NFL owners pave way for Raiders to move, examine Las Vegas market

By Ken Belson, New York Times News Service

Thursday, Dec. 15, 2016 | 2 a.m.

IRVING, Texas — NFL owners on Wednesday showed signs of grudging support for allowing the San Diego Chargers to move to Los Angeles and the Oakland Raiders to leave for Las Vegas, with plans for stadiums in the teams’ current cities having all but vanished.

The potential relocations dominated discussion publicly and behind closed doors at a league meeting here as momentum grew for the teams to make the moves, which would represent the most significant reordering of the NFL’s geographic lineup in two decades.

The only thing left is for the Chargers to decide next month whether to exercise their option to leave for Los Angeles and for the Raiders to submit a formal proposal to relocate to Las Vegas, where lawmakers have promised to contribute $750 million toward a stadium.

Although the league has said it prefers teams to remain in their home markets, a growing number of owners acknowledged that the Raiders and the Chargers might end up playing in new cities as soon as next season.

Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, said there was “no reason for optimism” that the Chargers and the Raiders would find a solution allowing them to stay put. In San Diego, Irsay said, “everything has been done that could be done” to get a new stadium.

Arthur Blank, owner of the Atlanta Falcons, said that Los Angeles could easily support a second NFL team and pointed out that the Chargers had a significant number of fans and sponsors based in the Los Angeles area.

The owners on Wednesday paved the way for the Chargers to move when they approved a proposal to let the team raise $325 million to pay for half of the $650 million relocation fee that would be required for it to move to Los Angeles.

Teams are ordinarily prohibited from having more than $250 million in debt.

The owners also approved a lease between the Chargers and the Rams — who are now building a stadium in Inglewood, California — in the event the Chargers elect to move.

The Chargers have until Jan. 15 to decide whether they want to join the Rams or stay in San Diego.

Dean Spanos, owner of the Chargers, said Wednesday that he would announce whether he was moving the team after the regular season ended on New Year’s Day.

Spanos has been unhappy with Qualcomm Stadium, one of the oldest stadiums in the league. A ballot measure that would have let the Chargers build a stadium in downtown San Diego was soundly defeated in November.

Eric Grubman, who oversees relocation efforts for the NFL, said the owners could give the Chargers an extra year to decide whether they wanted to move to Los Angeles, to give them more time to negotiate a stadium deal in San Diego.

The Raiders appear committed to moving to Nevada, where state lawmakers approved a new hotel bed tax that would contribute $750 million toward construction of a domed stadium in Las Vegas.

The Raiders have not applied to relocate, however, and the owners were told Wednesday that an application would not be filed until the Raiders’ season ended. At 10-3, the Raiders are likely to play in the postseason. If they make it to the Super Bowl, their season will extend into February.

Several influential owners, most notably Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, support having a team in Las Vegas. But the league prohibits owners from having interests in gambling establishments, so teams want assurances that Sheldon Adelson, the chairman of the Sands Corp., who is working with the Raiders on a Las Vegas stadium, does not have a stake in the team. The owners are also trying to determine if Las Vegas is a big enough market to sustain an NFL franchise.

In an effort to keep the team from moving, the Oakland City Council on Tuesday gave the Fortress Group exclusive rights to negotiate a stadium deal on behalf of the city and Alameda County. The investment group has yet to produce a stadium proposal for the Raiders to consider.

The owners also discussed the NFL’s international ventures. The league is all but committed to playing another game in Mexico City next season. The Raiders and the Houston Texans played there in November, and the league considered the game a success. Visit Mexico, a national tourism board, agreed to pay the NFL $42 million to play three games in Mexico City, or $14 million a game.

Mark Waller, who leads the league’s international efforts, said that the NFL could play a regular-season game in China as soon as 2018 but that logistics must be worked out, including how to give the teams enough time to recover from the trip back to the United States. A league spokesman later clarified that the league was still debating whether to play a game there in 2018, or later.

At home, the league continues to worry about the decline in television viewership this season and continued complaints about the slow pace of broadcasts. The owners were told Wednesday that the league and its network partners would tinker with the length and number of advertisements shown in games in Week 16. The league will assess whether those changes affect viewership.

“We’re evaluating every aspect of the game presentation,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said. “How do we take out time where we think there are unnecessary delays — where we think there are things that can be done to speed up the pace and focus on football, reduce the number of interruptions, including commercial interruptions?”