The Oakland Raiders have long been rumored as one of the teams that could relocate in the near future. As time goes by, it seems more and more likely that the Raiders could be playing elsewhere.
Eric Grubman, the NFL executive vice president who is in charge of league affairs in relation to franchise retention and the growing Los Angeles opportunity, is pessimistic on Oakland's ability to keep the Raiders in town.
"I have been to Oakland many times over the last four or five years," Grubman said earlier this week at the NFL owners spring meeting. "Each time I've gone there I've heard that the promise is right about the corner of a master development of that parcel that will include substantial proceeds from a developer, a third part, fourth party or multiple-party developers.
"I've heard that for three or four years and it hasn't been produced and we have now lost all that time, the time has shrunk. No results have been produced. That, to me is going backward, because the time has shrunk but the probability hasn't gone up."
Raiders owner Mark Davis said Tuesday that has not seen a plan from Floyd Kephart, who is trying to compose a plan to keep the Raiders in a facility that also has retail and housing on the current Coliseum site.
The St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers are the other two teams most mentioned when discussing a move to Los Angeles. Although nothing is set it stone, the NFL expects to move back to the country's second-largest media market within the next few years.
