Kraft: NFL has ‘obligation’ to stay in St. Louis
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_b71863ad-59ba-56d3-a9e3-5ced69af0eb8.html
PHOENIX • Not only is New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft one of the NFL’s most influential owners, he also sits on two committees that will have a lot to say about relocation of teams to Los Angeles and the future of pro football in St. Louis.
His message to St. Louis is direct and simple.
“From my point of view, if they come up with a plan that looks pretty good and a strong financial package, I think we — the NFL — have an obligation in my opinion to be able to have a team in St. Louis,” Kraft said Monday at the NFL owners meetings.
Note that he said “a team.” He didn’t specifically mention the Rams. But his general point is that if St. Louis steps up with stadium and financing plans that work, the city will continue to have NFL football.
“We have to be very careful and responsible to different markets who really step up and do what they want to do (in terms of keeping a team),” Kraft continued. “If they do, we have a responsibility to make sure there’s a team in that market.”
That sentiment appears to be widespread among league owners and insiders assembled here this week for the annual NFL owners meetings. The two-man task force of Dave Peacock and Bob Blitz has made impressive progress on the stadium plan in St. Louis, but the hard part remains on the horizon — especially coming up with the financing.
But if the financing’s in place, the league will have a hard time turning it’s back on roughly a half-billion dollar investment by St. Louis on a new riverfront stadium on the north edge of downtown. It would be the second stadium St. Louis has built for the NFL in less 25 years, basically unprecedented in league history.
However encouraging Kraft’s words might be at face value, he did throw out one caveat for St. Louis: “But they have to be able to support the team,” Kraft said. “Any community that’s privileged to have a team, love ‘em up.”
Along those lines, the league is in the process of making market assessments in St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland, Calif. — three cities in which franchises are free agents in terms of potential relocation.
The NFL is doing the same in Los Angeles, where Rams owner Stan Kroenke wants to build a stadium in the nearby Inglewood, Calif., area. Meanwhile, the Chargers and Raiders have formed an alliance to build a stadium in suburban Carson, Calif., if they can’t settle their stadium issues in their current home markets of San Diego and Oakland.
Eric Grubman, the NFL’s point man on Los Angeles/relocation/stadium development, plans to visit all the cities in play in April as part of the market assessment program.
Regardless of what happens in St. Louis, it never has seemed clearer that Los Angeles is on the brink of getting an NFL franchise for the first time since 1994. The Rams (to St. Louis) and Raiders (to Oakland) both left the LA market in the spring of 1995.
“In my opinion, I think there’ll be a team and possibly two playing in LA somewhere in 2016,” New York Giants president and CEO John Mara said. “But that remains subject to the league approval and that’ll happen at some point in the future.”
Kraft went even further, saying it’s more likely the NFL will have two teams in Los Angeles in 2016 than just one.
“Twenty-one years ago when I moved into the league, we had two teams move out of the LA market,” Kraft said. “It was just very unfortunate. And I don’t think it’s good that we’ve let a generation of fans, young kids, grow up (without the NFL in LA).
“It’s not good for the NFL, and I really believe within the next year we’ll have two teams in that market. I don’t know who they’ll be. ... We have some real good options. We’ll see what happens in the end game.”
Kraft saved football in New England when he purchased the Patriots from St. Louisan James Busch Orthwein in 1994 amid rumors that Orthwein might move the franchise to the Gateway City.
Kraft doesn’t think Los Angeles should have an NFL team or teams without a top-flight venue, and expressed optimism that that would be the case.
“I think LA should be a market where we play Super Bowls, where we have an NFL Experience,” he said. “We have a (television) network out there. There’s a lot of things that can be done around it, and allow the NFL to really be a showplace. And integrating everything, and doing it in a proper real estate development.”
Without mentioning Kroenke’s plan by name, that seemed to be an endorsement of the Inglewood project because the 80,000-seat stadium planned there is just one part of a massive real estate development on the site.
Given the financial commitment necessary to build a — pardon the expression — top-tier stadium the league wants in the Los Angeles market, Kraft thinks having the resources of two teams in one building is a necessity. Although there have been differing opinions, Kraft thinks it’s best to have the two teams move simultaneously into a new LA-area stadium.
“Sort of in a way that happened in New York-New Jersey, where they corrected a situation that had gone on, I think, for many years where the Jets felt maybe like they were second class,” Kraft said, speaking of the Giants and Jets sharing MetLife Stadium.
“And now you have two NFL teams and two fan bases that are both treated in a professional way,” he added. “You could have it that one team would come in later (in LA), but I’d like to see it be simultaneous.”
New stadium renderings for Kroenke’s Inglewood project made available to the Los Angeles Times revealed that plans called for locker room facilities for two NFL teams. That might have seemed like a revelation, but it wasn’t.
Grubman pointed out Monday that a stadium designed for two teams was made a requirement by the league for Los Angeles in order to be eligible for the NFL’s so-called “G-4” stadium funds.
So if the Kroenke plan is successful, you could see the Rams and Chargers there in 2016, which could put the Raiders in play for St. Louis if the Peacock and Blitz plan becomes a reality in terms of land acquisition and financing.
But Raiders owner Mark Davis stopped a couple of steps short of discussing the possibility of the St. Louis Raiders in brief comments with reporters Monday.
When asked if he thought Carson is a viable site, Davis said: “Absolutely. But I don’t really want to get into talking about any of the other plans. Right now we’re talking about Oakland, and we’ll see what we can do there.”
