According to stories in the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register, Los Angeles city council wants to accelerate the downtown football stadium football stadium proposed by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). The company keeps saying that the deal will be privately financed, but is asking for city approval of $350 million in bonds to demolish the Los Angeles Convention Center's West Hall and build a new structure connecting the existing South Hall to the new stadium. LA's sudden push is particularly important to San Diego, because the bonds, along with $48 million in existing bonds, would be backed by stadium ticket taxes. That means there would have to be a team or teams playing immediately and, probably, the team would have to be identified quickly for the bonds to be sold. The Chargers, Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars and St. Louis Rams are considered possibilities to move to Los Angeles. "There are one or two teams ready to move....At least one team will come," said AEG President Tim Leiweke. I, for one, have always believed that the Chargers would prefer to move to L.A., but are still wooing San Diego as a backup if the National Football League owners for some reason nix the move. The Chargers have said they will play 2011 (if there is a season) in San Diego, but the team won't make any commitments beyond that.

The Chargers have just said they will lower some ticket prices for 2011. One possibility is that with L.A. hurrying up, an announcement about the move will have to be made this year, thus turning off potential ticket buyers.

L.A. may be fast-tracking the project because Gov. Jerry Brown wants to get rid of redevelopment agencies. Despite all the talk about private financing, it certainly appears that local government will be picking up infrastructure costs, even beyond the $350 million bonds. Majestic Realty, which wants to build a stadium in City of Industry, immediately denounced the downtown AEG deal for that reason, saying it would be saddling the city and taxpayers with expenses.