You're not moving a NFL team out of the southeast. Go try somewhere else.

No harm in trying, right?

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/20756873/falcons-owner-la-wants-team


ATLANTA -
FOX 5 has learned that the city of Los Angeles has expressed interest in acquiring the Atlanta Falcons.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is warning city council members about business interests in Los Angeles who want to move the Falcons to the west coast. Team owner Arthur Blank shared that information with top city and state officials in their discussions about financing a new stadium in downtown Atlanta.

Two council members who met with Mayor Kasim Reed told FOX 5's Morse Diggs about private discussions the mayor hosted at City Hall.

Reed called in council members one at a time to tell them that the city needs to take a more aggressive lead in the public financing portion of the proposed open air stadium.

The Falcons would foot most of the $1-billion bill for the new stadium, but the state would have to come up with $300 million, most of which would come from an extension of a current hotel-motel tax. The move would require the state legislature to increase the World Congress Center's debt limit by $100 million.

Earlier, Gov. Nathan Deal said the climate at the state Capitol would not be favorable for the state to take the lead.

Council members also reported the mayor described Blank as being willing to increase the percentage the Falcons might pay to make the billion dollar deal possible.

The city of Los Angeles has been without an NFL franchise for almost two decades. In 1994, the Rams moved to St. Louis. A year later, the Raiders relocated to Oakland. Los Angeles remains the largest metropolitan area without pro football, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reportedly wants a team in the city.

piss poor on blank & reeds part

The Falcons aren't going anywhere...its just that there is NO support for the city financing that new stadium and state politicians are running scared in not wanting to be the person who votes for increasing the debt limit to make it happen. They're thinking of making it the decision of a city development agency so they don't have to touch it. There's no team in LA yet because it serves as a NFL boogeyman in an age where public financing deals are hard to come by. "If you don't pay, we'll move to LA!"...its all bullshit.

@KillerMikeGTO

3m Killer Mike Killer Mike ‏@KillerMikeGTO

I was really content to let the shit with the new dome just happen. The mayor, and city council already say yes but that LA threat was foul
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16m Killer Mike Killer Mike ‏@KillerMikeGTO
Everyday u hear conserve, spend less, avoid debt. Atl when a team owner says go in debt for his gain tell'em naw rise the fuck outta here
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20m Killer Mike Killer Mike ‏@KillerMikeGTO

I wud rather be a city with no teams and little to no debt than be a city with marginal winners and a shit load of I owe u's. Rise Up ATL


Killer Mike ‏@KillerMikeGTO

Fux team spirit Bish this ain't high school. Sports teams bring revenue. If your community host a stadium and high unemployment u LOSE.

Wag that dog.

If not, I don't see this happening.

There is nothing in this story whatsoever. NFL office will stay silent on it to help Blank/Reed get the funds scared up. Whole thing is dumb because the vast majority of the public money is already accounted for, just needs to be earmarked for this one project.

vast majority of the public
>money is already accounted for, just needs to be earmarked for
>this one project.

The NFL wants the Super Bowl back in ATL (minus the Ray Lewis BS). They will find away to come up with any money Blank can't get.

1. COA greatly botched their response to the icestorm that occurred that weekend...and they still haven't learned their lesson.

2. They've crushed any decent nightlife. People blame the Ray Lewis incident, but that was the perfect catalyst for leadership to keep undesirables (read: Blacks) out of Buckhead and turn that land over to developers on the cusp of the housing boom. Drinking hours got rolled back and clubs bulldozed. Now, Atlanta's larger clubs are outside the city in fucking strip malls...and they're just getting to work on the hole that used to be where the Buckhead establishments used to be. Not much entertainment is centralized or easily accessible and ATL sure as hell ain't walkable.

3. Traffic/ lack of decent public transportation. MARTA's woes are well documented and the people who have the means to fix it view PT as a tool of the commies and its users as indigent takers. But with everything in Atlanta being insanely spread out and its highways always extremely congested are you really going to want to drive from midtown to chamblee-tucker 25 min or more away to party during your SB weekend? What about getting around the city proper otherwise? The only thing MARTA can do with any certainty is get you to the Dome and the airport.

4. Downtown needs to be solved. Right now its a damn wasteland overrun by homeless, tired storefronts, and a few tourist trap restaurants. Underground is useless...although its clubs are the only places that can serve liquor until 4am...but still no one goes there. Peachtree Pine homeless shelter is the epicenter of it all, but there's not much of anything of any consequence south of North Avenue.

Atlanta is a great city, I'd love for a SB to be held here again. But it frustrates me how deceptive and disingenuous they've been to literally ram this stadium through.

>1. COA greatly botched their response to the icestorm that
>occurred that weekend...and they still haven't learned their
>lesson.

The City responded aptly and the roads and MARTA kept running; if anyone screwed up, it was the DOT dealing with the northern interstates. And it's rare as hell that we get those sorts of ice storms that late in the winter as is.



>2. They've crushed any decent nightlife. People blame the Ray
>Lewis incident, but that was the perfect catalyst for
>leadership to keep undesirables (read: Blacks) out of Buckhead
>and turn that land over to developers on the cusp of the
>housing boom. Drinking hours got rolled back and clubs
>bulldozed. Now, Atlanta's larger clubs are outside the city in
>fucking strip malls...and they're just getting to work on the
>hole that used to be where the Buckhead establishments used to
>be. Not much entertainment is centralized or easily
>accessible and ATL sure as hell ain't walkable.

Buckhead needed to die and nobody is really nostalgic for it. At all. The club hours have been what they are for years now, all over the city, and scenes of nightlife have sprung up organically in places that it needed to be. The "major clubs" that are outside the city were always there and never competed with the faux upscale nightlife that was in buckhead and now rules midtown/west-midtown.


>3. Traffic/ lack of decent public transportation. MARTA's
>woes are well documented and the people who have the means to
>fix it view PT as a tool of the commies and its users as
>indigent takers. But with everything in Atlanta being insanely
>spread out and its highways always extremely congested are you
>really going to want to drive from midtown to chamblee-tucker
>25 min or more away to party during your SB weekend? What
>about getting around the city proper otherwise? The only
>thing MARTA can do with any certainty is get you to the Dome
>and the airport.

What, you think people are taking public transit Superbowl weekend in NOLA? In Tampa? In Detroit? Houston? pssh...not happening. There are cabs. There are strings of high end hotels that are actually on MARTA. It's not some Atlanta only thing that public transit doesn't "go anywhere" and it's not something that keeps events out of this city (hold for that point). And nobody is partying in Chambodia. There are four times more high-end hotels and bars in downtown/midtown Atlanta today than in 2000.

>4. Downtown needs to be solved. Right now its a damn wasteland
>overrun by homeless, tired storefronts, and a few tourist trap
>restaurants. Underground is useless...although its clubs are
>the only places that can serve liquor until 4am...but still no
>one goes there. Peachtree Pine homeless shelter is the
>epicenter of it all, but there's not much of anything of any
>consequence south of North Avenue.

Peachtree Pine Shelter's sad history is coming to a close but, besides, there is nothing over there in the Civic Center area for a tourist to even be concerned with; nothing north of Morton's or south of the Fox but churches and homeless people anyway. Downtown downtown is in a lot better shape than it has been for a while, if you just grant that Underground/5 Points is a lost cause. The Peachtree corridor is okay, as a tourist trap, and the Rialto area has some decent bars and restaurants. Retail is never going to return downtown, but that doesn't really matter (retail is dead and dying in America, as is), and the resurgence of Edgewood/Sweet Auburn under the guidance of kick-ass extraordinaire Kwanza Hall can't be ignored or discounted. If you so choose, you are soon going to be able to get on a free trolley in front of the Omni (say) and go to the Soundtable (say) without having to worry about navigating the GSU wasteland between the two.

>Atlanta is a great city, I'd love for a SB to be held here
>again. But it frustrates me how deceptive and disingenuous
>they've been to literally ram this stadium through.

The dome sucks as a football watching place and was only ever shoehorned into the Falcons future as a desperation Olympic move. It was built before the modernist movement toward "experience" stadiums and no amount of retrofitting is ever going to make a multipurpose indoor stadium make sense in the south. Facts are Blank is picking up 70% of the damn tab and almost all of the money the state would have to kick in is already there and can't be spent on anything but "stadiums" on state land, aka, papering over the Dome again and again. Why do that?


But, really: 1) They gave a SB to Indy. 2) We still host huge events despite your case against Atlanta (final four in a few months). 3) Strippers need to eat.

Maybe they will have an all-LA expansion, put in two new franchises.

No plan for expansion any time soon the relocation stuff is pretty dry. All the timetables given by the league, ownership, etc are not going to materialize.

Its the raiders I don't want.

that's just some scare'em hype to get the city to pay for a stadium that's completely unnecessary.

Fuck'em. Bitch, bye.

It's probably more useful for the NFL not to have a team here so they can continue to use it as a leverage point for when teams want to build a new stadium.

The Raiders coming back now that Al's gone makes the most sense really but I actually believe they might go for two.

Not that passionate professinal sporting hub of the Jaguars, Dolphins, formerly the Thrashers, formerly the Hornets, Bobcats, Devil Rays, Braves, Hurricanes, & Hawks!

Anywhere but there!