Is L.A. getting an NFL team? (Los Angeles, San Diego: construction, tax)

[BRinSM]

don't forget about buffalo and and st. louis as well. also, if you want some really good insight into the NFL situation in LA, Bill Simmons (a columnist for ESPN) has an awesome podcast available on espn.com that goes into detail on everything. it is 45 minutes long though, but well worth it if you want the NFL back in LA.

[basketballakev]

I really hope the Raiders don't come, if you know what I mean.

[pbergen]

Originally Posted by BRinSM

don't forget about buffalo and and st. louis as well. also, if you want some really good insight into the NFL situation in LA, Bill Simmons (a columnist for ESPN) has an awesome podcast available on espn.com that goes into detail on everything. it is 45 minutes long though, but well worth it if you want the NFL back in LA.

for those interested, here's the bill simmons podcast that BRinSM is referring to:

ESPN Radio - SuperStream Player

it's a really enlightening piece that covers many different angles of the nfl situation in LA that i'd never really considered.

btw, you can skip the first 13:30 of the podcast, in which simmons and casey wasserman kind of just schmooze about non-nfl topics for a while.

[RobE]

What do you think of the possibility that the Jaguars would move to L.A.? They are a small market team and the economy in Florida has only made things worse financially for the team. Is a move by that club viable?

[pbergen]

Originally Posted by RobE

What do you think of the possibility that the Jaguars would move to L.A.? They are a small market team and the economy in Florida has only made things worse financially for the team. Is a move by that club viable?

i think there's a very real possibility that the jags would be the team to relocate to LA. the team has had well-documented problems selling out home games, due in part to the fact that jacksonville municipal stadium is simply too large to sell out on a consistent basis for a market of that size that doesn't have the tradition of teams like the packers or steelers. it's fine for college crowds, since college tickets are much cheaper (and sometimes even given away to people associated with the university), not to mention college football is so ingrained in the culture of that part of the country. but for the nfl, the jags' owners have had to place a tarp over some of the upper deck seats so that the team's home games wouldn't get blacked out on local tv. even worse, it's a longstanding problem, not a recent trend.

and it seems like the team's attendance issues are only getting more pronounced. just this past weekend, their stadium was about half full, which is pretty shocking for such an early season game in the most popular pro sports league.

another factor is that jacksonville is one of the smallest markets in the league, which normally wouldn't be as big of a deal in the nfl due to the league's revenue sharing model - just look at green bay. but with the jags' lagging attendance, it's something that surely has to alarm the rest of the league's owners; they have to be wondering whether it's worth staying in such a mercurial market with limited disposable income when a market with as much money and population as LA remains unoccupied.

it's hard to say for sure, but if i were a betting man, i'd list the jags as the most likely relocation candidate to LA, followed by the chargers, rams, raiders (only if/when al davis passes on), vikings, and bills (although they're more likely to relocate to toronto if they were to leave buffalo).

[Charles]

Originally Posted by pbergen

the team has had well-documented problems selling out home games, due in part to the fact that jacksonville municipal stadium is simply too large to sell out on a consistent basis for a market of that size that doesn't have the tradition of teams like the packers or steelers.
it's a longstanding problem, not a recent trend.

and it seems like the team's attendance issues are only getting more pronounced. just this past weekend, their stadium was about half full, which is pretty shocking for such an early season game in the most popular pro sports league.


but with the jags' lagging attendance, it's something that surely has to alarm the rest of the league's owners; they have to be wondering whether it's worth staying in such a mercurial market with limited disposable income when a market with as much money and population as LA remains unoccupied.

Take out "jacksonville" and "jags" and this is almost the exact relationship Los Angeles had with the Rams through the 1980s at the "mammoth" Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. And this is during the 1970s when the Rams were the regular NFC west champions and consistently favored to get the the NFC Championship games (which they seemed to always lose to either Minnesota or Dallas by bizarre scores of something like 16 to 11 or 5 to 0)

Is there any reason we have to think a team (especially an expansion team or a relocated team for which there isn't any existing fan loyalty) in a 70K, 80K or larger sized stadium in the Los Angeles area will sell out within 72 hours of game time? And this done consistently?

