It looks increasingly likely based on the latest reports that the St. Louis Rams, or another NFL team, will be calling Los Angeles home in the not too distant future - 2016 to be exact.
The Rams, along with the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders, have been among the teams rumored to possibly be planning to make a move to the Los Angeles area.
Now, it seems that Rams owner, Stan Kroenke, has taken the first major step to making Los Angeles football a reality again, with confirmed plans to build a new NFL stadium in Inglewood, California, according to Sam Farmer and Roger Vincent of the LA Times.
"Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who bought 60 acres adjacent to the Forum a year ago, has joined forces with the owners of the 238-acre Hollywood Park site, Stockbridge Capital Group," Farmer and Vincent reported. "They plan to add an 80,000-seat NFL stadium and 6,000-seat performance venue to the already-massive development of retail, office, hotel and residential space."
The Rams have the ability to convert their lease in St. Louis to a year-to-year proposition later this month. They have, as of yet, declined to comment on any possible move, but Kroenke and the team have long been unhappy with the state of the Edward Jones Dome - a stadium now outdated by current NFL standards.
Farmer, in a conversation with Peter King of SportsIllustrated.com, said that the earliest the team could find themselves playing in Southern California would be 2016:
"They could conceivably play in the new stadium by 2018-but they won't put shovels in the ground for the stadium until they get the Environmental Impact Report done, which is all the legal, environmental and political clearances to build the stadium. The earliest that could happen would probably be early in 2016."
The Rams current 30-year lease can be ended a decade early because the team and city officials have been unable to come to terms on an agreement to make improvements to the stadium.
Kroenke's plans put pressure squarely on St. Louis to either come to terms on a new stadium deal or watch their beloved football team depart for the warmer confines of Los Angeles.
According to Farmer and Vincent, the two sides remain approximately $575 million apart, with the city expected to makes the Rams a fresh offer by the end of the month.
