Three Teams, One Home?

Oakland needs a new home. San Diego needs a new home. St. Louis needs a new home. All three teams have inadequate stadiums, but have given their cities ample opportunity, according to Roger Goodell. Football is coming back to Los Angeles in some form, clearly. Who should come back though?

Both the Raiders and Rams have been yo-yo's between LA and their incumbent homes over time. Both have remained in the Western divisions of their conferences though, which has helped their cases here. The San Diego Chargers are also in the AFC West, and are basically the current local team. The Raiders are the only team with another team in their media market (The 49ers), and are in the same division as the Chargers, making it tough to move them both there. There are sites in both Inglewood and Carson, so both could move into separate locations, but they'd share a city and a division then.

There are not a lot of obvious other spots for the third team to move to. San Antonio stands out, while Las Vegas just won't happen. Out east, just about every major city that makes sense is filled up, plus some. It is possible that a team in London or Canada could happen, though Toronto would be a tough sell with the Bills being close by. If we assume St. Louis as being the favorites here (which I hate doing), San Diego is the larger city to abandon, while the Raiders are in the larger market and have the larger national following.

If I had to guess what the league will do, they will move the Rams and Raiders back to Los Angeles. That's purely a guess though. It's clear they can't move all three teams there, and of the locations, I'd suspect San Diego will do the most to try and salvage their team. I do suspect international expansion is coming, though I don't know when. Even so, expect Los Angeles to receive two new teams in the short term.