Relocation of convention center presents another obstacle for L.A. stadium

As the folks at AEG try desperately to generate real momentum for a stadium project that eventually could disappear slowly into the La Brea Tar Pits, another twist has emerged.

Per the Associated Press, debt arising from the relocation of the Los Angeles Convention Center, a portion of which resides where the downtown stadium would be built, can be paid only partially by public money.  AEG wants the city to issue roughly $350 million in bonds, which would pay for the relocation of the West Hall of the Convention Center.

Los Angeles officials believe that roughly half of the debt arising from the bonds would have to be paid by private funds, according to city rules.  In other words, the money would have to come from an entity like, for example, AEG.

AEG hopes to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding, which would establish the framework of the deal, with the L.A. City Council by July 31, in order to keep the project on track for a planned opening in 2016.

30 responses to “Relocation of convention center presents another obstacle for L.A. stadium

  1. Let’s just look at it as one gigantic TARP transaction, and get this moved through. What is the hangup, people?

  2. Great, more news about Nfl to LA. The worst of all of this is that they don’t have a f***ing stadium yet so we are gonna have hear about this for the nxt 5 years. Unreal!!

  3. All of those butchers from Omaha milling about in Bermuda shorts and floral shirts with identity cards hanging from their necks wondering where to go.

    “Hi, I’m Larry”
    “WTF is the Convention Centre?”

  4. I hate not having a home team here in LA. I also don’t think that the AEG proposal is the right answer.
    There is no other town where talk is cheaper than here in LA. Yes, you will hear this crap for a few more years before anything gets close to being done.

    Unfortunately the only pro football we have here is USC.

  5. That’s not a Problem! The only thing worth going to @ the Convention Center is the “Dub Auto Show” when we can pull Comic Con away from SD. Call Me!

    A stadium will happen, the only thing now is who will be playing in the best in the NFL.

    Tear it down build the stadium, mix in the Convention Center with the stadium. Done Deal!

    Nexxxtttt!!!

  6. I doubt many would complain if they just paved LA over, build all the stadia they wanted, and rebuilt around them.

  7. @Money mike. Then just don’t reply, read and close the tab or when watching tv switch the “”f***ing” channel. Unreal!!

  8. A lot of people are gonna be mad when LA wins a Superbowl before their sub-par teams who have will and who have done nothing for the past 20-30 years. Easy to beat up on a city who don’t care about you or your trailer.

    Bring the NFL back to LA.

  9. The NFL doesn’t need LA, and LA doesn’t need it’s own team. Also, the bay area doesn’t need 2 teams. If you’re going to move a team, move the raiders back to LA. Al davis moved to Oakland because LA wouldn’t build a stadium and oakland said they would. Well, oakland still hasn’t and a stadium is almost a sure thing now in LA.

  10. Sorry to burst your LA bashing bubble, but the last thing the NFL wants are generations of a 3.5 million populace not giving a crap about pro football.

    In reality, LA doesn’t need the NFL. There is sunshine 300 days a year and a beach to hang at 24/7. So why would we want to spend our Sundays on the couch watching the same commercials in between some helmet smashing?

  11. moneymike23 says:
    Jun 19, 2011 11:36 PM
    Great, more news about Nfl to LA. The worst of all of this is that they don’t have a f***ing stadium yet so we are gonna have hear about this for the nxt 5 years. Unreal!!
    ==================

    You see, Mike, that is why all articles on here come complete with these things called “headlines”. These “headlines” tell you what the article is about.

    If the “headline” indicates subject matter you don’t care about or are annoyed by, you simply skip down to the next one.

    See how simple that is?

  12. @ dannymac

    You just summed up everything we always believed about the city of LA and it’s people.

    The more I think about in your city of posers it will not be hard for you to jump on the band wagon since you had been a fan of your team for 8-9 days.

    NFL would be stupid to not move multiple teams from current locations to you and your cast mates. Good Luck Danny,,,,,,may you continue to be a spokesman for the LA move.

