NFL

President Trump Slaughters the NFL

January 31, 2018 By Bill Saracino 9 Comments

In youth sports there is something known as the “slaughter rule” which stops contests when one team is hopelessly behind the other – being slaughtered. In Little League baseball the rule is invoked when one team is ahead by 11 runs. In Pop Warner, middle school and some high school football the rule is activated when a team is ahead by 35 or more points.

If the showdown between President Trump and the NFL over players kneeling during the national anthem were a sporting event, the slaughter rule would have been invoked long ago. NFL attendance is down, television ratings are down, and as a result income is down. The NFL is getting slaughtered and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

President Trump once again showed his ability to correctly judge public attitudes when he said that players who knelt during the anthem were “SOBs who should be fired.” Liberal heads exploded, of course, but as with so many topics the president may have been unartful in his words – but was spot-on in expressing what millions of Americans felt. Personally, I don’t think SOBs was strong enough language, and wish he had used his description of Haiti to describe the players’ brains. The NFL came to the defense of Colin Kaepernick and the other players who were symbolically burning the flag. They attacked the president in vile terms. The league has been getting slaughtered since and deservedly so.

Since the anti-police, anti-military, anti-anthem, unemployed but multi-millionaire quarterback Colin Kaepernick started his kneeling stunt, in-stadium attendance for regular season games is down over 14%. Sympathetic television networks, attempting to hide the huge swatches of empty seats, stopped taking “long shots” of stadiums. Shots from the Goodyear blimp became either close-ups of the field or such long shots that the viewer can’t discern the empty seats from the occupied ones.

The drop-off has been particularly noticeable during the playoffs since there are fewer games to monitor. For instance, the NFL had a disastrous first playoff weekend when it came to ratings. As Sports Illustrated (a Kaepernick apologist and supporter of anthem-kneeling) was forced to admit, “numbers have been down all season and it was more of the same for the wild-card games. Titans-Chiefs viewership was down 11%, Falcons-Rams was down 10%, Bills-Jaguars was down 10%, and Panthers-Saints was down 21%.”

Television networks sell ads far in advance based on guaranteed ratings. When those ratings fall short the networks have to refund advertiser dollars. So far this year the ratings drop has cost networks tens of millions of dollars in refunds.

The numbers didn’t get any better as the playoff’s progressed. “Outkick The Coverage,” a sports blog centering on football, found that the NFL had 23 million fewer viewers for this year’s playoff action. The blog took a look at the TV ratings and found that every game was down by millions of viewers and ratings fell to a 10-year low. Their bottom line conclusion was not a pretty one for the NFL: “Adding all these numbers up 120.8 million viewers watched the NFL divisional round playoffs in 2018 vs. 144.1 million who watched in 2017, a decline of 23.3 million total viewers.” As Mr. Ed used to say, that ain’t hay.

The upcoming Super Bowl will likely get its usual strong ratings. The New England Patriots long ago replaced the Dallas Cowboys as “America’s team.” Dare I suggest part of the reason also is that fans who tuned out the regular season and playoff games know that Patriots owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady are Trump supporters?

It is important not to let what started all this get lost in the mists of time. A 27-year-old multi-millionaire who has never really worked a day in his life decided that America was such a horrid country that, in his words, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color … . There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” His conscience and his pocketbook apparently are not in sync, as he doesn’t mind making millions of dollars in this rotten country that oppresses and murders people of color.

Kaepernick was referring to law enforcement officers in his “people getting away with murder” comment. He has socks that show pigs wearing police hats, and has said that the men and women in American law enforcement set out daily to murder black people. He’ll tell you that the American military is used to subjugate people of color around the globe. And in case you think he is just a run-of-the mill leftist instead of a true moron, he praised Fidel Castro as a “great leader” who has done many “humanitarian things” for the people of Cuba.

THIS is the man that our leftist media both inside and outside of sports has put on a pedestal. The flag is a symbol of oppression; police are pigs; some law enforcement officers start every day intending to kill black people; the military exists to oppress people of color and Fidel Castro was a humanitarian leader. If Kaepernick were really concerned about black people being killed he should go to Chicago where nearly 600 of them were killed by criminals last year. Or he should go to a Planned Parenthood office, the organization that kills 400,000 unborn black babies every year.

