LA Chargers? It’s still a dream - Ingles

Is it too soon to start calling them the Los Angeles Chargers?

It is, according to Mark Fabiani, special counsel for the San Diego Chargers, in charge of spearheading the team's continuing efforts to secure a new football stadium.

Some media are leaping to conclusions after the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously this week to endorse a tentative framework agreement with Anschutz Entertainment Group, a private developer that wants to build an NFL stadium in downtown LA.

But Fabiani said this development was expected and emphasized the project "still has a long way to go before it is approved and financed, and before it survives the gauntlet of environmental lawsuits and possible citizen ballot challenges it could face."

Asked which team he thought was the frontrunner to play in LA, Fabiani told the San Diego Union-Tribune it's too early to speculate.

"There are so many unknowns," said Fabiani, a Harvard-educated lawyer who once served four years as L.A. 's deputy mayor and also as former mayor Tom Bradley's chief of staff. "Is the NFL going to demand a $500 million relocation fee? Will EIR (Environmental Impact Report) lawsuits or a potential citizen-sponsored, anti-stadium referendum fatally delay a project?

"What are the economics of financing this kind of deal privately in such perilous economic times? Assuming that AEG wants to buy a majority stake in a team, as recent press reports have indicated, is there an existing NFL owner interested both in selling his team to AEG at a price AEG is willing to pay and then watching as his former team is moved out of town?

"As we all know, Ed Roski has had a shovel-ready stadium project (in the City of Industry) since 2008 and has been unable so far to move forward – proving, I think, that these projects are much, much harder to pull off than most observers understand."

Obviously, there are a lot of obstacles to the Chargers packing up and moving back to LA, where the franchise was born in 1960 as an American Football League franchise. In addition to the potential hurdles Fabiani cited, the Chargers would need a temporary stadium to play in because a downtown stadium wouldn't be ready until 2016. Would USC allow them to play at the Coliseum? Would the City of Pasadena welcome them at the Rose Bowl as a temporary tenant?

The Chargers are open to selling a minority interest in the team, so that shouldn't be a problem if it is a condition in a particular stadium project. (source Orange County Register)