San Diego, St. Louis stadium representatives won’t present at NFL meetings

As expected, the NFL has officially changed directions on its October meetings and will not have representatives from the cities of San Diego and St. Louis make presentations to team owners about their efforts to keep the Chargers and Rams where they are.

Eric Grubman, the NFL executive vice president who is overseeing the potential relocation of one and possibly two teams to the Los Angeles market, said discussions at those meetings will be more productive without the cities making presentations directly to the owners. Oakland had not been invited to make a presentation because the league does not think that city has a viable plan to keep the Raiders.

“At this stage of the project development, we’ll get much better dialogue with the committees who are really digging into the details,” Grubman said. “If the cities were to present, they would just get polite attention. At a league meeting, in that room, nobody hears anything, particularly when there are outsiders and when we have a full agenda. They would be short presentations, and you’d be bringing in the state or city leadership in to do a big dog, horse and pony show and then nobody asks a question, or if they do it’s just sort of a polite one.”

Grubman said it will be more valuable to have a “substantive next step,” which could entail those cities making presentations to multiple league committees, as opposed to the general membership.

He said that there is no timetable for holding town hall-type meetings in San Diego, St. Louis and Oakland. Those meetings are requirements in the league’s relocation guidelines.

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