California axes books for palaces
Couch Slouch concludes our two-part series on stadium development in America with a look today at the biblically apocalyptic stadium boom on the West Coast.
Only in California could there be a drought and a deluge at the same time.
The state is running out of water to farm the land. But the state never runs out of land to farm new stadiums.
(I recently went to the state legislature with a compromise solution: In order to save on water, ban restrooms in all new stadium projects. My idea was rejected.)
California has more stadiums than Kardashians have stylists.
The NFL 49ers had Candlestick Park in San Francisco and wanted the city to pay for a new stadium. San Francisco balked, so the 49ers went 40 miles south to Santa Clara and – at a cost of $1.3 billion – built Levi’s Stadium, a.k.a. The Stadium Of The People (If The People Are Almost All Millionaires).
The NFL Raiders have O.co Coliseum in Oakland but they want the city to pay for a new stadium. The city has been slow to pass the hat, so the Raiders now are planning a move to Los Angeles.
The NFL Chargers have Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego but they want the city to pay for a new stadium. The city can’t even find a hat to pass, so the Chargers are planning a move to Los Angeles in conjunction with the Raiders.
The NFL Rams left Los Angeles – Anaheim, to be more precise – in 1994, but now their owner is planning to build a stadium in Southern California, in a different part of L.A. than the facility the Raiders and Chargers are planning.
Los Angeles already has the Rose Bowl, the Coliseum and Dodger Stadium. Over the past generation, there have been attempts to build an NFL stadium in the City of Industry, Irwindale, downtown L.A., and now Carson and Inglewood.
How serious are the stakes in L.A.’s Stadium Games?
Just before the ill-fated, AEG-backed downtown stadium project failed, the sports and entertainment firm commissioned a study by former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge that concluded the competing Inglewood project would be a terrorist threat due to its proximity to LAX Airport.
Meanwhile, the Carson and Inglewood city councils have fast-tracked stadium initiatives, bypassing public scrutiny, cutting through bureaucratic red tape with a perpetual green light.
So now we have two finalists in the latest L.A. NFL sweepstakes – the $1.7 billion, 68,000-seat stadium to be built on a toxic landfill in Carson that would house the Chargers and Raiders, and the $1.86 billion, 80,000-seat stadium to be built on a civic delusion in Inglewood for the Rams.
In Los Angeles, the education system is in crisis, with not enough money even for school buses; libraries are closing; roads are crumbling; there’s a dearth of affordable housing.
The response?
Build a stadium.
It’s simple – do we want to invest in our children’s future OR do we want to trade up in the draft and ensure a 10-6 season next year?
Well, I think that one’s been answered.
In fact, with this next Golden State gold rush, I am reviving my call that every NFL team come to Los Angeles.
In 2011, I first proposed building 32 stadiums and moving the entire NFL to L.A. I wasn’t thinking. We could move the entire NFL here by building just 16 stadiums – at half the total cost! – with two teams sharing each building, a la the Jets and the Giants (actually, it might make sense, in terms of containing toxic fan conditions, to leave the Jets and Giants in New Jersey).
My vision is a stadium off every exit of the 405. This would make the San Diego Freeway – the 405’s given name – a motorized Champs-Elysees.
In Paris, they stroll the boulevard people-watching and café-sitting.
In L.A., we would cruise the highway at 23 mph gazing at sports palaces every mile or two, with an occasional act of road rage.
And, under my plan, the Super Bowl would rotate among all the current NFL cities. It just makes sense to put a game in those vacant stadiums from time to time.
Ask The Slouch
Q. Did you have attendants raise their hands or have signs saying “Quiet” to keep the noise down at your weddings, like they do at golf tournaments? (John Pintar; Issaquah, Wash.)
A. No need – at my weddings, most of the guests were in mourning.
Q. If competitive eating becomes a big-time sport, can competitive pooping be far behind? (Peter Wolfe; Seabrook, Md.)
A. We already have that – it’s the Republican Party race for the presidential nomination.
Q. Does the IRS provide an exemption for your hundreds of $1.25 awards to readers each year, or is it simply the cost of doing business? To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, “A buck and a quarter here, a buck and a quarter there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” (H. Jack Mitchell; South Charleston, W.Va.)
A. Pay the man whatever we’ve got left in the till, Shirley.