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 the option to share the facility.
The Oakland Raiders, who also wanted to move to the area, could move to Los Angeles if San Diego doesn't, commissioner Roger Goodell said.
The moves will end the NFL's 21-year absence from the nation's second-largest media market.
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 original 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 the
Rams and owner Stan Kroenke at the $1.8 billion complex they will be
building.
"Relocation is a painful process. It's painful for the
fans, for the communities, for the league in general," Goodell said. "In
some ways [this is] a bittersweet moment because we were unable to get
the kind of facilities done we wanted in their markets."
The fee
to move a team is $550 million, Kroenke has the option to either pay all
at once or 10 annual installments of $64 million, but a source told
ESPN's Jim Trotter that Kroenke will pay it in a lump sum.
The
Rams, who were based in the L.A. area from 1946 to 1994, will play in a
temporary facility -- probably the Los Angeles Coliseum -- until the new
stadium is ready for the 2019 season.
"Today, with the NFL
returning home, Los Angeles cements itself as the epicenter of the
sports world," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement. "We
cannot wait to welcome the Rams, and perhaps others soon, as they join a
storied lineup of professional franchises, collegiate powerhouses and
sports media companies."
Former Rams running back Eric Dickerson took to Twitter to celebrate the franchise's return to Los Angeles.
The league will give $100 million to the Chargers and the Raiders if either team builds a new stadium in its current market.
"I
will be working over the next several weeks to explore the options that
we have now created for ourselves to determine the best path forward
for the Chargers," chairman Dean Spanos said.
The Chargers play
120 miles south of Inglewood at Qualcomm Stadium. The Raiders played in
Los Angeles from 1982 to 1994 and currently split a facility with
baseball's Oakland Athletics. It is the only remaining NFL-MLB stadium.
"The
Raiders will now turn our attention to exploring all options to find a
permanent stadium solution," the Raiders said in a statement.
No
NFL franchise has moved since the Houston Oilers relocated to Tennessee
in 1997. The Raiders and Rams both left Los Angeles after the 1994
season.
In a report to all 32 teams days before the meetings,
Goodell deemed the venues in all three cities inadequate and said the
stadium proposals lacked certainty. In the case of San Diego, the
proposal includes a public vote required for financing.
The
Chargers and the city of San Diego 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 Super Bowls. The stadium saga turned nasty in the past
year, as Mark Fabiani, an attorney for team chairman Dean Spanos,
criticized Mayor Kevin Faulconer and his proposals. The city has claimed
that the Chargers didn't negotiate in good faith and had several
misrepresentations in their relocation bid.
Spanos has had the
right to leave San Diego since 2008, but the team's efforts became more
aggressive after Kroenke announced his plans for the Inglewood move. The
Chargers have played in San Diego for 55 seasons after one year in Los
Angeles, where the former AFL franchise was born.
The
St. Louis proposal calls for an open-air, $1.1 billion stadium north of
the Gateway Arch along the Mississippi River to replace the Edward
Jones Dome. The plan includes $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 comes from the state, either
through tax credits or bonds.
Goodell said NFL policy limits the
league's contribution to $100 million, and Kroenke has largely ignored
that. The team said in its relocation bid that the St. Louis market lags
economically and the stadium proposal is doomed to fail.
The Rams have a year-to-year lease in St. Louis. This is the second time the city has lost an NFL franchise as the St. Louis Cardinals left for Arizona in 1988.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was displeased with Tuesday's news.
"Tonight's
decision is disappointing and a clear deviation from the NFL's
guidelines," Nixon said in a statement. "It is troubling that the league
would allow for the relocation of a team when a home market has worked
in good faith and presented a strong and viable proposal. This sets a
terrible precedent not only for St. Louis but for all communities that
have loyally supported their NFL franchises."
Oakland
is still in debt from a renovation 20 years ago, when the Raiders moved
back from Los Angeles. City officials have said they won't seek
taxpayer help with a new stadium, and they asked the NFL for more time
to develop a project in response to the Raiders' relocation plan.
Los Angeles Coliseum, the football home of USC,
will host at least one team until a new stadium is finished, likely in
2019. Finding a home for a second team could prove more difficult,
though the Coliseum is a possibility.
The Rams have moved twice
before. The franchise called Cleveland home from 1937 to 1945, before
moving to Los Angeles for the first time in 1946. The team opened play
in St. Louis in 1995 and will call the Los Angeles area home again in
2016. At each stop, the franchise won one league championship.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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