The NFL has been fully cowed and co-opted by Kaepernick, his small number of followers who play the game and his large number of sycophants in the media. Even in the face of surveys showing that nearly 75% of Americans disapprove of the protests, the league has pledged nearly $100 million toward “social justice” organizations. It’s their money, so they can throw it at far-left mirages if they wish.

It’s also the fans’ money – and viewership – and they have the right to do with those commodities as they wish. Those wishes now have precious little to do with supporting the NFL. The fans do not think police officers are pigs or that law enforcement personnel set out every day to murder black people. They respect America, its military and its flag. They respect a president willing to call out an un-patriotic, ignorant athlete deep in the fever swamps of ultra-leftism. As the NFL continues to get slaughtered, if you listen closely you might hear these fans celebrating the slaughter of the NFL: “Two, four, six, eight … who do we appreciate? Trump … Trump … Trump.”

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Colin Kaepernick, Donald Trump, Football, NFL

Is the Raiders’ exit from Oakland inevitable?

December 18, 2016 By Chris Reed 5 Comments

As CalWatchdog reported earlier this week, the San Diego Chargers are much closer to moving to Los Angeles, having gotten the formal blessing of team owners at a meeting in Irving, Texas, to leave if they choose by the Jan. 15 deadline the NFL established a year ago. But the situation in Oakland with the Raiders seems cloudier — at least in California media, as opposed to websites that specialize in the NFL.

With the Raiders, the seeming good news for fans who want the team to stay starts with the fact that the Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors appear enthusiastic about working with Fortress Investment Group, which is led by NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott and billionaire investor Wes Edens, on a stadium plan. On Bay Area talk radio, supporters of the plan have dropped hints of having deep-pocket supporters who might come forward to minimize how much taxpayers would have to pay for the billion-dollar-plus new stadium the Raiders and the NFL want.

NFL officials who have criticized San Diego officials for their response to the Chargers’ stadium needs are offering praise for what’s happening in Oakland.

ESPN reported this week that the league told Oakland’s leaders to not worry about the threat the team would leave even though Nevada state leaders have committed to provide $750 million in public funds for a $1.9 billion NFL stadium in Las Vegas. The team would only have to pay $500 million toward the stadium, with the rest of the tab largely picked up by Las Vegas Sands chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson. One of the world’s richest persons, Adelson hopes to end up a minority or majority owner of the team.

The implication of the remarks by NFL executive Eric Grubman to ESPN is that the league very much wants the Raiders to stay in Oakland even if a better deal is available in Las Vegas. When allowed to comment anonymously, officials with other NFL teams have said that the league should be wary of having a team in the city that is the capital of American sports gambling.

Raiders may sue to leave if NFL owners say no

But optimism about Oakland keeping its team is less apparent on Pro Football Talk, a niche website now affiliated with NBC Sports that has broken dozens of stories in recent years because of its network of NFL insider sources. Site founder Mike Floriowrote this week that Adelson and Raiders owner Mark Davis were struggling to finalize a deal that would bring the team to Las Vegas.

But Florio has long depicted the Raiders’ exit as close to a done deal. On Nov. 22, he reported that Davis would sue the NFL to allow his team to move to Las Vegas if he could not get the support of three-quarters of the league’s 32 owners to relocate his team, as NFL bylaws require.

Davis’ father, NFL Hall of Famer Al Davis, successfully sued the league after it sought to block him from moving the team from Oakland to Los Angeles, where it played from 1982 to 1994 before moving back to Oakland.

Florio has interviewed Mark Davis dozens of times off the record. While he honors the rules and doesn’t quote Davis directly, the impression his coverage always gives is that the Raiders owner sees becoming the first major pro sports franchise to set up shop in Las Vegas — a tourist-centered metropolitan area with 2.1 million residents — as akin to a no-brainer.

Many reporters have also made the obvious point that the Raiders’ image as edgy, unconventional outsiders conforms with Las Vegas’ image.

Florio believes a final decision will be made by September.

