Which has exactly zero to do with anything.

The extra money was there if they had only applied for it. It’s the difference between applying for a loan and trying to get the bank’s money by going up to a teller with your ATM card.

Makes sense - they can study fan traffic patterns for two seasons, shake the factory dust off the place before holding their marquee event.

I remember this came up with the 49ers stadium, which opened before last season. This is the first year they were eligible to host the Super Bowl.

Yeah, this is a win for LA, a win for the developer and a win for those of us who hate subsidizing billionaires.

I think that’s *exactly* what’s going to happen (except the Coliseum).

St. Louis will probably play in the Coliseum for three years.

The Chargers haven’t committed to moving; they may well be back in San Diego next fall, but it won’t be as a lame duck.

It is a good thing. Let the billionaire write the check. Especially if it causes the next city, just one city, to reconsider throwing public money at a stadium.

Or when St. Louis lured the Rams from LA in the first place?

They offered up a plan, but couldn’t put the financing together. They offered a pretty shady end-around the law requiring a public vote, which has sparked the threat of lawsuits. And the state legislature has been talking about pulling the state money the governor allocated.

Nope. He’s willing to pay for almost all of it himself, as part of a gazillion-dollar development that includes residences, retail, a new studio for the NFL Network and a West Coast annex of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Do you mean San Diego?

Not if they think they can make more from a second team in the Bay Area than the only team in St. Louis.

Would’ve helped if Peacock & Co. had actually come up with financing, instead of trying to guilt the NFL into spending an extra $100M to plug the hole. Billion-dollar corporations don’t feel any sense of guilt.

2020, actually. The stadium won’t open until 2019 and NFL rules don’t allow a stadium to host in its first year. Got to give it a test run and all that.

Indeed. Sucks for St. Louis, but this is a win overall.

Need? No. But it was never a question of need - the city was contractually obligated to rebuild it for the Rams.

And the Rams’ lease required St. Louis to keep up with all those new stadiums, which is why the 1995 deal was so colossally bad for the city.

It wasn’t just “state of the art” - the lease called for St. Louis to keep the Dome in the top 25% among NFL stadiums in fifteen categories, from concessions to number of suites to locker rooms and team facilities.

Agreed. And that’s a perfectly easy fix.

Not really.

It’s worth pointing out here that Stan Kroenke wants to finance the new LA stadium himself. No public financing.