One of the saddest commentaries on U.S. sports is that the city of Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest television market, doesn’t have a franchise in the NFL.
Abandoned by both the Rams and the Raiders in 1994, the city of Los Angeles and the NFL have been going in circles ever since.
Every week, it seems, a report appears about a new stadium proposal; the L.A. Coliseum will be renovated, Chavez Ravine is an option, or Anaheim is in the running. The NFL will fly executives to Los Angeles to scout out sites, announce that none meet their criteria and the game begins again.
Two pro sports franchises leaving town the same year should have caused an uproar. When Cleveland lost the Browns to Baltimore, owner Art Modell was vilified and received death threats.
When the Raiders and Rams departed in 1994, Los Angelinos yawned before going surfing. To add insult to injury, there was recent news of Canadian Football League officials talking about the possibility of an NFL team moving to Canada.
CANADA?!
While the NFL has no current plans for expansion, several existing teams are believed to be potential candidates for relocation, including the Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars and New Orleans Saints.
Of those franchises, the Bills seem most likely to move in the short-term; given that 89-year-old owner Ralph Wilson has publicly declared the team will be sold to the highest bidder after his death.
The Buffalo market will be too small to generate the revenue needed to offset an NFL franchise purchased for current value. While the NFL insists putting a team in Los Angeles is its top priority, why are we talking about Canada?
What team wouldn’t want to relocate to Los Angeles? L.A. offers plenty of advantages; the region is home to a number of Fortune 500 companies, the population of Los Angeles County alone tops 10 million, and the weather is generally good year-round.
In my opinion, there are two primary reasons L.A. doesn't have an NFL team. First, the taxpayers are being asked to pay for a multi-million dollar stadium. Why should the people of any city be forced to pay for stadiums when the people of the city will receive no benefit from the team's presence?
Let's see, we pay for the stadiums, then they charge us anywhere between $100-$200 bucks a seat. So the owners get a free stadium, then get to charge outrageous amounts of money so the people who paid for the stadium can watch games in the stadium they paid for? Uhhh…I don’t think so!
Second, I think the NFL has been using Los Angeles as a bargaining chip to help other franchises get new stadium deals. In the event a franchise isn’t satisfied with their current stadium lease, and what team is, the owner(s) can say, “Well, I’ll just have to look elsewhere if I can’t get a new stadium.” And where is the first place they’ll look? Yep. L.A.
The stories will continue to be posted, but the bottom line is this: Los Angeles is as close to landing an NFL team as Paris Hilton is to having a clean driving record.
18 comments Last one added 5 months ago — Leave a Comment
Anonymous about 1 year ago
Buffalo's market stretches from Albany, NY to Northern Pennsylvania to Southern Ontario. That's one huge market to go without an NFL presence. Top it off, the Bills are the only team to play in the state of NY.
If the NFL wants a team in LA - put an expansion team there!
If you think people Cleveland were pissed - the NFL has no idea what a folks from Buffalo, the Governor and Senators from New York will do to prevent any such move.
The Bills are Buffalo - and the team is bigger than WNY. Point to any team that has over 450 Bills Backers Bars and Clubs in just about every major city in the World. No other team can say the same except for maybe the Stealers and the NFL knows it!
Besides, little do you know but the future of the Bills is secure in WNY. The deal is already done!
Go Buffalo!
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Andrew Schiff about 1 year ago
In Albany, most people root for the Giants, actually. They also root for the Yankees in baseball.
I lived in Albany for five years.
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Matt Kilby about 1 year ago
Well USC and UCLA attract nearly 200,000 people from the Los Angeles area on most Saturdays so that may have something to do with it. Oh and San Diego has a team. That is about 45 minutes from Los Angeles if I can remember the drive correctly.
Also, you had seven questions in this article. Just a little repetitive.
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Joe Willett about 1 year ago
California has 2 NFL Teams, 3 major NCAA Football Teams, 3 MLB Teams, 1 NHL team, and a NASCAR race track, I think that Los Angeles, which has a MLB team and NHL team, will survive with all of the revenue coming in around it.
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Mateo F about 1 year ago
Um... Wow, Joe. California actually has THREE NFL teams, FOUR major NCAA football teams (not including Fresno St), FIVE MLB teams, and THREE NHL teams...
But it also contains approximately one eighth of the U.S. population, and L.A. (which is what we're talking about) is the 2nd largest media market in the country. There is no question that the fans would support a team; until the last few years of the Rams' tenure, they supported two. The problem is that citizens in the area, if we can paint with a broad brush, are both progressive and transient, meaning there is far less likelihood of them supporting a taxpayer-financed, but ultimately private, stadium (to which MoonDog alluded).
