I am interested why LA still lacks an NFL team? It is the second largest city in America and has two NBA teams and (more or less) two MLB teams. Why no NFL?
I realize that several years ago that Bill Cosby and some other people were trying to bring an expansion team to LA, but the deal fell through and that team went to Houston (Texans). What happened that year where the Raiders and the Rams left town? If I was a billionaire, I would put a franchise in the Rose Bowl, call them the Los Angeles Stars:cool: At least LA could buy the Cardinals.
Ok, the Clippers, LA already has the Lakers, who watches the Clippers? The Clippers suck. Are there Clippers fans? Do the Lakers and the Clippers play each other ever? How come San Diego could not support this team?
First of all, the Lakers and the Clippers DO play each other pver the course of the season, even though they both share the same arena. What happens is that one team is designated the “home” team for the game. I don’t know if they play twice, but, if they do, I assume each team is named the “home” team once.
I remember hearing a year or so ago about a plan to build a stadium in the LA area for a football team. IIRC, the Raiders moved because Al Davis told the city to essentially perform a very difficult sexual act on itself. I wasn’t watching football at the time, so I may not have all the details, though.
Here’s an interesting link about the stadium plans in LA:
Because the AFC and NFC West (and North, South, and East) each have 4 teams. To simply add a team to L.A. would make it an oddball.
Yes, there are Clipper fans, and yes, the Lakers and Clippers play each other. I’m sure San Diego could support the team, but a better question is, why would they want to?
A good way for those in L.A. to see top tier NBA teams play is to purchase Clippers season tickets, since they cost next to nothing.
The Clippers and Lakers play each other four times a year. Clippers tickets are still pretty expensive, although cheaper than the Lakers. Most of the cheaper seats for the Clippers are in the top ring of Staples Center, which is a long way from the court and really bad.
The NFL has had several ideas for moving a team to LA. The Vikings, Colts, and Chargers have all been bandied about. One of the latest hot ideas is that the new owner of the Dodgers (Frank McCourt, no not the author) would build a new Dodger Stadium in Downtown and the old one in Chavez Ravine would be razed and replaced by a football stadium.
Supposedly the residents of the neighborhoods close to Dodger Stadium would rather just have 8-12 events per year to deal with rather than 81.
My understanding is that Red McCombs (the owner of the Minnesota Vikings) is ready to sell the team and that the NFL wants whoever buys the team to consider moving it to LA.
The NFL is now over their 30 team maximum, due to the Cleveland Browns lawsuit, which made them the 31st team, which necessitated a 32nd team, either going to L.A. or Houston.
Since L.A. couldn’t get their act together, Houston got the team. In order for L.A. to have its own team, an existing team would need to be moved there.
The new Cleveland Browns (“Cleveland version 2.0,” for fans of TMQ) did indeed appear a couple years before the Texans, so there were for a time 31 teams.
When Houston came on board last year, the NFL realigned to eight divisions of four teams. Essentially, they shot themselves in the foot by making it very difficult to come up with an alignment to accomodate a 33rd or 34th team. (Even if they have a “policy” to stick to 32 teams, do you really think with their financial success they will resist the temptation of “more teams, more profit”?) Heck, there have to be at least six or seven markets out there that could support an NFL team–somebody’s going to put up the money for a franchise some time soon.
Of the many revenue streams for team owners, one of the most lucrative is the sale of luxury suites. Current Los Angeles stadiums do not have the type and number of suites to make having an NFL team attractive to potential owners.
When building a stadium, one of the sticking points is who will pay for construction and who holds rights to revenues from specific stadium venues.
When the Raiders moved back to Oakland, the County built luxury suites in (what is now) Network Associates coliseum for Al Davis, thus totally screwing with the Athletics’ bleachers and giving us the monstrosity known as ‘Mount Davis’. Davis & the coliseum authority also instituted ‘personal seat licenses’ making season tickets too expensive for many fans, but that’s another issue.
Does anyone know, or correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t St. Louis build a stadium for Georgia Frontiere (sp?) to lure the Rams from LA?
The reason LA doesn’t have a team is that neither the City nor the County of Los Angeles have agreed to the NFLs demands for blood money. The LA City and County political types have determined that it would be a poor use of hundreds of millions of dollars to succumb to the NFLs ridiculous demands (build us a stadium, using taxpayer dollars, and we will come!). As a resident of the City and County of Los Angeles, I say, bravo. A few tax incentives, etc, would be fine, but massive donations of capital or bond financing is a waste of money. If the NFL, and a bunch of RAMFs (rich ass mfs) want to do it, it is simple. Buy some land, build a stadium, bring in a team. Examples of Cities, Counties, and States getting burned by the professional sports leagues abound, and, thankfully, LA seems to have learned from that.
I was gonna say most of what shelbo said. We weren’t willing to blow taxpayer money to help some rich dudes get even richer, and be left holding the bag (a la Irwindale, which got stiffed by Al Davis to the tune of several million dollars)
I’ll just add that LA has realized that the NFL needs LA way more than LA needs the NFL.
NFL needing LA: we’re the second largest television market in the country. NFL ratings dropped in the second half of the 1990s, and pro football ratings are way, way down in Southern California.
So Cal needing NFL: why? At the same time of year we can watch our 2 NHL teams, 2 NBA teams (OK, so nobody really watches the Clippers - hell, they advertise their opponents to sell tickets), and 2 (usually) nationally prominent college football teams if we really want football. UCLA vs. USC usually sells out, which is more than the Raiders could usually do in the same stadium USC plays in.
LA doesn’t care about football. They’re all basketball fans. I say good riddance to bad markets. Why give them a team when they wouldn’t support either of the two they had?
Incidentally, to attribute the drop in NFL ratings to the loss of the LA market is laughable. The current television contract brings in more money than any contract before it, so missing the number two market clearly has had no effect so far. The drop in ratings coincided with the emergence of cable, which has leeched ratings from all network programming, not just NFL. Of note is that the NFL ratings have declined the least of any sport except NASCAR, which have grown.
I’m glad the NFL is not in LA, and hope they never go back to that worthless market. Unless it is to saddle them with the Cardinals.
Then you haven’t been in any bar with a TV East of the 101 and south of the 210 during a Raider’s game lately. They’re all filled with hooting, hollering, drunken fans, every game, win or lose.
There are still millions of rabid Raider fans in LA despite the vagrancy of the team. LA is definitely part of Raider Nation.
And my ladybug is one of them.
As for the Rams, I seldom see anyone wearing Rams logos around here anymore.