The San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders have retained Legends to market the clubs’ proposed Carson, Calif., stadium, according to Carmen Policy, who is managing the project for the teams.
The hire is conditional on the teams deciding to move to Los Angeles and the NFL approving the relocation, but it does answer one key question: how the clubs plan to sell themselves in a new market.
Policy unveiled the Legends move to key owners last week when they quizzed him about how two teams in a new market would sell their available inventory, including suites, sponsorship and seats.
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Fans of the Raiders and Chargers rally in favor of a move to Los Angeles.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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“They did wonder, How will you market and sell two teams in L.A.,” Policy said. “Our position is we have one stellar organization handle both teams, and that would be Legends. Whatever issues they [the owners] have with two teams, I think it is solved by Legends.”
Policy said Legends may create separate teams for each club. That would help to address situations such as if, for example, a Legends salesperson pitching both clubs were faced with a company that wanted to sponsor only one team. With a Chargers/Legends team and a Raiders/Legends team, there would be no apparent conflict.
The Chargers and Raiders have described Carson as a fallback plan in the event they are unable to reach stadium deals in their current home markets.
Chad Estis, Legends’ president of sales and marketing, said a contract has not been signed. In fact, the NFL has forbidden the Chargers and Raiders from signing Legends until a move is approved. The teams, Policy said last week, have been working with Legends nonexclusively for five weeks.
The NFL owners Policy spoke with last week represent the league’s Los Angeles committee. In addition to Policy, presenting last week for the Chargers were owner Dean Spanos, special adviser Mark Fabiani and Tim Romer from Goldman Sachs, which has pledged to finance the Carson stadium. From the Raiders were owner Mark Davis and President Marc Badain, among others.
The six-owner committee also heard from St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who wants to build a stadium in Inglewood, Calif. Rams President Kevin Demoff could not be reached for comment on that presentation.
Legends, which is owned in part by the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees, marketed commercial inventory (including suites, club seats and season tickets) for the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., which opened last year. Legends research and consulting arm CSL also has conducted market studies for the NFL that examined St. Louis, Oakland, San Diego and Los Angeles.
NFL owners are scheduled to meet Aug. 11 in Chicago to continue to discuss Los Angeles. Currently, the window for a team to tell the NFL it wishes to relocate is Jan. 1 to Feb. 15. That window is likely to narrow, though, and may be moved into December, underscoring the very real chance the NFL moves back to Los Angeles next year after a more than two-decade absence.
The Rams and Raiders are year-to-year on their leases; the Chargers can exit their lease relatively inexpensively.
The Rams are largely not engaging with efforts in St. Louis to build a new stadium, an effort the owners in August will hear about in-depth.
The city of San Diego last week proposed a vote in December to approve public funding for a new stadium. The Chargers have not signed off on that effort and could stand in opposition, in part because they do not believe such a vote can occur so quickly without violating the California Environmental Quality Act.
Jim Moose, an expert on the environmental act who works with Sacramento-based law firm Remy Moose Manley, called San Diego’s proposal plausible but risky. San Diego’s ballot measure is predicated on the act not being in play because an exemption occurs when replacing venues. While true, Moose said, the law did not envision such large projects gaining exemption.
Citizens can of course file lawsuits to enforce the act, and that process could take up to three years, Moose said. That type of development would hang a dark cloud over the project.
Staff writer Don Muret contributed to this report.