This piece was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Las Vegas, National Football League, NFL, oakland, Oakland Raiders

NFL Shifts Rams to L.A., Puts Chargers Next in Line

January 13, 2016 By Aaron Wilson and Rachel Swan 2 Comments

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:

HOUSTON — Oakland, the city with no stadium plans and a halfhearted effort to hang on to the Raiders, gets to keep the team anyway — for now.

The Raiders pulled their bid to relocate to the Los Angeles area late Tuesday after it became clear the team didn’t have the support from NFL owners to move.

Instead, after a long day of deliberations, NFL owners meeting at the Westin Memorial City in Houston formally approved the relocation of the St. Louis Rams to Los Angeles, with ultra-wealthy Rams owner Stan Kroenke planning a $1.86 billion stadium project in Inglewood. The San Diego Chargers were given the option to join them in Inglewood after haggling unsuccessfully for years for a new stadium.

But if the Chargers decline to move, the option to join the Rams in Inglewood will be given to the Raiders, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said.

The plan was approved by …

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Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Chargers, NFL, Rams, Roger Goodell, San Diego, St. Louis, Stan Kroenke

Local NFL Fans Express Themselves to the League About Possible L.A. Move

November 3, 2015 By James Poulos 3 Comments

As the National Football League neared a final decision on whether to relocate any franchises to Los Angeles, fans in cities that could lose teams gave the league an earful.

Commissioner Roger Goodell recognized how touchy things have become, as an unprecedented sequence of proposals and counterproposals has played out among the St. Louis Rams, San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders. “We’ve been 20 years not in the Los Angeles market,” Goodell said, according to ESPN, calling an L.A. team “a huge plus for fans. There are 20 million fans in that market that would love to have a franchise. But we’ve got to do this responsibly. There’s a process, and we’re going through that process.”

Its latest set of twists and turns has played out at hearings in the hometowns of teams contemplating a move. “The three-hour meetings, held on consecutive nights in downtown theaters, were more listening sessions for the NFL than back-and-forth exchanges with fans, who registered online for free passes to the events,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “The league also streamed the hearings online.”

Fan fury

At times, fan frustration dominated. “It was loud. It was angry. It was sad. But no matter how much they pleaded for the Chargers to stay in San Diego, many wondered if it even mattered,” USA Today observed at the city’s downtown Spreckels Theater. The Chargers, according to the paper, “say they receive 25 percent of their local revenues from Los Angeles and Orange counties.” In St. Louis, the assembled booed every mention of Stan Kroenke, the Rams owner seemingly intent on shifting his team to a complex to be built on an Inglewood lot where a Walmart once might have been. Echoing a common sentiment, one fan told the Times “there was a feeling around St. Louis that the town hall meeting was merely a formality.”

Comments from the League seemed to reinforce that cynical judgment. In remarks reported by the Times, NFL executive vice president Eric Grubman called the hearings “very cathartic,” but denied that fans’ strongly-voiced opinions ultimately held any sway. “What I got from the crowd was the passion and emotion. There were a couple of ideas to think about,” he said. “But this is not the time to negotiate. We weren’t trying to negotiate with the crowd. What we were trying to do was give them a voice, and be able to carry that voice back, and that happened pretty effectively.”

Hail Mary in Oakland

But in Oakland, at least, fans found succor from their team’s owner, Mark Davis, who vowed to do all he could to stay out of Los Angeles. “We need help from the community as well to get something that our fans in Oakland can be proud of,” he said,according to NFL.com. “We don’t have that right now and we want it. It can be done in Oakland. We’ve talked to three mega developers to get this going. We have been trying for at least the past six years, every day, hundreds of hours, to try to get something done here in Oakland.”

Nevertheless, Davis’s dedication might not pay off. As NFL.com pointed out, the Oakland Coliseum, where the Raiders still play, “was built in 1966 and has been plagued by numerous plumbing and other problems over the past decade.” In Los Angeles, under a proposed joint deal, the Raiders and the Chargers would share a new $1.7 billion dollar stadium located in Carson.

