L.A. Billionaire Trying To Bring NFL Back To SoCal

[Elano]

http://www.losangelesfootballstadium.com/

Plans were announced today to build in the City of Industry a 75,000-seat stadium that could be home to a National Football League team.

Developer Ed Roski Jr. made what he described as a major announcement at Staples Center about the proposed Los Angeles Stadium, which would be built on land he owns near the intersection of the Pomona (60) and Orange (57) freeways.

Roski told the Los Angeles Times that if a team is willing to move to Los Angeles, construction on the stadium can begin this fall and be completed in 2011. He said a team could begin playing in Los Angeles in 2009, using the Coliseum or Rose Bowl as a temporary home.

"I think this is important for Los Angeles, for the fabric of the city," Roski told The Times. "The city has done real well without the NFL and the NFL has done real well without the city. But I think it's important to have a professional football team in Los Angeles."

The prospect of the NFL returning to Los Angeles faces many hurdles, including rising financing costs.

Additionally, a return to Los Angeles is not considered a top priority within the NFL, whose owners are believed to be more focused on such issues as negotiations with the players union for a new collective bargaining agreement, improving the league's revenue sharing, and having its cable television channel -- NFL Network -- reach more households.

In his February 1 "State of the NFL" address, Commissioner Roger Goodell said "expansion is off the table for right now," meaning an existing team would have to move for professional football to return to the Southland.

A bill allowing the City of Industry to divert $820 million in property tax revenue from basic government services and use it instead for stadium- related development subsidies was pulled by its author, Sen. Gloria Romero, D- Los Angeles, hours before it was scheduled for its first hearing Wednesday, The Times reported from Sacramento.

The bill had drawn the opposition of Los Angeles County officials, who complained that much of the money would come from their tight budget, according to The Times.

"Everybody wants an NFL stadium, but I'm not so sure taxpayers should be footing the bill for that," Supervisor Gloria Molina told The Times. "That's what we potentially have going here."

Romero told The Times it was possible that she would seek a parliamentary exception to revive the bill if the concerns of opponents can be addressed.

Roski, who helped build Staples Center, joined with billionaire Eli Broad in an unsuccessful bid to bring an NFL expansion team to Los Angeles in 1999.

The NFL has not had a team in the Los Angeles area since the Los Angeles Raiders returned to Oakland after playing 13 seasons at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Anaheim Stadium-based Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis before the 1995 season.

The NFL has returned to all the cities from which teams have moved from since 1961, except for Los Angeles.

Stadium issues have been among the leading impediments in the way of an NFL return to the region.

In November, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said "the Coliseum is no longer a viable option for the NFL." The league has consistently resisted the prospect of having a team play in Exposition Park, even if the interior of the venerable Coliseum were torn down and a new stadium erected behind its historic walls.

In 2006, Pasadena voters concerned about traffic issues rejected by a nearly 3-to-1 margin a ballot measure that would have reopened talks to attract an NFL team to the Rose Bowl, the site of five Super Bowls.

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

someone is always tryna bring the NFL back to LA...step it up already!

[E. J. Rizo]

shit looks pretty legit... but who knows if it will happen.... location is really close to me which is nice but shit if its an LA team i think it should be in LA... i liked the original idea they had when they were building the staples center to build a football stadium right next door.... now that would have been awsome

[Lunatic]

yea shocked they're already isn't one

[Don Jacob]

they need to hurry up and make a team here, fuckin Commisioner should be bending over backwards to make that happen.

[Doggystylin]

they need to hurry up and make a team here, fuckin Commisioner should be bending over backwards to make that happen.

yeah i don't know why they haven't, it would only help ratings immensely

[SGV]

shit looks pretty legit... but who knows if it will happen.... location is really close to me which is nice

Shit I'm happy that it's close to me. I don't have to fight all kinds of traffic to get there or to come back. I could take the streets there.

[Dodgers#1]

shit looks pretty legit... but who knows if it will happen.... location is really close to me which is nice

Shit I'm happy that it's close to me. I don't have to fight all kinds of traffic to get there or to come back. I could take the streets there.

co sign

[.:DaYg0sTyLz:.]

Cool. Another city where the home team will have less fans in the stadium then the Raiders when they come to town 

[WestCoasta]

if I was a taxpayer in the City of Industry then I might not want one either