By Casey Zirbel
Opinion Editor
The second largest market in the United States has lacked a National Football Association team since 1994. There is no reason why Angelenos shouldn’t have an NFL team to root for, and the recent Anschutz Entertainment Group stadium proposal is the most effective plan to have a team move here as soon as possible.
Recently, AEG sold the naming rights to a planned downtown stadium to Farmers’ Insurance for $700 million, starting a wildfire of speculation regarding the “Farmers’ Field” project.
The plan for the stadium involves the demolition of the West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center and the construction of a new stadium with a retractable roof. If built, it would become a beloved cornerstone of the city landscape, similar to the Staples Center, which was built upon land where a section of the Los Angeles Convention Center previously stood.
Before 1994, Los Angeles had two NFL teams, the Raiders and the Rams, but after their departure, L.A. football fans have had to turn their attention to teams in other cities.
The NFL is losing potential revenue by not having a team. According to sports industry analyst Dmitry Kopylovsky, if the Minnesota Vikings were to move to Los Angeles, they would generate an additional $100 million per year.
The NFL is the most profitable professional sports league in the U.S, earning $1.032 billion overall operation income in 2009, nearly double the $522 million that the second-place Major League Baseball makes. Bringing an NFL franchise to L.A. with a new stadium deal would only enlarge the league’s earnings.
One obstacle in the process of bringing the NFL to L.A. is the odds of creating an expansion team are slim due to the NFL’s existing symmetric structure of 32 teams.
The only way to get a team in Los Angeles would be to attract existing teams, such as the Jaguars, Chargers, Vikings or Bills, who have all expressed interest.
The upside of Los Angeles having its own football team at the stadium in AEG’s plan extend much further than fan enjoyment and NFL revenue, however.
The construction and maintenance of the Farmers’ Field would be a $1.35 billion privately funded endeavor, with no net funding from the public.
A project of this scale would be huge for Los Angeles, providing thousands of jobs and assisting the city’s economy greatly, with short-term construction jobs and long term jobs at the stadium, with the team, and the surrounding stadium complex.
It would thus be in the best interests of both L.A. and the NFL for the league to push for the AEG stadium plan in Los Angeles.
Farmers’ Field will provide other uses outside of general NFL game use. The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Final Fours and Bowl Championship Series games could easily be held at Farmers’ Field as well as L.A. Olympics or World Cup bids.
Although another stadium project has been proposed in the City of Industry rather than downtown L.A, this plan is a travesty. Industry is a business district with a population of 700 that few people have even heard of. An L.A. football team should be located in the heart of Los Angeles, which the AEG plan would provide.
What is perhaps more important than technical advantages is a simple fact about L.A. sports fans. Los Angeles residents are avid fans of virtually every sport that has a team in the city; let’s just move forward with the AEG project and try to bring football to a great sports town with the top-notch plan for Farmers’ Field.
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