James Butts, mayor of Inglewood, Calif., made some delayed headlines this week when he made comments upon his re-election about a forthcoming meeting with Rams owner Stan Kroenke were discovered. Inglewood is an area in which Kroenke owns a 60-acre parcel of land where a stadium could be constructed.
Butts, reached via email this weekend, declined to confirm whether that meeting with Kroenke took place, but wrote that he has discussed possible relocation with "three NFL owners" over "the past three years."
League sources said the Rams and Raiders are among the teams he has spoken with. Both of those teams, as first reported by CBS last month, have been engaged in active discussions with various entities in Los Angeles about a possible relocation as soon as 2015. And both have a desire to move that is being tempered by the league's direct oversight of this process.
The Rams and Raiders have leases that expire after the season and Kroenke's purchase of that land has made the Rams a front-runner to move there. While Missouri is making efforts to keep the team and has been working on securing a new stadium with Gov. Jay Nixon announcing a task force last week, multiple league sources -- many with direct knowledge of the inner workings of the powerful stadium and finance committee -- continue to point to the Rams and Raiders as the top candidates to end up in Los Angeles, possibly by next season.
Butts declined a request for a telephone interview at this point, stating, "There is nothing to talk about until 24 of the 32 owners decide to allow a franchise to move." Butts also declined to speak to any specifics regarding his dealings with Kroenke. "I would not disclose any details regarding or discussions regarding the NFL," he wrote.
In addition to his interactions with owners, however, Butts pointed out that roughly half a dozen "heavily financed development consortiums" have reached out to him as well about potential stadium projects around the Hollywood Park/LA Forum area, which he represents.
While the Hollywood Park parcel is not the most preferred NFL site -- Chavez Ravine around Dodgers Stadium, for one, has continued to pique interest -- it is certainly under consideration, and Butts made note of the area's considerable infrastructure with access to four freeways, its proximity to LAX airport, the ongoing development projects and the area's ability to handle a heavy traffic load, with as many as 50,000 patrons taking in events at the racetrack and the Forum for combined events in the past.
"It is my opinion that Inglewood is an ideal site for a football team to relocate to," he wrote.
If a team is going to relocate to LA by 2015 -- and play on an interim basis in the Rose Bowl -- then it would have to officially state its intent by mid-February. Any move would be subject to sufficient votes as well as a steep relocation fee. Sources continue to say, if the matter ever did come to a vote it would absolutely pass, the stadium and finance committees -- which comprise 15 votes in an of themselves -- would have already signed off on it before it even came before the general assembly for a vote.