Whatever the feelings involved, the league appeared to be set on a course for a relocation process that could begin — and end — in January. “Teams would pay a fee to apply to exit their current market, and NFL owners can vote to determine the order of preference for franchises herding themselves into the California queue,” UPI noted.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Chargers, NFL, oakland, Raiders, Rams, St. Louis

Republicans Favor Subsidizing New Chargers Stadium in SD

July 30, 2015 By Chris Reed 2 Comments

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts and Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, told a senior NFL executive on Tuesday about the city’s plans to pay for and expedite the building of a new $1.2 billion-plus stadium for the Chargers at the Qualcomm site in Mission Valley. Afterwards, Faulconer’s press conference was upbeat, stressing his optimism that the Chargers will stay in town and not head for Carson and a shared stadium with the Raiders or Inglewood and a shared stadium with the Rams.

But the doubts that have been raised publicly and privately by the Spanos family — the owners of the Chargers — about the the city’s financing plans and expectations of quick environmental OKs appear to have sunk in with the NFL’s upper brass. The league’s executive vice president, Eric Grubman, had a good news-bad news reaction to the meeting with San Diego officials in an email to the Union-Tribune:

Grubman was also positive after the meeting … praising the city for its large team of environmental experts and for giving the NFL a thorough understanding of its accelerated timeline for environmental approvals and a January public vote.

Grubman also said the city’s proposed stadium design has “all the key elements we would expect at this stage.”

But he stressed that the design was only conceptual, no actual negotiations took place on Tuesday and that the financing plan presented by the city includes “very significant funding from NFL and Chargers sources.”

That was a reference to the $400 million to $500 million that the team and the league are expected to kick in for construction and related costs.

Is a mostly subsidized stadium not good enough?

Grubman’s critique prompted a sharp response on social media from some who wondered how the world’s most lucrative professional sports league could gripe about a proposal in which taxpayers bore two-thirds or so of the cost of a stadium for the league.

But as an indication of how NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and other team owners felt about the Chargers’ interest in moving, it was telling. Past assumptions about the league not wanting to risk a backlash over a moneymaking team leaving a community that had supported it for more than a half-century may have been based on a sentimental view about how the NFL operates.

So where do things go from here? The Union-Tribune’s coverage suggests a meeting in less that two weeks could be absolutely crucial:

[San Diego officials will make] a presentation scheduled for Aug. 10 in Chicago to the NFL’s relocation committee — a group of six team owners overseeing possible franchise moves to Los Angeles.

The day after that presentation, all 32 NFL owners are scheduled to meet in Chicago to discuss how to handle relocations to the Los Angeles area, where the Chargers, Oakland Raiders and St. Louis Rams are working on stadium projects.

How — and how much — does Atkins want to help?

The fact that the San Diego political establishment is not united on the stadium issue came up again Tuesday. The involvement of Atkins in the meeting with Grubman was treated as a huge plus by Mayor Faulconer, but her decision not to join him at the press conference and the vagueness of her confirmed comments led editors of the Voice of San Diego to wonder what help she was actually providing.

On Twitter, VOSD’s Liam Dillon paraphrased her position this way: “Atkins: I’m happy to expedite the mayor’s Chargers plan, but I don’t have a position on the mayor’s Chargers plan.”

An aide to Atkins said she was ready to help the city and the team maneuver through the obstacle course of state environmental rules in building the stadium. But the City Council member whom Atkins appears closest to — former interim Mayor Todd Gloria — is very cool to Faulconer’s stadium push.

So how much Atkins actually wants to do to help keep the Chargers in San Diego is open to question. For now, city Republican leaders appear far more inclined than elected city Democrats to subsidize a Chargers stadium, wherever it is located and however the taxpayers’ share of costs is provided.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Chargers, Kevin Faulconer, NFL, Roger Goodell, San Diego, Toni Atkins

San Diego Caves To Chargers, Agrees To Finance New Stadium

May 23, 2015 By Peter Fricke Leave a Comment

San Diego, in a desperate bid to keep the Chargers from relocating to Los Angeles, has offered to provide public funding for a new stadium, but even that may not be enough.

