NFL to return to Los Angeles with not one, not two . . . but three teams?

I guess it would make up for lost time. And of course, there's no guarantee the National Football League approves even one team's application to move. But if the city councils who commit public dollars to stadium construction are any indication, there's reason to think the NFL could soon have as many as three teams calling Los Angeles home.

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We've already heard about the plans by Rams owner Stan Kroenke to build a stadium in Inglewood - one that Kroenke says the Rams would consider sharing with another team, by the way. Not to be outdone, the city council of Carson City has now approved construction of a new stadium with the goal of having the Raiders and Chargers both move in as co-tenants:

A city-funded report released over the weekend mentioned other unresolved issues, among them:

• While a two-team stadium would help Carson's budget, just one tenant may not generate enough tax revenue to cover city costs for decades.
• The difference between making and losing money hinges on $1.4 million a year in federal housing funds the city could lose if room can't be found elsewhere for more than 1,500 housing units that were originally planned for the stadium site.
• While developers have agreed to pay for street work estimated at $37 million, the stadium would need 16,000 off-site parking spaces, hindering development of nearby land and the subsequent property tax revenue.

Much of this will be decided in the coming months between city officials and representatives of the Raiders and Chargers, said Albert Robles, a Carson City Council member who becomes mayor on Tuesday.

As the clip makes clear, the vote doesn't mean the stadium gets built. A lot of hurdles have to be cleared before that happens. What it does, however, is commit the city council to pursuing it withhout putting the matter to a public vote as some had wanted. It's far from clear at this point if these two stadium proposals represent an either/or proposition or if they could conceivably both get built. You can understand why any stadium owner - public or private - would want two tenants since that would mean 16 home dates, 16 filled parking lots, 16 weeks of personal seat license occupants. These stadiums cost upwards of $1 billion and you need to recoup the money any way you can. The Los Angeles metropolitan area has 18 million people. I'd say that's enough to support three teams, at least in theory - especially since you have to figure you'd get some support for the Chargers coming up from San Diego, even though plenty of others there might feel betrayed by the move. Just speaking as a fan, the Rams are the team I'd most want to see return to L.A. Their history there is the richest, and it would be especially cool if they returned to wearing the classic primary color uniform you see Eric Dickerson sporting in the image above. The Raiders and their hooligan fans belong in Oakland if you ask me (which you didn't). It's never made sense to me that the NFL let its absence from Los Angeles drag out for 20 years, leaving so much money on the table in the process. I know it's complicated to finance new stadiums and move teams (I'm certainly glad it wasn't the Vikings), and with 32 teams already I'd say the NFL is hardly in a position to expand again. But you've got to figure it out, and it looks like they may finally be close to doing so. But really. Three teams? Can that work? What do you think?