Rams fans make plea, express concern to NFL
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_f96ac6cd-4911-596c-a7e6-5c33cd67e87f.html
Kip Starnes of Sunset Hills was first up during one of the noon focus groups at the L&E Research building in Maplewood.
He was 15 when the football Cardinals left in 1987, and his son Carter is now 15 and wondering if the Rams, too, will be gone after the 2015 season. With Rams executive vice president Kevin Demoff watching and listening behind a one-way window, Starnes spoke from the heart as he addressed the group moderator and about 15 other Rams fans in attendance.
“I was a charter PSL owner in ’95,” Starnes said. “My wife and I were married that February, we had no money to do it. But I was such a big football fan.
“We’re the only city I know that built a stadium without a team (in the early ’90s). We’re now being asked to build another one. I think we can do it.
“And if they turn their backs on us — the league and the owner (Stan Kroenke) — it’s unprecedented. Really I just think it would be a travesty if that happened. Now if we had really done something here to deserve to have this thing pulled out from us a second time. But c’mon. We’re gonna build a second stadium in less than 25 years.”
Starnes said a lot of raw emotion spilled out just during the introductory phase of the 90-minute session, when fans were asked to identify themselves and talk about how long they had followed the Rams.
The focus group meetings Wednesday were a spinoff from email surveys sent out to Rams season-ticket holders past and present, a second phase of a market assessment study by the NFL in St. Louis, Oakland and San Diego — all cities that are in danger of losing their teams to Los Angeles in 2016.
A market study is also being conducted in Los Angeles.
In St. Louis, there were two study groups that began at 7:30 a.m., two more at noon, and then an evening session that began at 6 p.m.
There were about 15 to 20 participants in each focus group, almost all of whom were past or current season-ticket holders. Several missed work or juggled schedules in order to attend.
Some came from as far away as Cape Girardeau, Mo., and the Hannibal-Quincy area, which for those invited to the morning session meant they stayed in St. Louis overnight on Tuesday. Some showed up wearing Rams gear, such as John Potter of St. Peters, who showed up in a blue Marshall Faulk jersey.
In talking with several participants about their focus group experience, there were several common threads:
• Basically all expressed a willingness to buy PSLs for the proposed riverfront stadium on the north edge of downtown.
“I think the general consensus of the people there was yeah, if the Rams make a commitment to stay, they’re willing to pay for the PSLs,” said Dave Watson of Maryland Heights. “Some of these people were willing to write checks for PSLs today.”
Watson, who considered himself a more “cynical” member of his morning focus group, said the group of fans he attends Rams games with was considering sitting out 2015. In other words, not renewing their season tickets this year. But he indicated he’d be back in the stadium if the Rams made a commitment to stay.
• There was dislike, even animosity expressed for Rams owner Stan Kroenke, but there was no name-calling and it didn’t reach the stage where it dominated any of the groups.
“There was a little bit, but it was not a main focus,” John Fitz of Farmington said, when asked about the degree of Kroenke-bashing at the morning session. “It was more focused on getting this new stadium done.”
Things were more intense on that topic at the lunchtime session attended by Starnes and Potter.
“There’s a lot of animosity over Mr. Kroenke right now,” Starnes said. “Could the owner throw us a bone? Could the owner at least say something? Could the owner get (emotionally) invested in the city? If you invest in this town even a little bit — we’re so hungry. ... He’s speaking with his money and his actions developing in another city.”
That last part of Starnes’ remark referred, of course, to Kroenke’s $1.8 billion stadium plan in Inglewood, Calif.
• The overwhelming preference was to keep the Rams in St. Louis; there was much less enthusiasm over buying PSLs for another franchise, such as the Raiders.
“We’ve supported this team,” Watson said. “This is our team. If Kroenke wants to move his team, leave the Rams logo here. There was a general sense of loyalty to the Rams and not so much caring about the stadium but willing to invest to keep them.”
• Those interviewed said there was basically unanimous support for an outdoor stadium, over what some called the sterile environment of the Edward Jones Dome.
The moderators for the focus groups were from the Plano, Texas-based firm of CSL International, the same group that sent out nearly 200,000 emails to Rams season-ticket holders and potential Rams fans several weeks ago.
The group has been involved in several market assessment programs for stadiums in the U.S. and abroad, including the Minnesota Vikings’ football stadium currently under construction.
The focus groups were shown a PowerPoint presentation regarding some of the amenities and price structures for seats at newer NFL stadiums such as in Dallas, San Francisco, New Jersey (for the Jets and Giants) and Minneapolis.
At the end, they were shown a potential price structure for the proposed St. Louis stadium. The consensus was that the pricing structure, which is based off the Minneapolis pricing, was bearable.
“The price structure is quite a bit higher than the PSLs that were charged with the original dome,” Watson said. “But people were saying they’re willing to do this. It wasn’t as much as they thought it might be, and they were braced because they had gone through the survey before. They were braced for big-ticket prices.”