AEG gives up on Los Angeles football stadium plan

LOS ANGELES — After investing five years and at least $50 million in an attempt to return the NFL to Los Angeles, AEG is abandoning plans for a downtown stadium.

The sports and entertainment conglomerate is no longer in discussions with the NFL or any teams about the Farmers Field project, company officials told the Los Angeles Times on Monday. AEG was the onetime front-runner in the competition to bring professional football back to the nation’s second-largest market.

“I think it’s fair to say we have turned our attention to proceeding with an alternative development,” AEG Vice Chairman Ted Fikre said.

Fikre said that AEG has informed city officials that it will not seek an extension of an April 17 deadline to secure a team. The deadline was previously extended six months.

Although some NFL owners and executives long favored the site and AEG spent millions to gain the needed entitlements for a stadium, the company ultimately failed to generate sufficient interest from any teams.

Eric Grubman, NFL executive vice president and point man for the league on L.A., said the league has been “very interested” in the downtown site and has spent significant time with senior members of AEG. “We would always prefer to have an excellent site in the mix, but we recognize that it is not in our control.”

Rival concepts in Inglewood and Carson, both backed by NFL owners, have overshadowed Farmers Field this year.

Last month, the Inglewood City Council approved an 80,000-seat stadium, whose developers include St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke, at the site of the old Hollywood Park racetrack. Meanwhile, supporters of a proposed stadium bankrolled by the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders on a former landfill in Carson plan to start gathering signatures this week for a ballot initiative to move forward with the project.