Inglewood City Council gives NFL Stadium go ahead

The Inglewood city council unanimously approved the building of an NFL stadium on the site of the old Hollywood Park Casino Tuesday evening.

The land is owned by Stockbridge Capital, of which Rams owner Stan Kroenke is a part. They had begun clearing ground on the site just two weeks ago and were moving quickly toward gaining approval to build a new NFL stadium on the site.

And the race began.

A week ago, the Raiders and Chargers - no doubt in response to Kroenke moving full speed ahead on getting his LA stadium built - became unlikely bedfellows by going in together to purchase a plot of land in nearby Carson on which they intend to build a stadium for the two teams to share.

For the Raiders and Chargers part, moving to LA is contingent upon their hopes for getting a stadium built in Oakland and San Diego respectively. What they can't let happen is Kroenke to have complete control of the LA interests and thus giving them no options to move.

Kroenke on the other hand doesn't appear to care about what St Louis does to try and keep him. He is going forward on his plans to move to LA. And now he has unanimous approval from the Inglewood City Council to do it.

What this accomplishes is two-fold; It keeps it off the ballot which would have put it in the voters' hands and since that vote wouldn't happen until June, not relying on it means plans can move forward without delay. Inglewood Mayor James Butts told Vincent Bonsignore that construction will be underway by the end of the year.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts tells me construction will begin no later than December, with or without the #Rams officially relocating #NFL

— Vincent Bonsignore (@DailyNewsVinny) February 25, 2015

While the Raiders and Chargers continue to struggle with their current cities to move forward with anything, leading to the Raiders this week putting a 30-day deadline for progress to be made or they would cut off talks.

What Raiders and Chargers fans must understand is that regardless of whether either team moves to LA, they need the looming threat of such a move to keep a fire under the feet of the city council to get something going.

Without that fire, the city council would just as well sit back in a power position and play politics while the two teams play in the two oldest stadiums in the NFL.

They can't all three move there. So, someone has either got to get something done to stay in their current city or one of them is getting screwed.

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