The Rams never (at least I never remember it ever happening) did it in the Coliseum in 40 years, the Raiders did it maybe a couple times (I remember one time - and the other time I was at the game); in fact I don't think the Rams sold out Anaheim Stadium too many times early enough to lift the TV blackout (and I was probably at those games too).


http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-...lackout-lifted


It was tough to be an LA Rams fan in the 1970s:

1973 Los Angeles Rams 12-2-0 Lost NFC Divisional Playoffs
1974 Los Angeles Rams 10-4-0 Lost NFC Championship Game
1975 Los Angeles Rams 12-2-0 Lost NFC Championship Game
1976 Los Angeles Rams 10-3-1 Lost NFC Championship Game
1977 Los Angeles Rams 10-4-0 Lost NFC Divisional Playoffs
1978 Los Angeles Rams 12-4-0 Lost NFC Championship Game
1979 Los Angeles Rams 9-7-0 Lost Super Bowl XIV

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFC_West

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by RobE

What do you think of the possibility that the Jaguars would move to L.A.? They are a small market team and the economy in Florida has only made things worse financially for the team. Is a move by that club viable?

Reading the NFL website a few months ago, that sounds like a possibility. It appears they will be moving somewhere. It is above my wildest imagination that the second largest city in our country does not have a pro football team..

Nita

[pbergen]

Originally Posted by Charles

Take out "jacksonville" and "jags" and this is almost the exact relationship Los Angeles had with the Rams through the 1980s at the "mammoth" Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. And this is during the 1970s when the Rams were the regular NFC west champions and consistently favored to get the the NFC Championship games (which they seemed to always lose to either Minnesota or Dallas by bizarre scores of something like 16 to 11 or 5 to 0)

Is there any reason we have to think a team (especially an expansion team or a relocated team for which there isn't any existing fan loyalty) in a 70K, 80K or larger sized stadium in the Los Angeles area will sell out within 72 hours of game time? And this done consistently?

The Rams never (at least I never remember it ever happening) did it in the Coliseum in 40 years, the Raiders did it maybe a couple times (I remember one time - and the other time I was at the game); in fact I don't think the Rams sold out Anaheim Stadium too many times early enough to lift the TV blackout (and I was probably at those games too).


http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-...lackout-lifted


It was tough to be an LA Rams fan in the 1970s:

1973 Los Angeles Rams 12-2-0 Lost NFC Divisional Playoffs
1974 Los Angeles Rams 10-4-0 Lost NFC Championship Game
1975 Los Angeles Rams 12-2-0 Lost NFC Championship Game
1976 Los Angeles Rams 10-3-1 Lost NFC Championship Game
1977 Los Angeles Rams 10-4-0 Lost NFC Divisional Playoffs
1978 Los Angeles Rams 12-4-0 Lost NFC Championship Game
1979 Los Angeles Rams 9-7-0 Lost Super Bowl XIV

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFC_West

good point, and i know you grew up in LA and continue to follow the local sports scene, but one thing to keep in mind is that neither the rams nor the raiders ever played in a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium during their time in the city/region. if a new stadium with all of the bells and whistles were to be constructed - even out in the city of industry - i'd fully expect that every seat in the house would be sold out in advance and have a long waiting list just like the more popular teams in the league. and the more i talk to local LA sports fans, the more i believe that it wouldn't matter whether the new team lacked a local tradition/history, although it couldn't hurt if the team(s) were the rams, raiders, or both.

a number of those LA natives/die-hard local sports fans whom i've talked to have mentioned how the coliseum's lousy condition and location in a rough neighborhood were major impediments to attendance for both the rams and the raiders. and as you know, even when the rams moved down to anaheim, they played in a stadium that was clumsily converted into a multipurpose facility with poor sightlines for football games. throw in the fact that the raiders arrived in LA shortly after the rams moved down to OC and promptly won a super bowl in their second season in town, and that pretty much fractured the rams' fan base - especially younger folks like my peers who were little kids in LA during the '80s. and i'm not even going to mention what georgia f. did to the team in its final years in LA, which of course you know all too well.

then there's the point that the nfl, while increasingly popular in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, wasn't nearly the juggernaut at that time that it is today. attendance was much lower in general, with far fewer sellouts across the board, even in markets that are considered longtime nfl hotbeds.

