L.A. stadium workers want to break ground without a team - Ingles

Are the stadium-fatigued Chargers schlepping to L.A. any time soon, soon meaning next year? Answer: There’s a better chance of jihad in Vatican City.

Here’s the latest, now that the Hollywood stars have entertained yet another media gathering with hyperbolic tinsel tentacles that have a way of wrapping themselves around San Diegans’ necks like a giant squid.

It was fascinating last week to see Southern California’s two new-stadium point men, Mark Fabiani and Tim Leiweke, getting into a urinating contest.

Leiweke, spearheading the downtown L.A. stadium project for AEG billionaire Philip Anschutz, announced a shovel will be in the ground by June of next year.

This sent Chargers general counsel Fabiani, who’s been trying to get a stadium built here for a decade, scurrying for his Bible. He said it would take a “miracle” along the lines of “loaves and fishes” to get the L.A. project under way by June.

“What else am I supposed to say? It’s the truth,” Fabiani — whose team has a window to get out of its sweetheart lease with bungling City Hall from Feb. 1 through May every year up through 2020 — said Thursday.

After Fabiani’s biblical references, Leiweke came back in the L.A. Times and said: “They’ve been doing it for 10 years (in San Diego) and they’re nowhere. And the difference between us and them is we’ve got a guy (Anschutz) willing to write a check for a billion. They’ve got zero financing, zero entitlements, zero design (architects are due here soon), zero deal with the city and zero property that ultimately is not contaminated. Good luck.”

Good luck for both sides.

Here’s what the L.A. people must get done for June bulldozing, and please realize that, while L.A. is in a hurry, the NFL, which had done without an L.A. stadium for 15 years, is not:

There will have to be many, many more meetings and agreements on L.A.’s downtown stadium project. There will be an environmental impact report that has to be studied and approved. In that this is California, there probably will be litigation to overcome, possibly a referendum. They have to go to the NFL to get approval for a franchise move, agree on a monster relocation fee, assurances for future Super Bowls, and new NFL money to help build the stadium. The NFL will ask: Which team is it?

And they won’t be able to say, because they won’t have a team. No team, no stadium, no NFL help. The League isn’t giving stadium money to cities without franchises.

“Getting all that done by June,” Fabiani reiterated, “would take a miracle.”

Here’s what I’ve heard about AEG’s demands on any team that moves to L.A. The company wants a share of stadium revenue — splits on suites, club seats, advertising, naming rights, etc. No surprise. The stadium has to be paid for some way. But here’s the kicker. AEG wants to own 49 percent of the club — also no surprise — but at the discounted price of 50 cents on the dollar.

One would presume that’s negotiable, because no NFL owner in his right mind — and I’ve always found Chargers boss Dean Spanos to be of sound business mind and body — is going to buy that. Not when you understand the new CBA assures labor peace for 10 years and revenues and the value of franchises are expected to rise dramatically.

“I don’t want to get into that at all,” Fabiani said. “But it’s safe to say that Ed Roski tried to do the same thing three years ago with his City of Industry project and it didn’t work. And Roski is the only guy who has everything in place, ready to go, but he needs a team to stick a shovel in the ground.”

The Chargers could leave after this season, move north and play football in the Rose Bowl until a new stadium is completed. But there are no guarantees one will be built. If somebody sues, and it’s bound to happen, a team could be playing in a 90-year-old stadium without any bells and whistles for years in an area that already has lost two NFL franchises.

“Absolutely right,” Fabiani says. “There’s a risk. There could be no leverage. You could be stuck.”

I know there are some developers who have worked downtown L.A. who see AEG’s plan as smoke and mirrors. It’s going to be a hard thing to do and the NFL isn’t going to rubber stamp the deal. It certainly won’t agree unless a team is committed and the deal is 100 percent in granite. And no franchise will commit until it sees that granite.

Maybe the Chargers will leave one day. Who knows? Qualcomm Stadium is a mess and they can’t play there forever. Meanwhile, San Diego’s people are bringing in architects and are getting a firm to work on naming rights for a downtown entertainment district, hoping the new convention expansion won’t fly (and if you see the plans, it shouldn’t; another waste of money).

“Until you satisfy NFL owners and guidelines, you’ve got nothing, and that’s the truth,” Fabiani said. “We have what no one else in the process has — a team.”

San Diego’s. For now.

This article was written by Nick Canepa and appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune.