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.
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