for example, before giants stadium was completed in 1976, the giants had rarely sold out yankee stadium, which meant that games were routinely blacked out locally (i wasn't born yet, but it's common knowledge among nyc-area sports fans). this was in the days before satellite tv, so it wasn't uncommon for nyc-area giants fans to actually drive up into connecticut, beyond the boundaries of the nyc tv market, just so they could watch giants games on tv. some groups even rented rooms in cheap motels in CT (bringing along their own food and beer) just to watch the game!

like the coliseum, yankee stadium was a historic but crumbling facility prior to its mid-70s renovation and was located in a rough urban neighborhood. the giants were longtime losers (they hadn't been to the playoffs since 1963) and football was (and still is) less popular in the region than baseball. and like cities across the nation, nyc was experiencing massive white flight to the suburbs. the bronx in particular was in brutal shape, and many fans didn't want to drive there from the suburbs due to the horrible nyc roads/highways as well as the threat of getting carjacked.

but once the giants moved into a new, state-of-the-art facility in a safe area with more navigable highways and ample parking, they immediately sold out all of their games and quickly developed a long waiting list. i'm betting that the same thing would happen in LA, even taking into account that LA isn't nearly as voracious about pro sports as the northeastern and midwestern cities are.

the LA natives i've talked to have said the same thing over and over: put an nfl team in a top-notch new stadium for the first time in LA's pro sports history, and the team would have no problems selling out. the older football fans would come, the industry types and/or poseurs would buy all the luxury suites, and the younger generation of fans (i.e. born in the mid-80s or later) who didn't really grow up with a local team would get wrapped up into it because of all the hype. i mean, it's LA, so anything like this that gets marketed properly and talked up in the local media is going to be a big deal.

for proof, look at the clippers' home attendance since they moved into the staples center. the clippers are longtime losers and have always been way down near the bottom of the LA sports ladder, yet once they moved into a nice facility, things improved dramatically. they still don't sell out every game like the lakers do, but the attendance situation is markedly improved compared to when they played at the sports arena.

also, a new nfl team would only have 8 home games (unlike 41 for basketball/hockey and 81 for baseball), so there would be more demand for fewer seats as compared with the other sports leagues.

a final point, which was brought up in the espn podcast linked in my earlier post, is that LA is an extremely attractive site for super bowls (arguably the best, along with miami and new orleans). currently, the super bowl must be played in a city/metro that houses an nfl team. because of that rule, the LA area hasn't hosted a super bowl since the early '90s.

but with a brand new facility, the LA area could once again become the site for the super bowl. and considering how much money is to be made during super bowl week, especially when it's held in a fun party city with nice weather like LA, the owners could opt to play the game in LA every few years. in that espn podcast, casey wasserman claims that a new stadium in LA could be profitable simply by hosting the super bowl once every 3 or 4 years, even if it didn't have a full-time nfl team as a tenant; that's how much money the event pulls in.

compare that with a city like jacksonville, which actually hosted the super bowl a few years back, but was considered a dud by the league and fans alike. apparently, the nfl told jacksonville's city leaders that the super bowl will not be returning to that city due to the subpar experience.

so it's in the league's best interest to have a team in LA. it hasn't happened due to a combination of LA politics and an inability to gain taxpayer subsidies, but if the private financing and land is in place (as is apparently the case with ed roski), then maybe it'll finally happen this time around.

definitely check out the podcast linked above when you get a chance: it's a great listen, and makes me optimistic that in spite of the obstacles, a team will be coming to LA sooner rather than later.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by pbergen

the coliseum's lousy condition and location in a rough neighborhood were major impediments to attendance for both the rams and the raiders.



some groups even rented rooms in cheap motels in CT (bringing along their own food and beer) just to watch the game!

Yeah, that's true. The Coliseum area is pretty nasty. On top of that, it really isn't that great of a place to watch football. It's too big. I think the field was lowered and seats were added closer in but still the bowl shape is too shallow and fans up high are a long way from the action.


The hotel thing sounds like something "Mr. Cheap" Charles would do.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Charles

Yeah, that's true. The Coliseum area is pretty nasty. On top of that, it really isn't that great of a place to watch football. It's too big. I think the field was lowered and seats were added closer in but still the bowl shape is too shallow and fans up high are a long way from the action.


The hotel thing sounds like something "Mr. Cheap" Charles would do.

And we used to watch baseball in the Coliseum. You don't think that was fun?

Nita