I'm not enough of a football fan to guess how this will play out, but have two teams ever moved to one city at the same time? It seems like a different challenge from a marketing perspective, as neither team will have a geographic or other clear notion of what their fan base should be. Does one team try to focus on a specific market segment, or do both just go for the typical "your hometown team" push?
You'd have to be a big enough fan of world football, rather than American, football to know this, but the answer is yes. Apollon Smyrni and Panionios FC both moved to Athens in 1922, if for political reasons, rather financial. More specifically, they moved due to the Greco-Turkish War events of 1921, and the subsequent Greek expulsion from Turkey. The latter of these is a fairly significant team, and while nobody would mistake Panionios for Olympiacos, they're still 6th in the Superleague Greece, the country's top division. Apollon Smyrni aren't quite as successful, currently 17th of 18 teams, but also notably in the Superleague.
Stuff like this is why I love our humble forum. It helps offset the feeling that comes from the rest of what's been going on lately in BBTL.
http://deadspin.com/report-nfl-relocation-vote-was-swung-by-the-introducti-1754055908?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
Yep. He's right. You're right. But the NFL...geez...just stupid.
I'll tell you something I heard from someone who was in the room and that is basically affirmed by the King story referenced above: supposedly the pivotal moment of the debate was when Paul Allen said, look, we've got one proposal here that's incredible and one that's just a stadium. Why are we still even debating this? According to this person you could feel the momentum shift with that comment and everything gathered behind Inglewood from that point on. Maybe it was a comment that others were thinking and didn't want to be the one to say out loud. King's point that Allen rarely speaks up in these meetings seems noteworthy. In the version I heard Allen seemed a little more forceful than what King describes, but who knows?
Kroenke is a prick, but he isn't dumb. Once he bought that land the move was inevitable
It's not just that Allen rarely speaks up, it's that he almost never attends. As Andrew Brandt tweeted last week: "One sign of importance of this NFL owners meeting: Seahawks Paul Allen is here. He never comes to meetings. #LA"
It makes a ton more sense at this point for SD to stay in SD and Oakland to stay in the Bay Area. With the 49ers down in Santa Clara, there's space for the Raiders to claim more of the Bay Area, and San Diego is a good market, too. L.A. Mayor Garcetti just called for SD to stay in SD which shows how little demand there is for them (he grew up a Rams fan, though).
Speaking of sharing Santa Clara with the Niners - I took a tour of the Santa Clara stadium last year, and there is a specific shell space ready to hold a second home locker room for the Raiders -- which, according to the guide, was a requirement mandated by the NFL.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14635604/oakland-raiders-move-san-diego-2017-2018-season
Well, they are staying in SD for at least one more year.
I'm not sure why this deserves a WOAH!! They still can move to LA for the '17 season, and this gives them another year to work out that arrangement ... or come to a better deal with Kronke
The later they come, the better chance they become the "clippers" of the NFL. Rams will solidify its "base" in LA with the second team (raiders or chargers) picking up the remaining pieces
Yeah, that's what Florio said a few minutes ago. The thing is, it's no surprise since the Chargers were going to be the "second Team" the moment the NFL had its vote, since this was always going to be Kronke's stadium.
$100 million grant and $200 million loan, according to the article.
