Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times broke the news, and soon after there was a joint statement from the Raiders and Chargers:
- We have both been working in our home markets to find a stadium solution for many years, so far unsuccessfully.
- We remain committed to continuing to work in our home markets throughout 2015 to try to find publicly acceptable solutions to the long-term stadium issue.
- We also both understand and respect the NFL’s relocation process, and we intend to adhere strictly to the relocation procedures that the League has set forth for Los Angeles.
- In particular, we respect the right of the NFL’s owners to decide on all Los Angeles-related relocation issues and understand that any relocation application that is filed for Los Angeles must obtain the approval of three-fourths of the NFL’s owners.
- Both teams have kept the NFL owners’ committee on Los Angeles, and the Commissioner, fully informed about our joint efforts.
- We are pursuing this stadium option in Carson for one straightforward reason: If we cannot find a permanent solution in our home markets, we have no alternative but to preserve other options to guarantee the future economic viability of our franchises.
- In short, for the remainder of 2015, we intend to move down two tracks simultaneously:
- On track one, we will continue to work in our home markets to find permanent stadium solutions that are publicly acceptable.
- On track two, we will work in Carson to preserve our options, and the future economic viability of our franchises, in the event that our efforts in our local markets fail.
- Throughout this process we will respect the rules and procedures set forth by the League and defer completely to the ultimate decision of the NFL’s owners.
In other words, after Rams owner Stan Kroenke announced his plans to build an 80,000-seat stadium in L.A., the Raiders and Chargers figured they’d better act quickly. All while working oh-so-diligently to come up with stadium ideas in their current home cities, of course (wink, wink).
I got into sportswriting in part because I didn’t want to write about city politics. Silly me. So I have no idea if this plan has any chance of coming to fruition (my instinct tells me: no). But as a simple observer, I couldn’t help but notice that these renderings look an awful lot like Levi’s Stadium with an overhang.
Wranglers Stadium? True Religion Field? Does the NFL have room for two fields of jeans?
Even the end zones almost look like Niners colors, and the seats are red in the rendition at the top of this post. The drawings come from MANICA Architecture, which also designed the proposed A’s ballpark at Howard Terminal (which would look awesome, but has close to no shot at actually getting built).
It’s funny to think division rivals could share a stadium, but what would probably happen is the Seahawks would go back to the AFC West, and either the Raiders or Chargers would move to the NFC West. That’s if this wacky plan went forward (The Ragers or Charders, such a tough choice …), and we’re definitely in the “let’s exert pressure on municipalities/not one shovel has been put into the ground yet” phase of these proceedings.
All that being said, it doesn’t appear that the Raiders will be in Oakland for long. They don’t want to foot the bill for a new stadium, and this is the most blatant example of flirting they’ve done after playing footsie under the table with San Antonio and blowing kisses at Portland.
