HOUSTON — NFL owners voted Tuesday night to allow the St. Louis Rams to move to a new stadium just outside Los Angeles, and the San Diego Chargers will have an option to share the facility.
The Oakland Raiders, who also wanted to move to the area, were left out of the deal.
The compromise — the Chargers and Raiders wanted to share a new stadium in Carson, California, and the Rams wanted to move to nearby Inglewood — was approved, 30-2, after the other options did not get the 24 votes needed for approval.
The Chargers can continue to negotiate with San Diego for a new stadium deal while keeping the option of joining at the Rams and owner Stan Kroenke at the $1.8 billion complex he is building.
No NFL franchise has moved since 1998, when the Tennessee Titans, formerly the Houston Oilers, moved from their temporary, one-year setup in Memphis three hours northeast to their permanent home in Nashville. The Raiders and Rams both left Los Angeles after the 1994 season. The Rams had been in the Los Angeles area since 1946, playing their final 15 seasons in Anaheim.
Los Angeles Coliseum, the college football home of USC, would likely host the Rams until a new stadium is finished, probably in 2019 if relocation plans go forward. Finding a home for the Chargers could prove more difficult, although sharing that venue is a possibility.
The Rams currently have a year-to-year lease in St. Louis.
Oakland is still in debt from a renovation to the Coliseum 20 years ago, when the Raiders moved back from Los Angeles. City officials have said they won’t seek help from taxpayers with a new stadium, and asked the NFL for more time to develop a project in a response to the Raiders’ relocation plan.
The proposal put forth by St. Louis called for an open-air, $1.1 billion stadium along the Mississippi River north of the Gateway Arch to replace the Edward Jones Dome.
That plan included $150 million from the city, $250 million from Kroenke, at least $200 million from the league, and $160 million in fan seat licenses. The rest of the money would have come from the state, either through tax credits or bonds.
Goodell said NFL policy limits the league’s contribution to $100 million, and Kroenke largely ignored the plan. The team said in its relocation bid that the St. Louis market lags economically and that the stadium proposal is doomed to fail.
In a report to all 32 teams days before the meetings, Goodell deemed the venues in all three existing cities inadequate and said the stadium proposals lacked certainty. In the case of San Diego, that includes a public vote required for the financing.
The Chargers and the city have been at odds since 2000, when owner Alex Spanos said his team needed to replace Qualcomm Stadium. That was just three years after the venue was expanded to accommodate the Chargers and attract Super Bowls.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.