here).

 

As I said last time: The over/under on the LA NFL team being sued for not providing alternative forms of entertainment, like a venue for this type of art(NSFW), for those who consider football too violent, but "should not be excluded from enjoying the game experience, just because they don't like football" is what? 3 weeks? Yeah, it's funny....because it's true.

Edited May 14, 2012 by OCinBuffalo

[yungmack]

Why would the NFL ever move a team to LA? Seriously, think for a sec. LA is the ultimate threat, as we have just seen with Minnesota. You take away LA, and it becomes very difficult to get stadiums built, revenue shared, and pretty much everything else that Goddell wants to accomplish.

 

The best way I heard it: "IF they ever do build an NFL stadium in LA, it should be called Stalking Horse Stadium" And don't tell me about San Antonio, as though they can fill the LA stalking horse role. There's no way in hell Jerry Jones allows that. He had to go along with the Texans, because there was a precedent with the Oilers. But 3 Texas NFL teams? No.

 

LA's NFL TV ratings are already off the chart...so it's not like the NFL loses much by continuing this situation. They get all of the revenue with practically 0 cost.

 

It's been 17 years without a team in LA...and somehow, the world has stayed on it's axis. What this comes down to is: LA residents and worshipers don't like the fact that their "LA is the best" theme, and/or LA is just as good a sports town as NYC/Dallas/Chicago...or even...Pittsburgh theme...are eternally challenged by having no NFL team.

 

There are well-founded reasons why LA has no team, and that is largely due to the fact that LA is an inferior sports town, as they have proven, over and over. They are a bandwagon town. You can't invest the kind of money it would require to do NFL in LA, deal with the poor political attitude and poor politicians, plus buy a team, move it, and then have an empty stadium/blackouts. Even one year of that and it's over. That's the long-term view that anyone with business sense has. Short term, it may work, but if an LA team misses the playoffs for 2 years in a row, given the propensity for the image-conscious to run things there, associating oneself with a loser....is very bad for the image.

 

Plus, all you have to do is look at the Dodgers situation with the fans/police/stadium, and the mayor they have elected who routinely fails, yet keeps being supported, and the propensity for the entire state to support FAIL, to know that if there is any sort of NFL team in that area....it will be the Los Angeles Stalking Horses of Anaheim, not the LA Stalking Horses at best. The minute the economy is less that perfect, or trans-gender...its?...don't get their own bathroom in the stadium, it will be Stalking Horses' fault because...well, it's LA, so (insert irrational, non-economic or business based reason here).

 

As I said last time: The over/under on the LA NFL team being sued for not providing alternative forms of entertainment, like a venue for this type of art(NSFW), for those who consider football too violent, but "should not be excluded from enjoying the game experience, just because they don't like football" is what? 3 weeks? Yeah, it's funny....because it's true.

Hardly a whiff of truth in this entire statement. Through good years and bad, the LA Rams were one of the top box office draws in the league. Same for the Dodgers. Same with the Lakers. The reason the Rams moved had little or nothing to do with fan support and everything to do with the typical NFL scam of wringing governmental (aka, local taxpayer) money out of the yokels who somehow came to believe that having an NFL franchise made their city instantly an elite one. LA, then Anaheim, refused to go along with the strong-arming while St. Louis couldn't wait to hand Georgia Frontiere bushels of money. Now that those conditions are changing in St. Louis, Rams ownership is looking longingly westward yet again (The Rams were originally a Cleveland team).

 

As to the Raiders, the fall off in attendance had more to do with the sort of crowd they attracted than anything else. Gameday at the Colisseum came to look more like the Yard at San Quentin than a football game. Bloods, Crips, 18th Street, bikers, they were all there and all about as close to out of control as you can imagine. BTW, the Raiders still have a huge fan base in LA, and not all of them have teardrop tattoos.

 

The Dodgers, who haven't been to a World Series since 1988, continued to draw three plus million a year until last year, when the fans finally had enough of the greed of Frank McCourt and the increasingly Latin-ized, crude and dangerous crowds who were making up a goodly part of that 3 million attendance.

 

My personal take on the NFL in LA is that most of the people I know are fine with things the way they are. No blackouts, no huge traffic jams on Sundays, no tax money going to billionaires. Besides, an awful lot of people here are from somewhere else, including enormous numbers from Taiwan, China, Korea, Iran, Armenia, Thailand, Russia, India, Israel and every Latin country in the western hemisphere. What they have in common is little to no interest in American football. As to the Americans, loads of us come from other parts of the US and tend to still support our old "home" teams. That leaves a fairly small base of natives, many of whom still carry the torch for the Rams and the Raiders. As far as I can tell, the only people enthusiastically supporting NFL teams in LA are the sport reporters, the land developers and the construction unions. The rest of us could care less.

[cody]

The club's succession plan is to put the team in a trust and sell to the highest bidder.

 

When did they announce that plan?

The only credible indications have been that Wilson's surviving family will be unable/unwilling to pay the estate taxes necessary for them to obtain possession of the team.

 

In 2010, John Wawrow said "From what I've heard in the background, and seen happening - without saying anything definitively, because I can't, because no one's actually told me anything - I have a better feeling that this team might be here longer, beyond Ralph Wilson, for a long time,"

 

This vague statement is the most credible report of what may happen when Mr. Wilson no longer owns the Bills. Very few people know the plan. The people who do know are not talking. People close to 'the people who know' do not seem as worried about a Bills move as they were 10 years ago.

Edited May 14, 2012 by cody

[PromoTheRobot]

Of all the pro sports teams in L.A. only 2 didn't move from somewhere else: the NHL Kings and MLS Galaxy.

 

PTR

[yungmack]

Of all the pro sports teams in L.A. only 2 didn't move from somewhere else: the NHL Kings and MLS Galaxy.

 

PTR

And that's true about the majority of people who live here too. BTW, the Chargers (named for the Hilton Hotel charge card) and the Angels were also "born" here. And wouldn't the world be a less happy place without another LA creation, Roller Derby?

[dwight in philly]

When did they announce that plan?

The only credible indications have been that Wilson's surviving family will be unable/unwilling to pay the estate taxes necessary for them to obtain possession of the team.

 

In 2010, John Wawrow said "From what I've heard in the background, and seen happening - without saying anything definitively, because I can't, because no one's actually told me anything - I have a better feeling that this team might be here longer, beyond Ralph Wilson, for a long time,"

 

This vague statement is the most credible report of what may happen when Mr. Wilson no longer owns the Bills. Very few people know the plan. The people who do know are not talking. People close to 'the people who know' do not seem as worried about a Bills move as they were 10 years ago.

i said on a similar thread over the weekend that hopefully there may be a succession plan in place, but, why the silence? why not announce it? is it because they want as much as leverage as possible in the lease negotiations?

[Canks]

I see the BIlls splitting their home games between Toronto, LA, and probably Buffalo.

[Fan in San Diego]

I agree with half of that statement.

 

I think San Diego ends up going to LA. The city of San Diego has absolutely no plans to give the Chargers a new stadium. The Chargers could move to LA without losing a lot of their fan base, being that San Diego and Los Angeles are only 120 miles apart(think a little less than Buffalo to Syracuse, roughly). Returning the Chargers to the former home, I think happens.

 

I havn't heard any news about this topic lately but they were trying to build a new stadium down by Petco park. It makes sense the city has a bus maintenance depot they would vacate for the stadium. They can share the parking structures from Petco. This plan seemed to be gaining speed, have you heard differently?