When will the other shoe drop?
8:22 AM PT – Logo change with LA branding, no gold.
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When will the other shoe drop?
8:22 AM PT – Logo change with LA branding, no gold.
newballpark.org 
I’m not a Chargers fan, nor a huge NFL fan, but the proposed Charger relocation to LA is sad if not pathetic. Even less reason for me to watch NFL brand football. If the Raiders do in fact leave the EastBay, I won’t bother with the lame NFL anymore. The biggest fear in that scenario is that the A’s bosses will then forgo any development at the JLS sites and focus back on the coli. I for one am strongly in favor of the JLS A’s stadium ideas.
I think you’ll get to see the A’s thought process on picking sites. Just don’t be surprised if Howard Terminal ends up considered prohibitively expensive compared to the Coliseum.
if you ask any a’s fans and even the a’s themselves yeah jls is the emotional favorite but what’s the smart bottom line site that makes the most sense and it’s likely the coliseum.
you would hope that laney could be a mix between the two sides as if offers the visuals that jls has but wouldn’t likely cost as much. but that site also has it’s own issues that may not make it viable.
in the end the coliseum is probably the site that will be chosen. just have to hope that somehow the development that will likely surround the park makes the overall ballpark experience and the surrounding neighborhood location more desirable.
@ML Can’t agree with your tweet statement that San Diego will never see NFL football again. San Diego is now the largest and most desirable vacant NFL market in the United States. It is affluent, has minimal professional sports competition for a city its size, and has shown more willingness than other California cities to spend public funds on a football stadium (even if not as much as Spanos wanted). Sooner or later the NFL will expand or a team will want to move, and San Diego will be in the mix.
Oakland seems a lot less likely. As a mid-size city with two larger cities and another NFL team nearby, there’s a lot less apparent logic or need for it to have an NFL team. Also, if the Raiders leave the Coliseum site will likely be redeveloped in a way that would leave the city without a viable site for an NFL stadium. If the Bay Area is ever to get a second NFL team, Levi’s Stadium seems a more likely location.
Still, never is a very long time…
A city is only desirable for NFL relocation/expansion if the taxpayers are willing to pony up Big Big $$ for a stadium. That is not happening in San Diego. LA went 20 years without an NFL team – and didn’t sweat it – because it refused to pay for a stadium.
First of all, San Diego was willing to pony up big bucks for a new stadium, just not as big as Spanos wanted. He happened to have a better economic offer on the table, the next NFL team may not. What he found unacceptable, another may find acceptable.
Second, the statement was “never.” “Never” is a long time. Fifty years from now, the politics in San Diego may have changed so that a bigger public contribution is possible. Or things may go the other way: cities may stop being as willing to pony up public money, the NFL may have a need to expand, and San Diego may end up with a privately financed stadium because it’s the best available market. You simply don’t know.
My point is, absolutist statements are likely to be wrong. A statement that a major city will go forever without an NFL team is almost certain to be proven wrong, eventually.
FWIW, with the CTE issue hanging over the NFL’s head, now is not the time to commit Big Taxpayer $$ to the sport. See where Bo Jackson said he wouldn’t play the sport if knew then what he knows now, and he wouldn’t want his kids playing it either?
@pjk Agreed.
Interesting take from Bill Simmons’ mailbag on The Ringer:
“Q: With the Chargers moving to L.A. and the Raiders off to Vegas in the near future, which abandoned city will take L.A.’s place as the primary threat to fan bases who refuse to build their team a new stadium?
— Alex E., Somerville, Mass.
BS: Oakland. Lock it down. It’s our fastest-growing American city, there’s a big baseball/football play to be made, and you have God knows how many Silicon Valley billionaires living within an hour of it. By the way, Mark Zuckerberg would never do this, but imagine if he were a huge sports fan and decided to overpay for the Athletics and for an NFL team to immediately move to Oakland, then built the Facebook Dome and rigged Facebook’s feed to be a steady stream of fake positive news about both of those teams? After 2016, I’d believe anything.”
I like Simmons, but this sounds as realistic as his fever dream about getting Kevin Durant on the Celtics.
San Diego is a great candidate city, no doubt. It is not good at execution. It’s had numerous corrupt mayors and council members, the ballpark deal was mired in legal challenges, and it failed to get anywhere close to replacements for its two other aging venues. It’s going to have to give away the farm for another shot at the NFL. The NFL owners felt they were extremely patient with San Diego and were willing to give them more time if more public money came in. They’ll remember that San Diego didn’t cave in.
LA is a good thing for the Chargers. The citizens of San Diego drove the Chargers out.
The deal Spanos had was not only for a new downtown stadium but also for a convention center taxing tourists and business travelers via a hotel tax.
Not one dime would have come out of a San Diegan’s pocket for this. Those people deserve to lose their team.
Even Santa Clara passed a hotel tax (albeit much smaller city) to help the 49ers on a smaller level.
All these people had to do was vote to tax out of town people and a brand new stadium plus a convention center expansion in one shot.
SMH……
On the flip side, Spanos makes no capital investment in the new Inglewood Stadium. He can always go back to San Diego down the road if he wishes.
Sometimes you don’t know what you got until it is gone…
“Not one dime would have come out of a San Diegan’s pocket for this. Those people deserve to lose their team.”
While a hotel tax may be more palatable to locals than certain other taxes, hotel tax revenue is not free money. First, residents in the area do sometimes stay in or make other use of hotels. Second, higher hotel taxes make cities less competitive as tourist and business destinations, which has economic consequences. Third, hotel tax revenues are still public money which could be used for other purposes. There are limits to how high you can raise hotel taxes and therefore a finite amount of revenue that can be generated from them. It’s not irrational for San Diegans to think such revenue would be better spent on items such as schools, police, fire and roads.
“On the flip side, Spanos makes no capital investment in the new Inglewood Stadium. He can always go back to San Diego down the road if he wishes.”
He is investing $550 million in the right to relocate, which would seem to make a return to San Diego unlikely. Also, I would assume his lease with Kroenke will commit him to LA for at least a certain number of years.
http://media.957thegame.com/a/118157060/ray-ratto.htm
at the 21:00 ratto talks about how the a’s maybe favor both the howard terminal and laney college sites over the coliseum even if the raiders move.
basically due to opportunity to build around these two locations and possibly control what is built adjacent to the park when compared to the coliseum due to the surrounding land being owned by other entities in that area of the city would make it more attractive for the a’s ownership.
I love how people use terms like “Maybe” and “Concerned” to the point of making them meaningless. If the A’s wanted Howard Terminal or Laney Field they would have been there long ago. Here is what we do know: Unless the City of Oakland throws the Raiders out, the Raiders are going to be in Oakland until the end of the 2019 Season and unless the A’s move out of the Bay Area, you are looking ( at best) an ETA of 2021 for the A’s to get something done @ the Coluseum Site. The saga for the A’s never ends.
well this is a new a’s leadership right now. wolff is gone and kaval is now in control the future of where the a’s park will likely be located.
it wasn’t until last august i think that fisher in particular was on hand scouting locations within the city of oakland which included howard terminal from that picture that surfaced.