AEG’s L.A. stadium proposal possibly dead

There will be an NFL team in Los Angeles eventually. That, you can count on. Apparently, however, you can't count on that team occupying an AEG downtown stadium, according to Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports.

Citing a pair of sources, Cole reports that while the NFL is still monitoring what AEG is trying to do, the numbers either won't add up for the franchise that would move to L.A., or the numbers won't add up in a profitable way for AEG. If both parties can't benefit from the deal, it's not likely going to happen.

"The numbers just don't work, no matter how you look at the deal," a league source told Cole last month. "It's either too hard for AEG to make money [and pay the debt on the stadium] or too hard for the team. I just can't see a way for it to work."

The league believes the cost of the proposed stadium would weigh in at $1.8 billion, according to Cole, and that's a number that's just too big to benefit both sides of the equation mutually.

Part of the problem that Los Angeles may be running into is its lack of alternative options to the AEG proposal. For some time, it's appeared that the city was content with the proposed plan, but if it falls through, as it now appears it may, the delay that could result could only hurt the city's hopes of bringing an NFL team back to the City of Angels in a timely manner.

Another moving piece of the plans is the fact that AEG itself is up for sale. While the asking price is reported to be in the $10 billion range, offers have only been between $6 and $8 billion, reportedly.

As I said, there will be a team there eventually, but the NFL also has international interests, and if the AEG plan is de-railed, the delay may cause Los Angeles' hopes to bring in an NFL team to be pitted against hopes of the NFL to expand internationally.

NFL teams have recently used the possibility of moving to California as leverage to build new stadiums or renovate their old ones, and that practice has been largely successful, especially for the Vikings, who will be getting a new stadium, and the Rams, who will be having their home location renovated.

About Shane Clemons

Shane Clemons came from humble beginnings creating his own Jaguars blog before moving on to SBNation as a featured writer for the Jaguars. He then moved to Bloguin where he briefly covered the AFC South before taking over Bloguin's Jaguars blog. Since the inception of This Given Sunday, Shane has served as an editor for the site, doing his best not to mess up a good thing.

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