Los Angeles is one of the most premier destination for sports in the past two decades, accounting for dozens of championships between hockey, basketball and soccer. However there has been one sport that L.A. has been conspicuously absent from for recent memory: Football. Now the NFL is looking to remedy the fact that one of the nations largest cities is not a part of one of the nations largest sports.
On Tuesday the league began a formal market assessment of the Los Angeles area, according to the LA Times. The NFL will send out roughly questionnaires to roughly 2,000 potential customers to gauge demand for a team in the city as well as their expectations for a stadium, seating, licensing and amenities.
This is hopefully the first step in an incremental process of ringing a team to the nation's second largest market. It is not a firm confirmation of a time table or a suggestion that a decision is imminent, however.
If the league simply wants to import a team from another city, it does have a number of options. The St. Louis Rams, San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders are all on year-to-year leases and have expressed unhappiness with their current venues. Additionally, they have all expressed a willingness to relocate to Los Angeles, whether publicly or privately. Last years Rams owner Stan Kroenke even went as far as to purchase 60 acres of potential stadium land in Inglewood.
What also may help the case of the Rams and Raiders is the fact that both of them were previously in the L.A. market before being moved to their current respective cities.
Of course moving a football team to Los Angeles requires more than a name change. To that end, last week Anschutz Entertainment Group secured a six month extension to the Farmers Field agreement in hopes of attracting an NFL team to the downtown stadium. The city of Carson is also being considered as a potential site.
This cycle of speculation has been happening for two decades. The major difference at this point is the survey that is now being circulated, something that the leagues has never used before now.
The survey draws from several databases and is random, meaning that it does not pull from a pool of volunteers or from those that consider themselves fans of football. That said, the league is still aiming to get a response from those more likely to buy the most expensive seats or season tickets rather than those that would only occasionally purchase a game ticket.
If things do wind up moving towards the relocation of a Los Angeles team, that team must inform the league during a two-month window that opens at the end of the regular season.
Data from the surveys will be gathered over the course of the next two weeks and will then be organized by Los Angeles focus groups to collect more specific information.
