New: Latest on Kroenke, Rams and NFL in STL

[den-the-coach]

Vinny has been more pessimistic about the Rams relocating so I am wondering what he heard or saw that has swayed him. Now he isn't saying anything definitely but the tone of his tweets seem to have changed. He said he is working on an article about his past week here so I will interested in reading it. He was very complimentary to the Midwest hospitality he received while in town.

Because Goose in the end, he's thinking the 2nd team in Inglewood will be the Chargers and that's how Spanos with embrace the Inglewood project and again this is JMHO.

 

[Hacksaw]

Vinny Bonsignore was in STL this past week and he had some interest tweets today.






Vinny has been more pessimistic about the Rams relocating so I am wondering what he heard or saw that has swayed him. Now he isn't saying anything definitely but the tone of his tweets seem to have changed. He said he is working on an article about his past week here so I will interested in reading it. He was very complimentary to the Midwest hospitality he received while in town.

I was out your way once but opposite end of the state. My late Moms family are from KC MO, and when my uncle passed I came out for and extended stay during his services. I went out on the town at night and the folks there treated my like family. Strangers invited to their tables, drinks bought, good conversation that sort of thing. Different then other places I've visited. Props. I knew I wasn't in Kansa,,, err, LA anymore.

There has been a lull in all this mess but the sense of erosion is in the air. Even the task force has been quieter.
VB must have experienced something while talking to those folks involved and reading the tea leaves in person.

 

[HornsUp]

http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2015/may/02/nfl-stadium-kroenke-rams-chargers
Kroenke still controls L.A. stadium clock
Pay no attention to the NFL draft that wrapped up Saturday. The most dangerous man in football this year will continue to be Stan Kroenke, the reclusive billionaire who owns the St. Louis Rams.

His plan to spend nearly $2 billion on a two-team stadium in Inglewood, just 10 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, has profoundly upset the balance inside the world’s most lucrative sports league.

Chargers president Dean Spanos, who says he wants to stay in San Diego, now must place a huge bet on moving to Carson, with or without the Raiders. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who was elected thinking he had time to build a political consensus for keeping the team, is now a man in a hurry.

The dynamic is roughly the same in Oakland and St. Louis. How can one man create so much drama? Because the NFL is, above all, a business.

Los Angeles, the nation’s second largest broadcasting market, has been without an NFL team for two decades.

Turning it into a thriving football town is part of Commissioner Roger Goodell’s plan to grow annual league revenues to $25 billion from its present $10 billion or so.

If executed well, taking sole possession of this fabulous market could triple the value of the Rams (or the Chargers), from roughly $1 billion now to $3 billion, sports economists estimate.

Kroenke is perfect for the job; a genuine sports mogul. He owns six professional franchises, including the NBA Denver Nuggets, NHL Colorado Avalanche and the fabled Arsenal soccer club in London.

And he believes in maximizing value through vertical integration. In Denver, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment owns his teams’ arena, regional broadcast network and ticket company (technically, his son controls the operation to comply with NFL cross-ownership rules). Forbes puts Kroenke’s net worth at $6 billion.

It’s hard to imagine a more formidable threat to Spanos.

For perspective, the Chargers say 25 percent of their season tickets are sold to fans living in the metropolitan L.A. area. They could learn to love the Rams.

So Spanos must either beat them into L.A., join them, or seal a deal with San Diego and rebuild his season ticket base. If Kroenke gets there alone and first, Spanos loses leverage with San Diego, and his lease at Qualcomm expires in 2020.

Yet the Chargers president has a key advantage.

Three quarters of the NFL’s 32 owners must approve relocation. One requirement is that a team moving to L.A. must show it was unable to secure a deal for public subsidies from the jilted city.

Spanos can credibly say he’s come up empty in San Diego for more than a decade. This could tilt other owners toward his Carson proposal, for a $1.7 billion privately funded stadium in partnership with the Raiders.

Kroenke has been talking to St. Louis for about five years. But now city and state officials are offering free land and $400 million in direct subsidies toward a $1 billion stadium.

The NFL would chip in $200 million under its G4 loan program, and local officials assume fans will raise $150 million in “personal seat licenses,” which convey rights to season tickets, according to recent reports.

This leaves the Rams to contribute merely $250 million to get a new stadium — and a big boost in annual revenues. Sports economist John Vrooman estimates the team value would surge to $1.5 billion. Not a bad payday for Kroenke.

