AEG has announced it will not build an NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles, following moves by two groups that put forward competing stadium plans this year for suburbs of the city.
AEG, which launched its effort to build a stadium in 2010, has made the announcement ahead of an April 17 deadline imposed by the City of Los Angeles.
The proposed US$1.5bn stadium would have been located in downtown Los Angeles next to the city’s convention center. In 2011, AEG announced a deal with Farmers Insurance for the naming rights to its proposed stadium that would have been worth US$700m if the project, which would have been called Farmers Field, was constructed.
Last October, AEG obtained a six-month extension from city officials to attract an NFL team, but has been unable to do that. AEG would have needed to place two NFL teams at the stadium with a discounted ownership stake in one franchise for the project to financially pencil out, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders last month proposed a plan that would have the two teams share a $1.7bn stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, while Rams owner Stan Kroenke announced in January that he has teamed up with Stockbridge Capital Group, which owns the 238-acre Hollywood Park site in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, to potentially build a football stadium for his team.
Los Angeles has been without an NFL team since the Rams left Anaheim for St Louis and the Raiders moved to Oakland, in northern California, before the start of the 1995 season.
March 13, 2015
