Holy Cow!!! Will Hardberger Get A Hold Of This News???

[Shiner Bock Girl]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2417097 Here We Go Again!!!! LOL....

Updated: April 22, 2006, 12:31 AM ET
Tight city funds could force Chargers to find new home
Associated Press

SAN DIEGO -- Cash-strapped San Diego doesn't have the money to help the Chargers build a new stadium, mayor Jerry Sanders said Friday, opening the door for Southern California's only NFL team to leave the city it has called home for 45 years.

Sanders said he plans to ask the City Council to amend the Chargers' lease to allow the team to begin looking at sites elsewhere in San Diego County before the end of the year. If the team fails to find a new home in the county before Jan. 1, the Chargers would be free to negotiate a deal anywhere in the nation.

The Chargers can leave San Diego after the 2008 season if they pay off the approximately $60 million in bonds the city issued in 1997 to expand Qualcomm Stadium, which the city built for the team in 1967.

"I do not think it would be prudent or honest for me to say to taxpayers, 'We can't resurface our roadways, but we can finance a stadium,'" the mayor said.

San Diego is facing what the mayor called a "financial and managerial crisis," which includes a $1.4 billion city employee pension fund deficit and federal investigations into city finances.

Sanders admitted he was making a "calculated judgment" that the team would remain in the county.

"I believe the Chargers are committed to San Diego, and I want to keep them," he said. "But I think the best shot at doing that is by releasing them from the lease agreement."

The Chargers' negotiator, Mark Fabiani, said the smaller cities of Oceanside, Chula Vista and National City to the north and south of San Diego have approached the team, along with a private investor whose identity Fabiani wouldn't disclose.

"It's tough to make a deal like this in seven months, but it's enough time to get a sense of whether something can get done or not," Fabiani said. "This does give us an opportunity to really figure out whether there's anything promising out there."

The Chargers have been in San Diego since 1961, the year after they started playing in Los Angeles under the ownership of hotel magnate Barron Hilton.

Until 2004, the Chargers had a sweetheart deal with the city guaranteeing the team revenue equivalent to an attendance of 60,000 fans, a policy that cost the city more than $36 million for empty seats.

Last year, the team proposed building a $450 million stadium as part of a commercial development on the Qualcomm site but dropped the plan because it could not find developers to share the estimated $800 million upfront costs. The team offered to pay for the stadium and traffic improvements but wanted the city to give it 60 acres for development to recoup its costs.

Sanders signaled that if the team cannot find another site in San Diego County he would be willing to return to the negotiating table later in the year, perhaps to help find partners for a new stadium in the city.

San Diego County supervisor Ron Roberts said he would back efforts to keep the team in the county.

The NFL has expressed a desire to field a team in the Los Angeles area, raising the possibility that the Chargers could return to their original home. Anaheim, in Orange County, has also been mentioned as a plausible bidder.

Earlier this year, the mayor of San Antonio signaled that his city would welcome the Chargers to fill the Alamodome, where the displaced New Orleans Saints played three games last season.

"I don't know how many cities are going to be willing to put up $400 or $500 million," Sanders said. "But I take every city as a credible threat."

[T Park]

LA will get the team wayyyy before us.

Were just a smudge unfortunately....

[Full Court Pressure]

It's really too bad that the San Diego city council has ruined its relationship with the Chargers. If the Chargers move, I'd guess they'd head to L.A. The NFL would be happy with a team in L.A. and a lot of the charger faithful in S.D. could get to the games, so there'd still be a Charger market in S.D.

With L.A. out of the way, then the door opens a little wider for San Antonio on the next move, whenever that happens.

[Vashner]

Lemme call Arnold and check if it's ok to steal the team.

[Extra Stout]

If the Chargers move to L.A., that still leaves the Saints and Jags needing new homes. Portland apparently is unwilling to put forth any public money for a team. S.A. is willing to put forth a few hundred million, as demonstrated in the talks with the Marlins.

S.A. would appear to have good odds, since the alternatives would be the #2 spot in L.A., or Salt Lake City.

[dknights411]

The Chargers will most likely get a deal fron San Diego county, not San Diego city. The Chargers are NOT moving.

[Rescueone]

I heard on ESPN the other day that there's talk of two teams being added in LA. One expansion team and one relocating team. Is it San Diego, the Jags or the Saints? I would bet it's the Chargers staying in Southern Cali moving to LA. This makes too much sense. With San Antonio being left out of expansion once again, the only hope of the city getting a team is either the Jags or Saints relocating due to another natural disaster to hitting one of their respective regions. Other than that, San Antonio will lose out to big market LA in expansion. Are all the levies up in the New Orleans area? Hurricane season starts real soon!

[Full Court Pressure]

I heard on ESPN the other day that there's talk of two teams being added in LA. One expansion team and one relocating team.

If there are any plans on adding an expansion team, those are long range plans at best. The NFL has repeatedly denied any interest in expanding the league currently and for the next few years. However, this is the NFL we're talking about... who knows what they may say tomorrow.

