With the NFL exploring possibilities for a temporary venue in Los Angeles, it appears the Rose Bowl is no longer in the running. According to Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times, the Rose Bowl Operating Co. voted 11-0 on Wednesday not to respond to a request for a proposal from the NFL.
The league recently issued proposal requests to a handful of venues in the Los Angeles area, including the Coliseum, Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium, and StubHub Center. As the idea of relocating a franchise to L.A. for the 2016 season gathers momentum, the NFL wants to get an idea of what venues might work as a temporary home for one or two L.A. teams, since any new stadium wouldn’t be ready until at least 2018.
According to Farmer, the RBOC decided that it would be “more productive and lucrative” for the Rose Bowl to pursue a music and arts festival which would take place each year in June. The event wouldn’t overlap with the NFL season, but an environmental impact report for the proposed Arroyo Seco Music and Arts Festival specifically prohibits the stadium from playing host to an NFL team. Although the venue could make a larger per-year profit by playing host to an NFL franchise, that would only last for two or three seasons, whereas the venue could secure the arts festival on a 20-year contract.
“The distraction that the NFL question poses at this time could take away from our collective efforts as a city to realize a music and arts festival,” RBOC president Victor Gordo said. “What you saw from the board [on Wednesday] is we don’t want that distraction.”
The NFL is hoping to receive proposals from interested Los Angeles venues in time for its August meeting on the L.A. situation.
It’s not only just about a potential arts/music festival, though that’s what I think a lot of cynics want to believe.
There is still a lot of ill will towards the NFL here that the league has either been unwilling or unable to dispel following what happened in 1995, when the Rams moved to St. Louis, the Raiders back to Oakland, and nothing else was put in its place but a bunch of leverage moves. The league continues to lack credibility because of all this; and until they stop this game of leverage and putting out merely “requests for proposal” without something in writing, they will not find much love in the nation’s second biggest media market, in my opinion.