The Citizens Stadium Advisory Group in San Diego unveiled a proposal this week involving at least $600 million in public financing for a new, $1.1 billion-dollar stadium, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Yet, even though it is the most generous offer currently on the table, the team has so far demurred, saying it needs time to evaluate the offer against possible alternatives.

According to Market Watch, the Chargers have been under pressure from the NFL for years to update Qualcomm Stadium, which was built nearly 40 years ago. But until now, the team’s requests for taxpayer assistance have always been summarily rejected by city officials. (RELATED: Super Bowl Shines Spotlight on Stadium Subsidies)

The difference in this instance is the very real threat that the Chargers will follow through on plans to build a $1.7 billion stadium in Los Angeles, which would be shared with the rival Oakland Raiders. That proposal received preliminary approval in April, inducing San Diego Mayor Ken Faulconer to break with tradition and offer the team an incentive to stay put.

Faulconer’s plan, which he insists “won’t raise taxes,” calls for $173 million in bonds, $121 million from the city of San Diego, $121 million from San Diego County, and $225 million from the sale of the current Qualcomm site. In addition, the mayor’s committee estimates that another $100 million could be realized from ticket surcharges and the sale of personal seat licenses.

The Chargers, meanwhile, are asked to contribute $300 million towards the cost, with the NFL kicking in another $200 million.

At the conclusion of the league’s annual owners meetings Wednesday, Chargers chairman Dean Spanos told the Union-Tribune that he was aware of the proposal, but that he was not yet familiar with the details and would be reviewing it this week.

“I’ve always said, and I maintain the fact we want to stay in San Diego,” Spanos said, adding. “We’re committed to keep trying to see if there is a viable solution.” (RELATED: Obama Asks Congress to End Stadium Subsidies)

However, despite acknowledging that San Diego is “a great market,” Spanos also indicated that taxpayer subsidies would have to be substantial in order to keep the team from leaving, saying, “This is all going to come down to: Can we find a viable solution from a financing perspective?”

Significantly, San Diego is not in competition with other cities looking to lure the Chargers with their own incentive packages, as is frequently the case. Instead, Spanos seems to be referring to the enormous revenue potential of the Los Angeles market.

In fact, the proposed Los Angeles stadium would be financed entirely with private money, and would likely cost the Chargers about twice as much as they would have to pay under the San Diego plan. (RELATED: Obama’s Plan for Ending Stadium Subsidies Misses the Point)

Nonetheless, sports economist John Vrooman of Vanderbilt University told the Union-Tribune that the Chargers might actually come out ahead by rejecting the subsidies. Over 30 years, Vrooman projects that the team’s value would increase from $1 billion today to about $2.3 billion if they move to Los Angeles, compared to just $1.4 billion if they remain in San Diego.

Follow Peter Fricke on Twitter

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Chargers, Kevin Faulconer, NFL, San Diego, Stadium

New Labor Protections for CA Cheerleaders Moving Through Legislature

April 21, 2015 By John Hrabe 1 Comment

Legislative committee hearings aren’t known for their heart-pounding excitement. But, you might hear a round of cheers to excite the crowds at this week’s Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism & Internet Media Committee.

On Tuesday, the committee is scheduled to consider a proposal by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, that would provide greater labor protections for professional cheerleaders. Assembly Bill 202, which scored a 5-2 win in the Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment earlier this month, would protect cheerleaders of professional sports teams from workplace abuses by classifying them as employees, not independent contractors.

Specifically, the bill would amend the Labor Code to state that “a cheerleader who is utilized by a California-based professional sports team directly or through a labor contractor during its exhibitions, events, or games, shall be deemed to be an employee.”

Gonzalez: Treat cheerleaders fairly

Gonzalez says that professional cheerleaders are being exploited by multi-billion-dollar professional sports franchises.

“AB202 simply demands that any professional sports team – or their chosen contractor – treat the women on the field with the same dignity and respect that we treat the guy selling beer,” said Gonzalez, who was a cheerleader in high school and college. “NFL teams and their billionaire owners have used professional cheerleaders as part of the game day experience for decades.”

She added, “They have capitalized on their talents without providing even the most basic workplace protections like a minimum wage.”