[blaze89]

Apr 25, 2006

Villaraigosa To Make Pitch For NFL Franchise

(CBS) LOS ANGELES Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will join a team of city and county leaders to make a pitch to National Football League owners next Tuesday in hopes of bringing an NFL franchise back to Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa will join Councilman Bernard Parks, county Supervisor Yvonne Burke, Coliseum General Manager Patrick Lynch and members of the Coliseum Commission when they head to the NFL owners' meeting in Dallas.

"Los Angeles is a great sports town," Villaraigosa said during a news conference in front of the Coliseum.

"We have a great fan base that supports its teams," he said. "We have a great historic facility that has hosted two Olympic Games. We have the second-largest media market in the United States."

Parks' plan calls for building an $800 million, 67,000-seat stadium inside the facade of the historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics. Construction for the project could begin as soon as next year, he said.

It would be up the NFL to decide whether an existing team or an expansion team would come to Los Angeles.

The stadium will be built upward rather than outward in an effort to keep the Coliseum's exterior and peristyle intact, Parks said.

City officials are hoping the NFL will agree to pay for the new stadium, which will also feature about 15,000 club seats, 200 luxury boxes and state-of-the-art amenities.

USC's football team plays at the Coliseum, but no professional football team has played there since the Raiders returned to Oakland and the Rams movedto St. Louis after the 1984 season.

From CBS2.com (http://cbs2.com/local/local_story_115185547.html)

[blaze89]

Tagliabue: Time for NFL to Decide on L.A.
With Coliseum and Anaheim in contention, the commissioner says next few weeks will be `pivotal.'

By Alan Abrahamson,
Times Staff Writer

April 26, 2006

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Tuesday the next few weeks will be "pivotal" in deciding whether the league, absent from the nation's No. 2 television market for more than a decade, makes a return to Los Angeles.

With new television deals worth billions and the security of a labor agreement through 2011, Tagliabue, who will retire in July, said now is the time to meet what he called the "perennial challenge" of a return to the area.

Two sites are in the running, the Coliseum and Anaheim. An 11-member owner committee is scheduled to meet next Tuesday in Dallas to hear from both — a prelude to a meeting later in May in Denver of all 32 owners at which, league officials have said, a decision is due.

Acknowledging years of delays and uncertainties, Tagliabue said of a return to the Los Angeles area, "In some ways the stars are aligned."

In an interview before an appearance at a Disneyland hotel, he also said, "There's a recognition among the owners that it's time to make a decision.

"Whether it's the next four weeks or the next four months, the time has come to make a decision, up or down. And nothing — nothing — dramatic is going to be gained by prolonging the process."

The Los Angeles area has been without a team since after the 1994 season, when the Rams moved to St. Louis and the Raiders returned to their first home, Oakland.

It remains unclear whether the league is poised to pick one site or both, or pick one now and reserve another for later, or put two teams in one stadium.

Tagliabue acknowledged that there may be "little sentiment" for expanding beyond the current 32 teams, "partly because people haven't thought about it, and they haven't looked at the pros and cons of expansion versus relocating a team."

Later, speaking to the Orange County Business Council, he elaborated, saying expansion offers the league "the most control" in that "you are setting the terms and conditions of the transaction yourself — therefore you have the optimum ability to pick the person."

The Anaheim plan involves a 50-acre plot in the Angel Stadium parking lot. The city has offered to sell the land to the NFL under market value but has given the league until May 31 to make a deal before it explores other options for the parcel. Other details of the Anaheim deal have not been made public.

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle on Tuesday called his city "the center of the Southern California marketplace," a town that has "matured and evolved" and boasts "economic vitality."

The Coliseum would be thoroughly remade around the peristyle end, the 92,000-seat bowl reworked into a stadium with 200 luxury boxes seating 68,000 for the NFL and expandable to 80,000 for events such as a Super Bowl. The NFL would enter into a 25-year lease extendable to 55 years. Other deal points remain closely held.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in a morning appearance at the Coliseum, said he would be in Dallas next week to tout his venue's merits.

"This is the greatest sports town anywhere in the country," Villaraigosa said. "Make no mistake about that."

In presentations to league owners during meetings last month in Orlando, Fla., NFL staffers suggested that cost estimates for both projects, the Coliseum and Anaheim, might run as high as $800 million — up from perhaps $500 million three years ago.

With the costs of fuel, steel and other materials escalating, Tagliabue said the NFL is exploring ways to rein stadium costs in to the $650-million range.

"The numbers here are serious concerns," Tagliabue said, adding that although there is urgency — and momentum — to striking a deal, it's "going to take very sober analysis of some very steep costs."

From The Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-nfl26apr26,1,6498257.story?coll=la-headlines-sports)

[exstatic]

Fuck Benson. LA can have the Saints. We need to target an AFC team, so that Jones won't be so active in his opposition.

San Diego is fucking broke. They're on the verge of bankruptcy. If the county can step in, they'll have to float a bond issue before the voters, who are probably also going to be asked to bail out the city with a bond issue. Good luck with that.