EARTH CITY, Mo. -- There are many moving parts to the potential relocation of the St. Louis Rams, Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers to Los Angeles. But one that the league is beginning to examine is what the cost of moving will be for the teams that get the green light to go.

Relocation fees figure to be a big part of the equation, and though they won't likely be enough to prevent anyone from moving, the potential cost of a relocation could give some pause, especially if that tag reaches the exorbitant prices some are projecting.

Speaking at last week's NFL spring owners meetings, NFL executive Eric Grubman said the league has hired an outside consulting firm to help determine just what that cost will be.

“We’ve engaged an outside firm to help us look at various ways to analyze it,” Grubman said. “That’s not to say that our finance staff is not capable of doing any of the analysis, but sometimes it’s good to have an independent mind take a look at it. And so we’ve engaged a firm to help us and the committee do that."

There has been plenty of speculation that getting the opportunity to move to Los Angeles will lead to record-breaking fees. The theory being that the chance to move into a market the size of Los Angeles will automatically increase the value of the franchise, and for the other owners to surrender what's been a well-leveraged market like Los Angeles, it will be costly.

Some believe that for Stan Kroenke to relocate the Rams, the number could be as high as $500 million, with the Raiders and Chargers having to pay the same amount, only split between the two of them.

While Kroenke could easily afford such a fee, if it rose to that level, it could be something he has to consider knowing it would affect how quickly he'd be able to realize the new value of the club after a move and investing heavily in his own project in Inglewood. And he'd have to weigh that against a potential deal for a stadium in St. Louis that would undoubtedly come at a much cheaper price.

For now, there's no guarantee of what that final fee will be, but the league has at least begun preliminary work on it.

"We are not very far along in that," Grubman said. "They are just sort of designing the analysis, and we’re debating the different ways it can be looked at, and the different time frames it can be looked at. My best guess is that a relocation fee wouldn’t be defined until well toward the end of the process.”

When we'll reach the end of the process also remains up in the air. The league didn't officially move or condense the timeline to file for relocation in San Francisco, but it has made it clear that such a decision will probably be forthcoming in the late summer or early fall.

One thing we do know for sure, though, is that any team filing for relocation will know exactly what the cost is to relocate before filing to do so.

“Anybody’s who’s getting into it or asking for a vote would be understanding of what it is,” Grubman said.

Which means the league will determine that number before it opens the window to file.