Gonzalez’s legislation, which has the support of the California Employment Lawyers Association, California Labor Federation and Consumer Attorneys of California, comes on the heals of high-profile lawsuits by professional football cheerleaders that allege widespread workplace violations. The allegations include claims that the Cincinnatti Bengals, Buffalo Bills, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Oakland Raiders and New York Jets failed to pay overtime or even the minimum wage.

Cheerleaders claim NFL teams broke labor laws

Caitlin Yates, one of the former NFL cheerleaders that has filed a lawsuit for labor violations, testified earlier this month before the Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment about her experiences with the Oakland Raiders.

“When I first started working as a Raiderette, I was just happy to make the squad and support my team,” Yates said. “However, over time I realized that the way I was being treated was unfair.”

Yates claimed that cheerleaders were sexually harassed, forced to pay out-of-pocket for job-related expenses and work with injuries.

“There are some teams out there who don’t treat their cheerleaders as employees or pay their cheerleaders a fair wage,” she told lawmakers. “We are professionals who deserved to be paid fairly no matter what team we play for.”

The issue has been a black eye for the National Football League, which has acted quickly to settle lawsuits and avoid similarly embarrassing testimony. Last September, two former Raiderette cheerleaders reached a $1.25-million settlement over accusations of “failing to pay minimum wage, withholding wages for months and refusing to reimburse cheerleaders for their business expenses,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Earlier this year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers paid out $825,000 to settle allegations that one cheerleader was paid just $2 per hour over two seasons.

Independent contractor vs. employees

For all of its sex appeal, much of the debate about Gonzalez’s legislation centers on the highly-technical differences in employment law between an independent contractor and employee. Some companies seek to designate their workers as independent contractors to avoid payroll taxes or other workplace requirements that are mandated on employees.

A 2006 study by the United States Government Accountability Office found that “misclassification of workers as independent contractors … cost the United States government $2.72 billion in revenue from Social Security, unemployment and income taxes in 2006 alone.”

“When companies misclassify workers as independent contractors instead of as employees, these workers do not receive worker protections, including minimum wages, overtime pay, and health and vacation benefits, to which they would otherwise be entitled,” a legislative analysis of AB202 contends. “Because employers do not pay unemployment taxes for independent contractors, workers who are misclassified cannot obtain unemployment benefits if they lose their jobs.”

That explains why professional sports teams would want to treat cheerleaders as independent contractors. But, do they meet the standard?

“Under common-law rules, anyone who performs services for you is your employee if you can control what will be done and how it will be done,” the IRS explains on itsinformation page detailing the differences between employees and independent contractors. “This is so even when you give the employee freedom of action. What matters is that you have the right to control the details of how the services are performed.”

The IRS identifies three areas for determining whether the individuals providing services are employees or independent contractors. Those questions are: behavioral, whether the employee has control over the work; financial, who controls the business aspects of the work relationship; and the type of relationship, whether the work performed is a key aspect of the business.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, “You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer – what will be done and how it will be done.”

If the claims in some of the lawsuits are accurate, some NFL teams clearly exercised controlled of what and how cheerleaders performed their jobs.

“If a Raiderettes cheerleader forgets to bring the right pom-poms to practice, she’s fined $10,” Mother Jones summarized of the claims in one lawsuit. “The same thing happens if she wears the wrong workout gear to a rehearsal, she forgets to bring a yoga mat to practice, or her boots aren’t cleaned and polished for game day.”

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Cheerleaders, Legislature, NFL, Raiders, San Diego

Stadium plan for Chargers, Raiders near Los Angeles advances

April 16, 2015 By Michael R. Blood and Bernie Wilson 1 Comment

As reported by the Associated Press and featured in the Sacramento Bee:

LOS ANGELES — A proposed stadium near Los Angeles that could become home for the NFL’s San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders hit an early milestone Wednesday.

Organizers said sufficient petition signatures have been verified by election officials to qualify the proposal for the ballot in Carson, where the project would be built on a former landfill.

The Raiders and Chargers are planning a shared stadium in the city on the edge of Los Angeles if both teams fail to get new stadiums in their current hometowns.