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L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 11:41 pm
by LittleOzzy
The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved a $1.2 billion plan to build a downtown football stadium, moving the No. 2 U.S. city closer than it's been in years to having a professional football team.
Council members voted unanimously in favor of the Anschutz Entertainment Group's proposal to erect the 72,000-seat stadium in the city's downtown core, to be christened "Farmers Field". AEG, controlled by billionaire Phil Anschutz, is up for sale but an agreement with the city will require its new owners to take up the stadium project.
Hundreds of football fans in the yellow-and-blue jerseys of the Rams football team, ushers from sports arena Staples Center sporting "Farmers Field" T-shirts, and even carpenters' union members turned up at Friday's vote, jamming the meeting room and spilling into the hallways outside. NBA Hall of Famer and local celebrity Kareem Abdul-Jabbar arrived to raucous applause.
AEG executives say they plan to lure a National Football League team to anchor the envisioned stadium. The St. Louis Rams and Oakland Raiders are among teams expected to be contacted.
The city has been without professional football since 1994, when ironically the Rams, then playing in nearby Anaheim, as well as the Raiders, both left. Business and labor groups had spoken in favor of a plan that could create from 20,000 to 30,000 jobs and generate business downtown, while critics had protested about traffic congestion and costs to the city.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/28/la ... ll-stadium
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2012 6:39 pm
by LakerFanMan
Good to hear, it will be nice to have an NFL franchise in LA.
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Sun Oct 7, 2012 3:10 pm
by Mr. E
While I like the idea of LA returning to the NFL scene I absolutely hate the idea of the fans of another team losing their football team due to relocation. It was a brutal thing to go through.
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Mon Oct 8, 2012 2:52 am
by DaveMeyers
Mr. E wrote:While I like the idea of LA returning to the NFL scene I absolutely hate the idea of the fans of another team losing their football team due to relocation. It was a brutal thing to go through.
What teams do you think could be potentially relocated?
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Tue Oct 9, 2012 5:29 am
by TSE
DaveMeyers wrote:Mr. E wrote:While I like the idea of LA returning to the NFL scene I absolutely hate the idea of the fans of another team losing their football team due to relocation. It was a brutal thing to go through.
What teams do you think could be potentially relocated?
I wouldn't mind Jacksonville or Tampa Bay. Both aren't historically significant or very good, plus Florida has too many teams. Buffalo is not a big enough city for the NFL and they suck, so they could be in the mix. Cleveland is garbage, so they deserve to be plucked. I'm from Detroit so maybe I shouldn't suggest that as a fair reason! If not those teams maybe Tennessee for also sucking and not being historically significant, or maybe the Saints for cleaning up the team and penalizing the city for their negative drama, but I can't stand by that since I'm not privy to the evidence and only willing to investigate further before possibly annihilating them. In which case I would then support the city's lawsuit against the owner.
More importantly I wonder if they will do anything really cool or fabulous with the huge stadium investment, or is this going to be a colossal expenditure for another cookie-cutter stadium? If that's the case then I say screw LA and go tell them to suck an egg if they don't have the right ideas for building an awesome team, so their plans for everything all the way down to logo and uniform design need to be investigated first. Oh and I almost forgot Oakland since California has too many teams and they have sucked way too long like some of the other mentioned perennial losers.
So perhaps in no particular order:
TB
JAX
BUF
CLE
TEN
OAK
I think all 6 should move to new towns personally. I'd like to send one of them to China even and rather see more international exposure than letting these 6 towns continue to run teams in a disrespectful way. And when these 6 get killed, then we can analyze which other towns no longer deserve teams after that. What's fair is fair, but this should be a high level game for professionals, and I don't tolerate anything less. These teams and towns clearly don't make the grade and should get lost. Detroit shouldn't feel safe for the next round if they don't get their act together, but they are also a much more storied franchise and important cog in the nation plus they have CJ for a little extra leeway since he is so special and should count as a trump card.
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Tue Oct 9, 2012 8:19 pm
by trwi7
Yeah, send a team to China. For a self proclaimed genius, you sure are stupid.
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Tue Oct 9, 2012 9:51 pm
by TSE
trwi7 wrote:Yeah, send a team to China. For a self proclaimed genius, you sure are stupid.
The NFL has been tinkering with the idea of opening the market in China long before I made this post. It's a business decision for the NFL to make potentially a lot more money, it's not my idea. Besides I'm not actually suggesting moving a team immediately to China, that wouldn't even make sense, especially considering LA is already halfway set up now. It's somewhat a facetious comment that should be obvious, yet with serious overtones about the future of the game as it becomes more international which is inevitable. The NFL is more interested in making money than growing their sport in accordance with what trwi7 thinks is stupid or not.
I disagree that I'm stupid, and think that your comment is the only thing stupid on this page that has my name near it. But then again you didn't really offer any reasoning to back up your opinion in order to be taken too seriously.
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 4:57 pm
by sunshinekids99
I think the Jags make the most sense. If the Bills are going to move I would expect to be Toronto and not LA.
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 1:34 am
by JaxMagic
Just curious as to why the Jags make the most sense, be sure to use facts and figures to back up your claim. Go!
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 1:45 am
by TSE
JaxMagic wrote:Just curious as to why the Jags make the most sense, be sure to use facts and figures to back up your claim. Go!
Well for me, I had 6 teams listed, 4 of which are long storied franchises, of which TEN and JAX are the 2 newest teams. I like to give some more benefit of the doubt to those with history just for one side reason. JAX also came into the league more recently with no baggage or veteran liabilities and had the great privilege of building their team from scratch how they see fit, and they blew it. They haven't won any conference titles and have had less appearances in the playoffs than TEN and haven't gone as deep into the playoffs. There is no excuse for their .500 record so far and they just aren't capitalizing on their opportunity or showing much potential. Florida already has a ton of teams and this team should have done something by special by now if they feel like they should have the right to stick around.
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 5:20 am
by LAKESHOW
CHARGERS
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 1:10 pm
by Icness
JaxMagic wrote:Just curious as to why the Jags make the most sense, be sure to use facts and figures to back up your claim. Go!
New owner bought in high, has no chance to recoup his investment in that city. He paid $200M over what the estimated value was. He did not do that to stick in Jacksonville with the tarp covering all those seats and ranking no higher than 30th in merchandise at any time in the last 8 years. I happen to think they're headed to London though, by 2015, and they move to the AFC East with Miami going to the AFC South.
San Diego is the most likely candidate for LA.
Re: L.A. OKs $1.2 billion football stadium
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 6:10 pm
by TSE
A team in London by 2015 would be awesome, I can't wait for this game to go international.