  13. seals1 says:
    Jun 20, 2011 9:45 AM
    @ dannymac

    You just summed up everything we always believed about the city of LA and it’s people.

    The more I think about in your city of posers it will not be hard for you to jump on the band wagon since you had been a fan of your team for 8-9 days.

    ————————————————————-

    Truly spoken like some who has no clue of L.A.

    The Dodgers and Lakers have done great here for what, 50 years each(?), and UCLA and USC football both play in 100,000+ stadiums and sell tons of tickets and gear.

    All the talk about L.A. not supporting teams is blather.

  14. Not to bring anyone down, but hasn’t LA had multiple chances to hold an NFL Franchise and has failed each time?

    As far as which team to move there, to me it is simple: if you can’t sell out games and are subject to multiple home blackouts, you are on the list…

    Otherwise, there is no sense in moving a franchise to a city where it has failed previously more than once, regardless of cause.

    Look at a once proud-franchise in the Dodgers. First sign of turmoil and the fans jump ship entirely.

    Yeah, let’s partner with that fanbase…

  15. @ jimmysee

    I guess I can only draw from the fact LA already had 2 nfl teams since I started watching football that both left.

    Settle down you LA brats,,,,,,,,,you will get your NFL team. Now go tweet your picture wearing your 2 hour old jersey. That’s right Jimmy- you don’t know who your favorite team is yet,,,,,,,,you will have to wait for that tweet.

  16. That’s funny how most of you just hear Los Angeles on the Headlines and are ready to jump the gun and start bashing tsk tsk tsk. I’ll just go outside and enjoy my weather and go hang out at the beach jajajajaj, and wait for the lock out to be lifted..

  17. eals1 says:
    Jun 20, 2011 10:45 AM
    @ jimmysee

    I guess I can only draw from the fact LA already had 2 nfl teams since I started watching football that both left.

    Settle down you LA brats,,,,,,,,,you will get your NFL team. Now go tweet your picture wearing your 2 hour old jersey. That’s right Jimmy- you don’t know who your favorite team is yet,,,,,,,,you will have to wait for that tweet.

    ————————————————————-

    You can stop pointing that knarley finger at me, thanks.

    I know who m favorite team is — the Packers — I’m a stockholder.

    And don’t let the facts get in your way — the Raiders left because Al David thought he’d be getting a new stadium in Oakland. They drew great and still have a huge following down here.

    The Rams left because the team was greedy and was offered a pile of money in St. Louis after the Cardinals jumped ship for AZ. They had been playing doewn in Anaheim in the Angeles stadium and were drawing great. At the time, seating capacity was way bigger than it is now — after the Rame left, Disney reconfigured the stadium so it was better suited for baseball.

    Games were not blacked out in SoCal.

  18. For 2 franchises to leave the second biggest market at the same time something was obviously wrong. Aeg said that buying out an existing NFL teams lease is no problem but wants tax payers to pay 350 million for the relocation of the West Hall of the Convention Center?

  19. Ho Ho Ho !!!!!!!!

    AEG wants the city to float PUBLIC bonds for this?!?!? Another article I read said it was to be private bonds.

    Here’s a clue — the government can’t sell any bonds. Bill Gross the head of PIMCO, the largest investors of bonds in the world – 750 Billion dollars worth (3/4’s of a trillion dollars) announced earlier this year that they had sold ALL their US government bonds. In fact, the Fed’s recent “Quantitative Easing” Policy was a fancy way of saying that the Fed was buying up government bends because no one else was….and they did it by printing money (devaluation of the US dollar will be here by 2014 at the latest….and boy are you kids going to be surprised what happens then!).

    This is great….float bonds to pay investors interest rates well below inflation to build a football stadium with no team committed to coming there. Here’s a word for you kids — “default”. Call a bond dealer and find out what that means.

    This LA thing ZERO chance of happening.

    And to the guy that called me names last night saying a team was going into LA shortly — that’s what everyone said 15 years ago when the Rams and Raiders left. If the NFL was committed to putting a team in the area they would have put their money where their mouth is and done it years ago. This is a dead story.

