Exclusive NFL plans for Los Angeles revealed

AROUND THE BLOCK

News with a Twist

NFL Says STL, SD, OAK Stadium Plans Inadequate

Rumors LA may benefit from major re-alignment

In an expected announcement, the Los Angeles Times reported that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says the existing stadiums in St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland are "inadequate and unsatisfactory," and the proposals the Rams, Chargers and Raiders received to remain in their current cities lacked certainty.

According to the Associated Press, Goodell sent a 48 page report to the owners of the teams which, according to anonymous sources, cited a lack of “longer-term solutions” in plans to build new facilities in those cities.

The NFL has scheduled a special owners meeting in Houston next week to discuss Los Angeles relocation plans for one or two of those teams. But, in an exclusive interview with a high ranking NFL source speaking on the condition of anonymity, Around The Block has learned that Goodell will actually ask the owners to consider moving four teams to Los Angeles and re-align the NFL’s NFC conference to include a fifth division, the Los Angeles division. 

The source said that the fourth team has not been officially designated but that it would most likely be the Cleveland Browns, currently the most dysfunctional team in the NFL. The source went on to say the while many consider the San Francisco 49ers of Santa Clara to be the league's most dysfunctional team, Goodell felt that keeping the 49ers in Santa Clara was important in order to maintain the natural Los Angeles-Santa Clara rivalry.

According to our source, Goodell’s reasoning for moving four teams to Los Angeles and forming a new LA division was pay-back to the city for having moved the teams out of Los Angeles in the first place and keeping the city a football free zone since 1995. Goodell, our source indicated, also understands that because Los Angeles is the country's second biggest TV market, four teams stand to generate millions more dollars in additional TV advertising revenue than simply one or two. In an off-the-topic comment however, our source also said that he was not sure why Goodell does not realize that the epidemic of concussions in the NFL is a problem. 

The proposed move of the Browns will be the second time a team has left Cleveland for Los Angeles (the Cleveland Rams moved to LA in 1946) and the third time overall a team has left Cleveland (the original Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996). 

Moving the Browns, considered by many to be the worst team in football, is being made, it is understood, not only to help ensure that Los Angeles' natural built in braggadocio and self-importance is tamped down, but also by the fact that the explosion of original programming on cable networks and alternative TV programming sources like Netflix and Amazon has created a demand for premium sporting event seats by the Hollywood elite, currently defined as "A" through "D" listers, that one, two or even three teams could never meet.