Nick Wagoner, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Bob McNair offers thoughts on L.A. and relocation

EARTH CITY, Mo. -- There is, perhaps, no owner in the league with more knowledge of relocation and Los Angeles than the Houston Texans' Bob McNair.

McNair was the man behind the bid to bring an expansion franchise to Houston that once again left Los Angeles on the outside looking in.

Now, McNair sits as a member of the committee devoted to examining Los Angeles "opportunities." Speaking at the NFL owners meetings earlier this week, McNair discussed how the process could play out for the St. Louis Rams, San Diego Chargers and/or Oakland Raiders and how things are different than when he was working to land the Texans.

One thing that continues to come up in Oakland, San Diego and especially St. Louis is the use of public money to fund a stadium. St. Louis is working toward trying to get that done, but it seems even more difficult in California. Instead, teams are leaning on the use of personal seat licenses as a source of cash. That money helped get Levi's Stadium built in Santa Clara and would be the bedrock of funding the Inglewood or Carson site in Los Angeles.

"I think what’s happened is we’ve learned through the use of PSLs you can raise a lot more money than we ever expected," McNair said. "That can be used to help finance the stadium. It sort of supplants the public funds that would have been put up. It’s just economically not feasible for the owner to put up 100 percent of the money. By using the PSLs, you’re putting a program together that’s a lot more practical."

The use of PSLs in the NFL first popped up when the Rams moved to St. Louis in 1995. They're still a part of the proposed financing package in St. Louis, but aren't likely to cover the bulk of the costs, as they might in Los Angeles. McNair's pitch to get the Texans prominently featured PSL money.

"That’s how we sold the project in Houston, it was sort of user pay," McNair said. "The hotel occupancy tax, football draws a lot of people in. The rental car tax, people from out of town come in, they rent cars. It’s not property taxes that were supporting it. With PSLs it’s a way for the fans to make an investment in the stadium.

"Colleges have been doing this for years. If you want to get a good seat at a Texas A&M game or a University of Texas game, it depends on how much money you give the school. And it’s a lot more, frankly, than what people pay for PSLs. They’re doing it every year, whereas with a PSL, it’s a one-time purchase."

As for what's happening on the current relocation issues, McNair made it a point to say that due diligence will be given to the current markets.

"You have to look at the existing markets, and I don’t think any of our owners want to treat any of them unfairly," McNair said. "If a local market is supporting the team strongly, you’re not going to have a lot of support for a team leaving that market. If a team needs new facilities and they’ve been unsuccessful for a long period of time and the local community is not being responsive, then I think it’s a possibility that team might get a vote to relocate."

McNair said one of his biggest takeaways in dealing with Los Angeles is that there are many pockets of fans and smaller towns to deal with when trying to garner support for a project. And with so many moving parts in the current markets, McNair said he doesn't want to rush into anything just yet.

That could accelerate at the next round of owners meetings in May, when Los Angeles is expected to be a more pressing issue than it was this week.

"At this point, I don’t think any of us is making any decisions because we don’t have adequate information to be able to judge everything fairly," McNair said. "That’s one of the major criteria for us. We want to be fair to the three teams that are interested in the Los Angeles market and we want to be fair to the communities that they’ve represented in the past."

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