Oakland Raiders Relocation Proposal Gains 14,000 Signatures in Carson

When Carson, California was announced as the potential Los Angeles suburb to house not just one, but two NFL franchises the announcement was met with plenty of excitement in Southern California as the area of LA that already houses the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer were reportedly ready to bring in professional football to the city for the first time since the Raiders left in the mid-90’s. That excitement was confirmed with the initiative signatures that came in last week with the majority of Carson residents wanting to see the proposal become a reality to bring NFL football into the community.

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14,000 signatures were signed in support of the project as part of a ballot initiative supported by the Chargers and Raiders to gauge the interest in Carson to build a stadium in the community that would likely house two NFL franchises for 16 games during the course of a typical NFL regular season. A strong show of support indicating that the residents of Carson are mostly on board with the idea of getting a stadium in the area for the NFL to occupy.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the 14,000 signatures took just eight days to acquire. Far quicker than the stadium group projected it would take as the petition drive was slated to run to mid-April before reaching their goal just past mid-March nearly one month ahead of schedule. With the signatures in hand, the Carson City Council will now have to address the issue as it qualifies for consideration with double the required signatures needed for city council to address the matter.

From the Los Angeles Times

"The plan to build a $1.7-billion stadium for the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders in Carson moved ahead Saturday as backers collected more than 14,000 signatures in support of a ballot initiative for the project.Organizers of the petition drive, bankrolled by the Chargers and Raiders, originally expected it to last until mid-April. Instead, they needed just eight days.“The signature-gathering effort, which moved forward at an unusually rapid pace, revealed an extremely high level of support for the stadium project in Carson,” said Mark Fabiani, point man on stadium issues for the Chargers.The signatures, about twice as many needed to qualify the initiative for a public vote or consideration by the Carson City Council, continued the quickening pace of the competition to return the National Football League to the Los Angeles area."

Carson still have plenty of hurdles in the Los Angeles race between various proposal groups to get a stadium, including in Inglewood where the St. Louis Rams could potentially relocate. At maximum the NFL wants two teams in the market, preferably in one venue, so there is likely only going to be one winner when it comes to who gets the stadium for the league to move into which hinders Carson’s likelihood of success if the Rams beat out the joint proposal of the Raiders/Chargers to move into Inglewood.

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Another factor is the complexity of trying to bring in both the Chargers and the Raiders into a proposed Carson stadium that would have 16 NFL games in a season compared to just eight under a normal setup. Both San Diego as well as Oakland could remain in their prospective cities and one team finding a deal to stay in their current Californian home would potentially nix that said deal, particularly with Oakland as owner Mark Davis still wants to pursue all of his options with the city before committing to any relocation opportunities beyond the Bay Area.

Still the 14,000 signatures show that the suburb of Los Angeles is committed to the idea of making NFL football happen in the market by housing two teams in one home if the Raiders/Chargers are interested after not finding new stadiums in their current cities. It is still a longshot, but as a willing party the Carson stadium group have as good of a chance as any in Southern California of being the winners of the LA NFL Relocation Sweepstakes at the end of what has been a long journey of plenty of promising proposals that have never resulted in a franchise coming to the city. Now with interested parties and an interested league, Carson awaits what could be a stadium project that would change the NFL landscape in California significantly if they do end up achieving their dream of bringing both the Raiders and Chargers to Los Angeles.

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