If Raiders Try Leaving Oakland For Kronke's NFL LA Stadium, It Will Cost $1 Billion

If Raiders Try Leaving Oakland For Kronke's NFL LA Stadium, It Will Cost $1 Billion
If Raiders Try Leaving Oakland For NFL LA, It Will Cost $1 Billion The NFL LA Relocation Meeting in Houston was a fun place to be. When the NFL announced that the Rams were returning to LA from St. Louis, I felt like Dr. McCoy from Star Trek, when, in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, he said, upon seeing the life-giving fireworks that came from the paring of the mechanical version of the characters played by the late Persis Khambata and Stephen Collins, “I feel like we witnessed the birth of a new life form.” I was also exhausted – so much so that I fell to sleep eight times that Wednesday, including in the bathroom of The Westin Memorial City. I was so tired and worn of talking about the business of football that I sought normal bar conversation with people who had also been at the NFL meeting, but craved a mental break. By the time team execs walked in, I was already listening to a fellow who said he was a lobbyist talk about President Obama and The State Of The Union Address. I got a nice escape from NFL matters for a while (not that I wanted to escape NFL people). It was for that reason I was totally surprised at what happened later that evening. I waited for a cab the hotel called for me (no, I didn't use Uber that time deliberately and Lyft wasn't available in the area) and upon walking to it, realized that it was for someone else. But the nice older man insisted I share his cab with him, and so I did. That older man wanted to talk about the day's events, and I realized he was part of the same crew of people who walked into the hotel with Rams Owner Stan Kronke just 25 minutes before, so I listened. He talked about various aspects of the deal and how instrumental Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones was in pushing Kronke's stadium to the NFL, even asserting that some of the luxury boxes could go as high as $1 million and still sell out (I have to see that to believe it will happen on a consistent basis, but I digress.) He also told me that the stadium financing would be a private placement bond issue and not involve a public bond issue – if that's the case, it will be the largest private placement ever done for a sports facility in America, if not the World. Regarding the Raiders, the man also said that it would cost Mark Davis $1 billion to come in with Kronke – in other words, and contrary to media reports implying that the Raiders could just fly down to LA and join Stan if it didn't secure a stadium deal in Oakland without paying a dime from a $550 million relocation fee, the cost went up to $1 billion. “Mark Davis can't afford that,” he said. I think, more to the point, the Oakland Raiders can't afford that, and even more interesting is the apparent fact that neither Kronke nor the NFL is going to let a man who some in the league want to sell the poorly-performing business of the Silver and Black, just come into the LA Market for free. No way, Jose.
via YouTube http://youtu.be/EyUN4F9sopA