Report: NFL Might Sell Tickets For Non-Existent L.A. Team

When the NFL owners meet up next week, one of the big topics on the table will be the league's presence and future in Los Angeles. With that in mind, a report has come out from FOX Sports saying that they could end up selling PSLs (Personal Seat Licenses or, as normal people call them, "reservations") to those that are interesting in buying season tickets to whichever team ends up in Los Angeles.

Yes, seriously. They want to try to sell season tickets to "generic NFL team" to see how many people would buy.

The goal would be to start building a season-ticket base for the 2016 season now, rather than waiting until it's clear which, and how many, teams will be making the move.

The league called next week's meeting to allow interested teams to present their vision for a move to Los Angeles and fully share what they hope to establish there. In addition, the owners will hear about developments in the teams' current markets in San Diego, Oakland, and St. Louis.

Source

There's the batshit crazy angle, which is obvious in the beginning of this article, but this also makes a ton of sense. In fact, this is probably something that the Chargers would be doing in San Diego right now, if they had an interest in going all-in on a San Diego solution and giving up on San Diego.

This is a bit like starting a Kickstarter for an NFL stadium. "If enough people contribute enough money, we'll reach our goal and build the stadium! Those who contribute the highest amounts will get Person Seat Licenses! Those who contribute less get a t-shirt."

It sounds ridiculous, but it's not. The more actual, real dollars you can put towards a project, the more motivated people are to get that project done.

That being said, this is pretty bad news for San Diego (and Oakland and St. Louis). While I may view this as a brilliant PR play, and it might be, the fact of that matter is that a project like this gives the people of L.A. a chance to essentially buy a team away from one of these other markets. And if the NFL is dangling that opportunity out there, it means they're determined to make this L.A. thing happen a lot more than they are determined to find new homes for the teams that need one.

All told, I think Scott Lewis and Scott Kaplan are right: The NFL wants L.A. a lot more than L.A. wants the NFL. In that regard, though, we're talking about the City itself. The people? The people of L.A. want to win, and they want to be on the same level as the other major cities that have the NFL. They're also rich. I think this "Let's sell PSLs to any team" is the NFL's way of tapping into that, and trying to bully their way into the city of Los Angeles.