LA In Name Only
Did Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti flunk geography while he attended elementary school? It seems Garcetti does not realize he is just the mayor of Los Angeles and not Carson nor Inglewood which are separate entities in the Los Angeles market. On the Dan Patrick Show, Garcetti made a headshaking statement about the market picking up two National Football League teams through relocation. “We embrace any team that comes,” Garcetti said. “We’re certainly happy to have the Chargers in L.A., but I think we could have been happy with just the (Rams).” Here is the problem with the statement from both the city of Los Angeles and Garcetti’s viewpoint. The city of Los Angeles is getting nothing from having the Spanos family Chargers in the market. The Spanos family team will never play a game in LA, as games are played in Carson and training camp was in Costa Mesa. Stan Kroenke’s Rams are passing through Los Angeles playing four seasons at the Coliseum before settling in Inglewood in 2020. Kroenke’s Rams are not training in LA either so Garcetti and LA will get no money from the two NFL teams after 2019. In fact, Garcetti is losing an LA based business, the NFL Network which is moving from LA to Inglewood once Kroenke’s building is up and going. What LA will get is perhaps some people renting a few hotel rooms for games and car exhaust from people driving through LA into Inglewood
Garcetti pushed for LA to host the Olympics but LA might not have the Opening Ceremonies in 2028 because Kroenke’s stadium will be state of the art and the Coliseum will be around a century old. Garcetti is also facing the prospect of losing the LA-based Clippers to Inglewood which is a separate entity. Los Angeles is a big market but Garcetti is just LA’s mayor that’s all.
Stan Kroenke has the name Los Angeles as part of his team but his franchise will be in Inglewood
