As the NFL planets align in an effort to drop a team or two into the L.A. solar system, a major figure in the high-stakes game of musical chairs will be at the table.
Disney CEO Robert Iger, whose ESPN subsidiary pays the NFL more than $2 billion per year for Monday Night Football and a wild-card playoff game, will attend next week’s meeting in Houston, according to Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal.
Iger has agreed to help the Chargers and Raiders secure approval to share a new stadium in Carson in a deal that gives him the ability to eventually purchase a minority stake in one of the two teams. But the Raiders largely have become a forgotten player in what has become a two-team showdown between the Chargers and Rams, with no one currently having the 24 votes necessary to secure official approval to move.
The fact that Iger will attend doesn’t mean that it will be Chargers and Raiders or neither moving to L.A. Anything can happen next week, and the only thing that anyone should expect at this point is an outcome that would be regarded as unexpected.
At some point before the Houston meeting occurs, we’ll dust off our list of possible outcomes and maybe add a few more. No matter how many possibilities are brainstormed, there’s a chance that the final result will be something no one saw coming.