Chargers closer to leaving San Diego as deadline passes
In July, the city of San Diego gave the Chargers a deadline: Make a deal for a new stadium in San Diego by Friday, Sept. 11, or there won’t be enough time to put the issue on the ballot in mid-January.
But that deadline will pass without a deal.
And that means the Chargers appear certain to apply to relocate to the Los Angeles market for 2016, barring a surprise development.
“Unfortunately, the city of San Diego made the fateful decisions to waste the first five months of 2015 on another task force and then to attempt to comply with California’s environmental laws with an unprecedented, legally flawed process,” said Mark Fabiani, the Chargers’ point person on stadium issues. “These mistaken decisions mean that there could not be a public vote before June 2016 at the earliest. In the meantime the NFL’s owners will be making decisions regarding the Los Angeles market, and the Chargers have said from the start that we will respect whatever choices the ownership makes.”
Fabiani declined further comment when asked if the passing deadline left the team no choice but to apply to relocate after this season. He can’t win by saying yes. That's because San Diego fans could desert the team right as it opens the NFL season Sunday in San Diego against Detroit.
He also can’t win by saying no. That’s because applying to relocate now appears to be the team’s only viable path to a new stadium under its standards.
“A lot could happen within the NFL that could adjust that one way or the other, but as things stand right now, that’s a very reasonable expectation,” said Marc Ganis, a sports consultant who works with NFL owners.
The city of San Diego had set the Friday deadline in order to get it ready for a Jan. 12 election. Without a deal with the team in September, the city has said there could be no election before June. And that would be too late for a relocation application process that could begin as soon as this December.
The urgency has increased over the past year because fear and deadlines have pushed the process with the Chargers, St. Louis Rams and Oakland Raiders.
All are unhappy with their current stadiums and able to leave their leases without prohibitive penalty.
But the NFL will support only two teams in one newly built stadium in the L.A. market, meaning one of those three could get left out and forced back to its current market with lost leverage.
The Chargers don’t want it to be them. So after more than a decade of trying to get a new stadium in San Diego, they announced a plan to build a new stadium with the Raiders in Carson, an L.A. suburb.
That announcement came in February, about six weeks after Rams owner Stan Kroenke came out with a competing plan to build a new stadium in Inglewood, near the L.A. airport.
“The loss of a decade is so painful,” Ganis said of San Diego’s stadium efforts. “Another party (Kroenke) accelerating the matter has caused some negative impact on San Diego as well. The problem is that the cards are dealt.”
The Chargers have played in San Diego since 1961 but broke off stadium talks with the city in June, citing flaws they perceived in the city’s approach to pursue a new stadium.
The city pushed to get a hurried proposal on the ballot in January. But the team viewed that plan as an unwinnable situation.
For example, if such a vote were to fail, there’s no new stadium for the team. And even if the vote were to prevail — which doesn't appear likely — the team fears that legal challenges could derail the project later because of legal deficiencies spawned by the city's rushed process, including a “quickie” environmental impact report.
The city still says it wants to keep working with the team.
“September 11 is effectively the deadline for a January 12 election,” said Matt Awbrey, spokesman for San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer. “San Diego is prepared to work toward a June or November 2016 election if the Chargers return to the negotiating table to work out a fair agreement.”
The trouble with that is time. The NFL might decide on this issue by February. If they wait too long to apply to relocate, or the project is delayed by legal complications, the Chargers could be left with no new stadium, little leverage and lost business in nearby Orange and Los Angeles counties, where the team gets about 25 percent of its local revenue. The Rams and Raiders could move to L.A. instead, encroaching on a Southern California market that the Chargers have had to themselves in the NFL since the Raiders and Rams left in 1995.
The big question for the league is how to solve this three-way riddle to the satisfaction of all parties. Several possibilities could change the current equation, including a one-year delay by the league or one of the teams reaching an agreement to stay in its current market.
By NFL rules, relocation would require approval from 24 of the league’s 32 teams.
“This thing's got more twists and turns to go,” Ganis said.
Until then, the road for the Chargers appears straight — about a two-hour drive up the coast, if there's no traffic jams or roadblocks.
Follow Brent Schrotenboer on Twitter @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com