The NFL's inevitable march back to Los Angeles continues, this time in the form of a meeting between the Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
"Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Raiders owner Mark Davis were in Los Angeles on Tuesday, meeting with Mayor Eric Garcetti and other political heavyweights and promoting their vision for a shared stadium in Carson," writes Sam Farmer of the LATimes.com.
"A spokesman for Garcetti confirmed the meeting and said the mayor 'would welcome a team anywhere in the Los Angeles area.'"
Most importantly, for fans of the Raiders and Chargers still hopeful of seeing their teams remain in place, it sounds like the meeting was in direct response to the, apparently unacceptable, stadium plans put forth by both Oakland and San Diego in recent weeks.
"According to an individual with knowledge of the details of the meetings, it was not mere coincidence they took place in the wake of a plan submitted last week to Oakland and Alameda County leaders by businessman Floyd Kephart, who has an exclusive negotiating agreement to assemble a deal. Kephart's proposal has been widely panned in NFL circles," Farmer reports.
"The Chargers do not think San Diego can legally get any stadium initiative on the ballot until late 2016 at the earliest, and team officials have no confidence such an initiative would gain public approval anyway."
HNGN passed along a report in late June that Oakland Athletics part-owner Lew Wolff had announced that the team wasn't willing to share the Coliseum with the Raiders and that the notion of two franchises there was simply not feasible. That report came on the heels of the revelation in May that Davis and Spanos' joint venture in Carson had taken "significant steps," while a potential stadium initiative in Oakland had stalled due to Mayor Libby Schaaf's assertion that much greater issues faced the city and that providing $400 million for a new Raiders venue was not possible.
Per Farmer, Spanos and Davis have also met with LA City Council President Herb Wesson and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, along with Carson Mayor Albert Robles and Carson City Attorney Sunny Soltani.
"While Mayor Garcetti frequently meets with companies looking to do business in Los Angeles, we are mindful that the Chargers, Raiders and Rams are still actively discussing stadium deals in their current cities and the NFL has not yet approved a team moving," Garcetti's spokesman Jeff Millman said.
Garcetti and the rest of Los Angeles' decision-makers may be mindful of said stadium initiatives, but it sure sounds like Spanos and Davis may no longer be.
Interestingly, Sam Cooper of Yahoo Sports recently discovered that a job listing for a Tax Manager on the Chargers website has, amongst all the other prerequisite boilerplate, a very interesting requirement for interested applicants - a potential willingness to relocate to Los Angeles.
