Enough About Green Bay and Pittsburgh, Let's Talk LA

Some very important NFL-types have been saying things like "I think Los Angeles is in the picture"

The NFL conducted its annual State of the League news conference Friday morning in Dallas.

Sure, there's some game this weekend and the possibility of a work stoppage next year, but the subject of Los Angeles came up, too, when Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke. The State of the League news conference comes three days after the announcement of a 30-year stadium naming-rights agreement with Farmers Insurance Exchange, potentially worth  $700 million.

Note: FarmersFieldSucks.com has already been registered.

Goodell said the naming-rights deal is a step in the right direction, but hardly a leap.

"The financing of a stadium is a very difficult proposition," Goodell said.  "It needs to be smart investment."

We don't have a team to put in the proposed downtown stadium, but when Cowboys owner Jerry Jones uses words like "viability" and "significant money," you know something might be up.

On Thursday, Jones called the naming-rights agreement a "major indication of the viability of a franchise in Los Angeles and, yes, that's significant money."

Well, anybody could tell you that. What makes Jones so special?

"I'm on the committee for expansion out there,'' Jones said. "Certainly the kinds of things they are doing within the framework of the financial dollars I'm hearing about should work."

But first, there's that collective bargaining agreement.

According to NBC Sports
:

A 75,000-seat stadium complex has also been proposed for Industry. Its  developer, Edward P. Roski Jr., the chairman and chief executive officer of  Majestic Realty Co., has said the stadium will not be built without a team  first making a commitment to play there.

The lack of an adequate stadium is considered the leading reason the Los  Angeles area has not had an NFL team since 1994.

Since then, failed stadium proposals have been made for Carson, downtown  Los Angeles and Chavez Ravine, along with a proposed remodeling of the Los  Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

The Anaheim Stadium-based Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis in 1995,  the same year as the Los Angeles Raiders, who played at the Coliseum, returned  to Oakland.

Copyright CNS - City News Service
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