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The NFL owners voted on Tuesday night to approve the move of the Rams to Los Angeles, ending a 21-year drought for the NFL in the second-largest television market.What is still up in the air is whether a second team will join the Rams in the stadium to built in Inglewood. The presumption is that the Chargers will eventually make the move also and now we are getting more details on how and when that might happen.
According to Mike Garafolo of Fox Sports, the Chargers have until the end of the league meetings (March 20-23) to decide if they are going to move to Los Angeles or stay in San Diego for the 2016 season.
This date is important because there is a vote set for June that would provide the Chargers with $350 million in public funding for a new stadium in San Diego. If the Chargers want to see the results of that vote, they will have to pass on the window to move to L.A. for the 2016 season. However, that would not close the door on a potential move.
While speaking with the media, Roger Goodell announced that the Chargers have one year to decide if that will join the Rams in Los Angeles. So, even if the Chargers decide to stay in San Diego for the 2016 season, they can still opt to move to L.A. up until January of 2017.
If the Chargers choose not to move to L.A. within the next year, then the option to move to Los Angeles will pass to the Raiders.
Complicating matters is that the NFL has offered $100 million to both the Chargers and the Raiders to help finance stadiums in their current cities. So it is still possible that the Chargers and the Raiders will stay put and the Rams will be the only team moving to Los Angeles.
However, that part of this scenario is still very much up in the air.