The fans in St. Louis gave The Wicked Witch of the Midwest exactly what she wanted. They built her a stadium, and she charged them for seat licenses before a ticket was even sold. The way she treated the fans and stole the franchise they'd loved for half a century should've been a huge black eye for the league, but it happened with the full support and approval of the NFL, who then went on to award an expansion team to Houston when Bob McNair put in a higher bid. It's no shock, then, that folks in L.A. aren't clamoring for another team, and given how successful the NFL has been, it's no shock that the league isn't overly concerned with giving them one.
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Joe Willett about 1 year ago
But he does mention revenue, and i think that L.A and California both have sufficient revenue to support themselves.
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Andrew Schiff about 1 year ago
It's too bad the Rams left but LA, that was the true LA football team.
It isn't about he size of the town regarding football. It would be simply devastating to Buffalo if the Bills left, by the way.
If that were the case, then GB wouldn't have the Packers. GB is probably smaller than Buffalo and becasue of revenue sharing, small ciites are able to hold on to an NFL team.
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Andrew Schiff about 1 year ago
It's not just that they are publicly held, the revenue sharing has also allowed teams from small markets to compete with the big boys. Otherwise, the Giants would have won 20 NFL/Superbowl championships. That's why the Steelers have remained a viable team, where the Pirates have not.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
LA doesn't have an NFL team because no one gave a fuck when they did. They couldn't support a team. They don't want to. USC & UCLA are more important. And most people in LA like the current television set up (seeing the best games) than the old days of just watching the Rams & Raiders. It's not like when the Browns left and Cleveland was devastated. Does LA really care? No.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
The Bills market is absolutely huge, I don't think that it's appropriate to just say why are you moving to Canada, when the Greater Toronto Area is about as big in size as LA, doesn't already have a huge amount of fans who are fans of other teams (SF, Oakland, Chargers) and can also pull in basically an entire country into the NFL. Put a team in Toronto, and you get all of Canada pulled into the NFL. Also, it could help set up the CFL to have much tighter relations with the NFL, and could turn it almost into a football form of the NBDL.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
I'm a native Angeleno who was 15 years old when the Raiders and Rams packed up and left town. The Rams had actually left LA a long time before and played in Anaheim, and the Raiders have always been Oakland's team. The big reason there is no NFL in LA today is because of the political wrangling over the Coliseum. The Coliseum is a designated historic location that the City of LA has attempted to funnel every potential NFL deal into. The NFL has declared the Coliseum unfit for a modern NFL franchise, yet the Coliseum people remain rigid. The Coliseum people used their political clout to shelf other competing proposals -- AEG's downtown stadium and Peter O'Malley's Chavez Ravine location next to Dodger Stadium come to mind.
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Dave Metrick about 1 year ago
As a former LA resident, here's why LA shouldn't and probably won't get an NFL team.
A.) As a previous posted, market size doesn't matter in the NFL.
B.) As you mentioned, why would the NFL want to lose it's baragaining chip when they can use it to make sure stadiums get built in other markets?
C.) Most of LA's population are tansplantsof transplants. They cheer for their hometown team, especially when it comes to the NFL. Their home games would be an embarrassment because most of the fans would be cheering for the road team.
D.) The last time they were in the running (when Houston got the Texans) they city, state and local investors did a horrible job organizing themselves and coming up with a viable stadium solution. No reason to think they'd do better next time around.
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Dave Metrick about 1 year ago
Not sure why that posted twice. I guess it means I really meant it.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
Well, it's a 2-hour drive, without traffic. Unless you know a shortcut?
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
The CFL has actually invited the NFL to bring a franchise to Toronto and want to be active partners in the process. The CFL is not doing great financially (I think only the Argonauts can guarantee a sellout) and hopes having an NFL franchise would give a boost to football all around in Canada.
Whether it is smart business practice, remains to be seen. I doubt the NFL will bother though.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
For the first commenter: Gimme a break. Southern Ontario is basically just down the street; PA isn't far away, and Albany roots for the Giants, with the occasional Patriots fan thrown in.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
I never thought that the Bills would be the team moving to LA. That would be a travesty.
I had always thought that the Jacksonville Jaguars were the more likely team.
I may be nuts but before the NFL went to Jacksonville I'ld never heard of the place.
Not only that but Florida already has the Buc's and the Dolphins, not to mention FSU, Miami U, and the Gators for Florida's football needs.
Plus since the Jaguars are a good team they may be able to quickly generate a large fan base in the city of angels. they've won 9 or more games in 3 of the past 4 seasons.
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Gerhardt Schtetmuhnhauser 5 months ago
Toronto can and will support an NFL team. The CFL is a different game, but still, football in Canada hinges on a CFL franchise in Toronto to be economically viable. We in Toronto don't want to take the Bills away from Buffalo, in fact we don't want to upset any american market. We'd be happy with an expansion team, strat from scratch like we did with the Raptors and Blue Jays. If the NFL expands, they usually need to do so in pairs. One fro Los Angeles and one for Toronto.
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