CHICAGO (KRON) — Oakland Raiders team owner Mark Davis is in Chicago to talk with other NFL owners about a possible move out of Oakland during a round of special meetings this week.
The San Diego Chargers, St. Louis Rams, and the Raiders are expected to proposed relocation plans during a special Los Angeles Opportunities meeting called to look at potential steps toward moving to Southern California and report any progress made in their current cities. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told teams in a recent memo that there will be no voting during these meetings.
All three teams are racing to claim a piece of the eager Los Angeles market which has been without an NFL team since 1994 when the Raiders returned to Oakland.
The City of Carson has made significant progress in securing a site for a future football stadium through a coalition of supporters, including labor unions, which has collected over 14,000 petition signatures, nearly twice the number needed to place the stadium plan before local voters.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke is part of a group planning a new stadium in suburban Los Angeles, leading to speculation the team will move back to the West Coast, perhaps as early as 2016.
While no decisions are expected to made at the talks, numerous NFL insiders say that several owners are in favor of at least one team making the City of Angels its new home. The question isn’t if there will be enough support to allow the move, but rather which team will go.
It’s unlikely all three teams will end up in LA, and the Raiders are interested in staying in Oakland. Davis told reporters in May that he wants to build a new stadium in near the current, rundown Coliseum that the Raiders share with baseball’s Oakland Athletics.
“I’m trying all I can do to keep this team in Oakland, OK? I don’t know what to do, I really don’t know,” Davis said. “We’re trying. I’m not trying to divide any fan base. Every time I talk to anybody, I’m trying to stay in Oakland. That’s my No. 1 choice, but we can’t do this forever. I really appreciate you all, I really do.”CHARGERS MAY BOLT SAN DIEGO
All signs point to the Chargers bolting out of their current dilapidated stadium in Mission Valley to a $1.7 billion state of the art venue in Carson.
On Monday, the Chargers slammed the city and county’s plans for a new $1.1 billion stadium, making it look increasingly doubtful the long-running, contentious issue can be solved by City Hall’s Sept. 11 deadline to have a deal in place to qualify for a January vote.
“Never before in California history has a controversial, billion dollar project relied on environmental review documents hastily prepared in three weeks,” Chargers point man Mark Fabiani, a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, said in a statement. “The Chargers have been clear from the start that the franchise will not be the City’s guinea pig for this inevitably ill-fated legal experiment. Remember, these are the same politicians who told us, with disastrous results in court, that the convention center expansion could be financed by a vote of the hoteliers rather than a vote of the people.”
The Chargers have been working on getting a new stadium in San Diego for about 15 years.
The Chargers and Raiders announced plans for their joint stadium in Carson after St. Louis owner Stan Kroenke announced plans for a stadium in Inglewood.The Associated Press contributed to this report.