    The NFL wants public funds to bring a team into the area, and people in the LA area could care less about using what money they have for that. It’s like a family being broke, two kids have quit school to work and the mother, father and kids are each working 2-3 jobs to stay afloat. Then some guys come along trying to get them to take on a loan to buy a boat and a vacation home because they can use it 8 times a year….if they have the money for a PSL.

    Ho Ho Ho !!!!!!!!!

    My generation used to wonder how people like Kim Kardasian could become popular when she has zip talent in anything other than mooching.

    Why don’t you kids ask Kim Kardasian to raise the money for the stadium?

    There is ZERO chance of an NFL team going into LA anytime soon, and the overwhelming majority of people living in the area culd care less.

  20. Sorry to bring up FACTS……

    Al Davis sold all seats in LA. The reason he left and went back to Oakland was due to the LA city council playing politics with the corporate suites they had agreed to build for him when he moved the team down to LA. The corporate suites would have been a big source of revenue, but the city never built them.

    He did NOT go back to Oakland because they agreed to build him a new stadium, he went back because Oakland agreed to renovate the Coliseum to be more football friendly, including putting in corporate suites. Oakland did, and now the A’s want to leave because it is a park contoured to watch football in, not baseball.

  21. We do get a lot of know-nothings prattling on around here about Los Angeles as a sports town.

    Even back into the 30’s the Pacific Coast League Los Angeles Angels and Hollywood Star both drew well at old Wrigley Field.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Field_(Los_Angeles)

    These days, USC, UCLA, Dodgers, Lakers, Clippers (!) and even the soccer teams draw well.

    If you repeat a lie often enough, it still is not the truth.

  22. jimmysee,

    LA is one of the top sports markets in the country. Everyone in the business knows it.

    As I wrote last night — the NFL has been using the threat to move, and even moving, if the locals don’t use tax dollars to build them stadiums and grant them tax breaks. It’s silly because most of the jobs they create for the people of the area are minimum wage service type jobs that are only good for 8 days a year. The high paying jobs — players, coaches, front office, etc. pretty much come from people out of the area moving in.

    LA has stood up to these people, telling them that if they want to make money in the 2nd biggest market in the country then they can build their own facilities. If other cities around the country had done this, perhaps they wouldn’t be broke.

    Like most people in LA I love the NFL. But I want my tax dollars used for police, fire, transportation, roads, schools and other necessities of my daily life. I don’t need to compromise those necessities because some billionaires want to make a fortune of of me by putting in a stinking football team.

    Burger King doesn’t ask for free land and money to locate restaurants in LA. Bars don’t ask for these favors. If he NFL can’t afford to open up a business in the 2nd largest market in the country, then it’s on them. The locals have lived fine without their product for 15 years. A was a great college football town ging back to the 1920’s. People can get by with USC and UCLA on Saturdays. It’s no big deal.

  23. This is something that needs to be done. Our convention center is pathetic. It’s sad that we lose a lot of conventions to Long Beach. Nothing wrong with Long Beach, but there’s really nothing there that should cause a world class city like Los Angeles to lose conventions to them. The revenue that we would gain from a new convention center would more than pay for the costs within a few years.

  24. I’ll never understand the animosity towards L.A. on this board. LA is a big city with a lot of football fans, what do you guys care if a struggling franchise relocates to LA? It’s such a stupid argument to say that the city doesn’t deserve a team because they couldn’t support a franchise. I love how people who have never been to LA like to throw out cliches about what people in LA are like. The truth is that LA is a massive city with all kinds of people in it, hundreds of thousands of which happen to be NFL fans. Grow up and stop hating for the sake of hating.

  25. L.A. is a $hi&Hole! Trust me – I lived there and now live in San Diego which is paradise compared to almost everywhere-BUT especially L.A.!
    Santa Monica is nice I guess, but-
    Ever been to an L.A. sporting event? It aint a wine and cheese party..You may as well be in a third world country. You see what Dodgers fans did to that poor guy from San Fran. Multiply that by 10 at an NFL game. L.A. Sucks!

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