A secret ballot proposed by Roger Goodell to the NFL owners helped sway votes to Stan Kroenke’s Inglewood project last week during the NFL’s owners meetings in Houston.
Prior to the owners voting on which teams would be moving to Los Angeles, a special committed recommended 5-1 that the NFL take up the Carson project, which was a joint proposal to have the Raiders and Chargers share a stadium. Despite that recommendation, the owners eventually voted 30-2 to move forward with Stan Kroenke’s proposal for the Rams play in Inglewood, with an invitation to another team to join them.
The MMQB’s Peter King reports that it was a secret ballot offered to the owners that helped sway things towards Kroenke’s Inglewood project.
According to King, the Carson project believed it had 18-20 votes, which was short of the three quarters majority needed in order to approve a move, but more than the majority vote. However, that number never materialized. Reports say the next two votes went 20-12 or 21-11 in Kroenke’s favor. It went all the way up to 30-2 after a proposal was given for the Rams to share the Inglewood complex with another team — the Chargers.
King emphasizes the importance of the secret ballot in the process.
“Roger (Goodell) knew we had a serious split in the membership,” a source told King. “He knew neither side had the votes to win. But he also felt owners needed to vote their consciences, so proposing the secret ballot was something he felt he had to propose, and it was a no-brainer after several owners asked him to do it.”
Apparently a small group of owners had been asking about the possibility of a secret ballot, and that made a difference.
The Chargers have a year to decide if they want to accept the invitation to move to LA. If they decline, the Raiders would then have the option to do so.
