Dive Brief:
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San Diego is one step closer to approving a new football stadium for the Chargers, whose leadership has been looking into moving to Los Angeles.
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City officials on Monday unveiled a financing plan, which team chairman and president Dean Spanos has said he was "anxious" to see. The plan would require city and county taxpayers to pay $350 million — or 32% — of the estimated $1.1 billion stadium. The Chargers, the NFL and revenue from personal seat licenses would cover the remaining amount, or 68%. The city also released a 6,000-page environmental impact statement for the proposed construction.
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San Diego voters must approve the new stadium, which would replace the Chargers’ existing venue, Qualcomm Stadium. The city and the team have one month to agree to a deal, which would then be followed by a special election tentatively scheduled for January. Also in January, the NFL is expected to reveal which of three teams seeking to relocate to Los Angeles will be allowed to move.
Dive Insight:
San Diego isn’t the only city racing to build a football stadium to convince its team not to move to Los Angeles.
St. Louis officials are pushing a plan to build a $985 million, 64,000-seat outdoor stadium in the hopes that the Rams’ billionaire owner will not move the team to California. In fact, the city’s Building and Construction Trades Council agreed to allow up to 1,500 workers to work around the clock to build the stadium in just two years.
The ownership of the Oakland Raiders has proposed moving back to Los Angeles as well. Oakland officials in July reportedly had an initial meeting with a developer to discuss a proposal for a new stadium there.
Threatening to move to Los Angeles — which has no professional football team — is not a new tactic among NFL team owners hoping to convince their cities to replace their aging venues with larger, more modern stadiums.
