Report: NFL Will Move a Football Team to LA Within Two Years

Perhaps we've figured out why LA Live owner AEG keeps limping along with its half-buried plans to build an NFL stadium in South Park: sources in the NFL are now saying the league "will send one or two teams back to Los Angeles within the next 12 to 24 months," according to NBC Sports. But AEG might want to check themselves—radio show 101ESPN (via Epoch Times) hears that the St. Louis Rams are definitely moving to Los Angeles and will announce the news after the Super Bowl in February. Rams owner Stan Kroenke recently bought a 60-acre site in Inglewood that could make for a fine NFL stadium, so that story is buyable. But! The NFL is also trying to get Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis to sell his team (possibly to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison!), which could create a path for the Raiders to move into AEG's Downtown stadium. Ok, still with us?

The NBC report says a football team would probably announce its intention to move "in the 2015 or 2016 offseason, with arrangements to play at the Rose Bowl or the L.A. Coliseum pending the construction of a new stadium." Besides South Park and Inglewood, Chavez Ravine (home of Dodger Stadium) is also in the mix, as well as "a couple of locations that have not yet been publicly disclosed." (That lame Industry stadium plan "is not regarded as a viable destination.) And besides the Rams and the Raiders, the San Diego Chargers are on the short-list of teams that could move (back) to LA. The Chargers played in LA briefly in 1960; the Rams and the Raiders both left exactly 20 years ago.

All the new NFL-to-LA buzz arrives just as outrage crescendoes over reports about the widespread and horrible brain damage suffered by players and the possibly disingenuous handling of player Ray Rice's spousal abuse case.
· NFL believes it's 12-24 months away from a return to L.A. [NBC Sports]
· St. Louis Rams Rumors: Relocation to Los Angeles is a Done Deal, Will be Announced After Super Bowl [Epoch Times]
· LA Might Drag Out Dead Attempt to Get NFL to Downtown [Curbed LA]
· Confirmed: The Owner of the St. Louis Rams Just Bought a Potential NFL Stadium Site in Inglewood [Curbed LA]