NFL Los Angeles: 5 Teams That Are Best Candidates to Relocate to LA

Perhaps one of the most brilliant moves (or vile, depending how you look at it) the NFL has ever made is leaving Los Angeles without a football team—or more specifically, leaving one large television market without a football team at all times. The open city gives each NFL franchise significant leverage when negotiating contracts and stadium rebuilds with their current city. This is essentially like dating a girl but continuing to drop casual references about emails or text messages you occasionally get, just “saying hi,” from that supermodel you used to date.

But in the last couple months, amid a sea of lockout stories, the story has surfaced that five teams have been approached by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) CEO Tim Leiweke about heading to southern California. AEG owns numerous entertainment entities around the world, including the Staples Center in LA, and is targeting September 2016 for the completion of Farmers Field, a proposed 72,000-seat stadium.

So let’s take a look at the teams most likely to head out of town and do a deal with Leiweke and company.

Oakland Raiders

It’s important to remember that the team that will ultimately move to LA is going to be one at the bottom of the barrel in terms of financial worth. Despite the endearingly irrational vehemence of Raiders fans about their chances this year, the team was listed in Forbes as being worth a mere $758 million in 2010. That’s the second lowest in the league behind Jacksonville.

Embarrassingly, in 2010, seven of the eight Raiders home games were blacked out. In other words, one Raiders home game was on local television. How that will affect negotiations on their expiring stadium deal with the (dumpy) Oakland Coliseum remains to be seen. The 49ers, because of very different fan bases, will always be the top dog in the Bay Area market financially, but also has a terrible stadium. In some ways, these two teams need one another to leverage a deal for a better place to play.

My take: Very doubtful. My sense is that AEG would want a team that they can rebrand—and the silver and black is basically unalterable; the NFL would have a hard time without (Chris Berman voice) the Raeeders. Oakland will keep their team.

Minnesota Vikings

The franchise is in a quasi-rebuild mode and faces a decade of playing two games a year against Aaron Rodgers’ Packers. The most lasting image from the 2010 season is the Metrodome’s roof collapsing—a terrible stadium whose lease expires after this season.

Minnesota already sent one legendary team to Los Angeles (Lakers), why not another? The Twins just got a spectacular new field and it’s doubtful Minnesotans will want to pony up for another stadium. AEG even owns the Target Center; in a very shrewd move, it would make sense to remove your fall and winter competition for the Wild and Timberwolves, and bring them to your new stadium. (where, I realize the same would happen with the Lakers/Clippers/Kings)

My take: Doubtful. The NFC North is too perfect a football division with teams from blue-collar Detroit, Chicago, Green Bay and Minneapolis. Plus, though the franchise is towards the bottom of the barrel in terms of valuation ($774M according to Forbes), the television market is number fifteen ahead of Denver and Miami.

Buffalo Bills

The Bills appear like one of the best candidates for a move. The team hasn’t been relevant for almost twenty years. The weather is brutal in Buffalo. The fan base is small. No player would ever “choose” to play there unless he was from upstate New York. Longtime owner Ralph Wilson is 92 and with limited mileage remaining. The stadium lease with Eerie County expires in 2012.

The problem is that the team makes money. Not Cowboys or Redskins money, not even Packers or Jets money, but in 2011 the Bills’ revenue totaled $241 million, which was ahead of the 49ers and Vikings. And more importantly, the NFL likes the Bills where they are because they attract Canadian viewership.

My take: Pretty doubtful. The move would unbalance the AFC East, a very sacred division for the NFL. If the Bills are going to move anywhere, they’re heading to Toronto.

Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jaguars not only pulled in the third lowest revenue total ($232M) behind the Raiders ($228M) and the Lions ($215M) in 2010, but they are the league’s least valuable franchise with an estimated worth of a piddly $735M. They lack a brand that anyone would care about seeing go. They have the nation’s 49th-ranked television market and still managed to black out seven of their eight home games in 2009—despite the fact they covered 10,000 seats to give the appearance of higher attendance percentages.

My take: Good candidate. The stadium lease is the one catch. They are on the books until 2030 which is a long time from now. That said, with LA’s market potential, I’m sure AEG could come up with an offer for an early break make sense for both sides.

San Diego Chargers

The Spanos family has been trying to fix the poor Chargers stadium situation for almost a decade now and don’t seem to have made any progress. Oceanside, Chula Vista and National City have all been the site of failed attempts at a rebuild. The Chargers can opt out of their lease with a significant, though not killer termination fee of around $24 million.

More importantly, if they moved to LA they wouldn't have to make new fans. The Bolts have been the only team southern California has known since the Raiders left town sixteen years ago. And for San Diego fans that don’t want to see their team move, this would be the best option possible as they’d only have the two-hour drive up the coast. Not ideal, but better than anywhere else.

My take: Best candidate. The Chargers don’t have an unassailable brand so AEG could probably obtain the NFL’s permission to tinker, should they choose. Perhaps the best part about this move, for everyone outside of San Diego, is that there wouldn’t need to be a division realignment. The AFC West still fits.

[Follow Caleb on Twitter or Bleacher Report if you want more musings. He also wrote a book called The St George's Angling Club, which you can buy on Amazon.]