IRVING, Texas • Two influential National Football League owners said Tuesday that they expected and hoped owners would vote in January on moving a team to Los Angeles.
Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt called it a likelihood.
“It’s important to have a deadline and make a decision,†Hunt said.
“This needs to get done,†said New York Giants owner John Mara. “You can’t go too much longer than that and be ready to play a season in 2016 in a different place.â€
Both Hunt and Mara are members of the NFL’s Committee on Los Angeles Opportunities, which is vetting competing L.A. stadium plans and may make a recommendation to the full ownership soon.
Yes, Mara said, some owners have said that such a vote — which could move the St. Louis Rams to the L.A. area — might be delayed until this spring. But he didn’t expect most to want that.
People are also reading…
“My sense is that more people support getting it done sooner,†he said in the hallways of the Four Seasons hotel, site of the December owners meeting.
NFL team owners began arriving Tuesday with their eyes on Los Angeles, even as St. Louis officials labored at home to lock down plans for a new riverfront stadium.
Owner committees, including the six-man L.A. committee, met Tuesday afternoon.
The full ownership meets Wednesday and has set aside the afternoon to discuss L.A.
• UPDATE
Owners wouldn’t discuss specifics as they left the L.A. committee. They said they were focused on key points of the current competing stadium construction proposals — both in Los Angeles and in team hometowns — hoping to pin down “uncertainties.â€
“I think there’s a lot of information to be digested,†Hunt said.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who has proposed moving his team to Inglewood, Calif., attended part of the committee meeting and answered questions from owners. San Diego Chargers owner Dean Spanos, who has a competing proposal to build a stadium in Carson, Calif., also attended. It was not clear if Spanos’ stadium proposal partner, Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis, was in the meeting.
Some involved in the process have called it a critical week. Owners, while unlikely to vote on relocation this week, are forming their opinions and could schedule a vote for January.
“This thing is reaching its crescendo,†Dave Peacock, co-chairman of Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon’s St. Louis stadium task force, said Tuesday morning. “The flurry,†he continued, “is happening now.â€
Moreover, relocation rhetoric has recently shifted. Some owners have suggested — or declared outright — that they would not approve a team’s move to L.A. if that team’s hometown was still working on a viable stadium proposal. Some league and team staff members have, in private conversations, also begun to acknowledge such possibilities.
“We’re being taken more seriously,†Peacock said.
All of this could set the stage for a tough — and uncertain — vote come January.
Mara, the Giants owner, said Tuesday that he hoped for a solution for all three cities — Oakland, San Diego and St. Louis. But that, too, could be tough.
“I don’t know if that’s possible,†he said. “My sense is that one or two of them are going to be disappointed at the end of the day. Or maybe all three, I don’t know.â€
“I don’t anticipate it being an easy vote, let’s put it that way,†he continued. “There could be a lot of negotiations going on.â€
“I tell you this, anybody that tells you that they know what’s going to happen is misleading you,†he concluded. “Because I’ve been in every meeting, been on this committee since it started, and there’s still a lot of questions to be answered.â€
The sooner St. Louis can pin down all of its stadium proposal details, the better, Mara said.
But the NFL still has a few nagging concerns about St. Louis financing and timing.
League officials think the St. Louis stadium could be more expensive than expected and worry that Nixon’s task force isn’t prepared for cost overruns.
Some owners also don’t like the task force plan to use stadium naming rights proceeds as a source of bond funding. Nor do some think the team — if spending $200 million on a new stadium — should have to also pay a tax on ticket sales.
Finally, the St. Louis city funding package — the last unresolved piece of Nixon’s proposal — was supposed to be done last month. It is now, instead, stuck in the city Board of Aldermen’s Ways & Means Committee. The eight committee members have held three public forums but have yet to pass the bill.
For the bill to stand a chance of passage, an alderman needs to amend the legislation to add the city’s proposed minority participation guidelines.
The board goes on winter break Dec. 11. If the committee doesn’t vote this week, the bill won’t be approved until after the board gets back in session Jan. 8.