(FoxNews.com) — There were two plans for relocation the National Football League this past month.
The first plan involved two teams – the Arizona Cardinals and St. Louis Rams – bidding to move to Los Angeles.
The other plan – not the controversial second expansion team (which hasn’t happened since the merger in 1970) — involved the Tennessee Titans moving to Nashville.
So where did all this leave the Tennessee Titans? According to the Tennessean, the franchise has reached a tentative agreement with Nashville to build a $1.6 billion Titans Training Center and a $1.4 billion stadium.
But NFL owners had no say on the location of either an expansion team or the new stadium in Nashville, at least when it came to the franchise moving. Instead, the NFL said that each team’s move is up to its market.
Rather than being the biggest blow-up from the June meeting, the league’s decision to hold most of the decisions up to individual teams actually added to their attention span.
That was evident during the press conference to make the move official. According to ESPN.com, the team’s best-selling sponsor, Coach Bill Flores, was snubbed in favor of team owners who had already made up their minds.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Boston Red Sox’s GM, Dave Dombrowski, and Chicago Cubs’ CEO, Theo Epstein – the three men who represent ownership on the league’s 32 teams – said Flores wasn’t invited to attend due to the Chargers’ announcement that they were breaking from the AFC West.
Goodell cited the timing – a month before NFL veterans report for training camp – as the reason for keeping the team separate from the players.
“It’s not a good environment for us to be at in terms of training camp or for the players. We wanted to make sure our focus was solely on football,” Goodell said.
The season doesn’t begin until September – and for all intents and purposes starts in May when the franchise heads south.
“My personal opinion is that [Los Angeles] is in many ways the next stepping stone for all the franchises in the NFL – from being a good franchise to a great franchise,” Goodell said.
There is plenty to look forward to for the Titans, who received the Falcons’ first-round draft pick in 2017, a third-round draft pick in 2018 and a fourth-round draft pick in 2019, ESPN reported.
Coach Mike Mularkey had expressed in recent weeks he was looking forward to the team’s chances of moving to Nashville.
“They’ve talked about if we don’t move it, I’d be very concerned about our success on the field,” Mularkey said. “I don’t know if I would be. You need to have good people and good football players and I think as a football family we know that Nashville is an excellent community, an outstanding place to live and all that kind of stuff.”
The move won’t be official until all 30 owners have reviewed the deal, and at this point the only question remaining is who will have the final say over the final details in order to approve the deal.
The Nashville city council should vote on the deal on Aug. 10.
Under the proposed deal, the Titans will sell their temporary home, LP Field, for a reported $100 million. Proceeds will be used to provide the owners with equity to put into the new stadium project.