Here’s a conspicuous notion for San Diego: A similar deal at Qualcomm would greatly undercut the Spanos case with fellow owners, especially if the Raiders drop out.

And NFL owners pay close attention to whether a stadium deal is financially viable.

Without the Raiders, picking Kroenke over Spanos would seem a safer bet. Nobody wants a struggling team, and either must build a new market in Los Angeles while recovering well north of $1 billion in construction costs, after the sale of seat licenses and NFL funds.

Even if the Chargers-Raiders collaboration survives, owners must decide whether L.A. is really ready for two teams, notwithstanding Goodell’s grandiosity. Seeing how one performs for a few years is a safer bet.

At least one owner, Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, seems happy to let Kroenke decide the matter by moving the Rams without permission, as the late Raiders owner Al Davis famously did in 1982 after winning an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.

Not so fast. Kroenke would have a much harder time of it, says Marc Ganis, a consultant who advised the Rams and Raiders when they moved out of L.A. in the mid-1990s.

NFL legal ties bind much tighter these days. In 2007, the league won a suit against Davis over whether the Raiders or the NFL “owned” the L.A. market.

Incidentally, that fight was over the same site Kroenke now controls. The NFL wanted Davis to share a new stadium with another team, so he sued to block a competitor.

More to the point, the NFL controls vastly more money today. The league could sack a maverick by holding back his piece of broadcast revenue, which hit $6 billion last year, along with other shared sources that typically make up 80 percent of a team’s revenue.

Such power flows from the NFL’s monopoly structure. One way to understand this is to think of owners as operating, but not fully owning, their individual teams. Instead, they own a 1/32 share of an association, Ganis said. That’s why the NFL, as a collective, is reluctant to pass up $400 million in free public money in St. Louis, or see the Chargers facing stagnant local revenue in San Diego.

Voluntary contracts of association are hard to break. An exception might be if the NFL keeps Kroenke waiting too long.

Legally, he could argue that the Rams duly followed the prescribed process, invested millions in a new site, and yet the NFL refused to render a decision while San Diego, Oakland and St. Louis pursued lengthy political processes to raise public funds.

Although this particular game of chicken seems unlikely, it could explain why Goodell recently said owners may decide the L.A. question this fall, instead of waiting for their annual meeting in March.

Thus the Kroenke clock forces Spanos to move full speed ahead in Carson.

If San Diego can’t place hard cash on the table by November, the Chargers face a future battling for fans with a local competitor, while their Qualcomm lease expires in 2020. In this context, St. Louis may even start to look good to a panicking Spanos family.

Some people, particularly boosters of Qualcomm redevelopment, say Spanos is just bluffing in Carson. Maybe. But Kroenke? I wouldn’t bet on it.

 

[Goose]

I was out your way once but opposite end of the state. My late Moms family are from KC MO, and when my uncle passed I came out for and extended stay during his services. I went out on the town at night and the folks there treated my like family. Strangers invited to their tables, drinks bought, good conversation that sort of thing. Different then other places I've visited. Props. I knew I wasn't in Kansa,,, err, LA anymore.

There has been a lull in all this mess but the sense of erosion is in the air. Even the task force has been quieter.
VB must have experienced something while talking to those folks involved and reading the tea leaves in person.

Hacksaw I love to hear stories like that because it does make me proud of my state. I lived in KC for 8 years prior to returning to STL and I loved. I always though it was funny when people would say that KC is more West Coast and STL is more East Coast but now that I have lived in both and traveled to both coasts I agree with that statement. The only downside to KC is it is the Chiefs. I think VB did encounter something which makes it all the more concerning to me. VB has never been an overreaction type of guy. Someone like Jason Cole who seems to go to extremes with reporting Vinny has always taken a middle of the road approach. Now I could be reading too much into his tweets but right now I am a little concerned.

 

[Goose]

Because Goose in the end, he's thinking the 2nd team in Inglewood will be the Chargers and that's how Spanos with embrace the Inglewood project and again this is JMHO.

I think if you are saying that Inglewood is going to happen and you had to handicap the second team I would agree that it is probably the Chargers. If that happens then the NFL is basically saying we don't give a sh*! about the Raiders. That's the piece I can't help get around. How do you make all three teams happy and not create a PR nightmare?

 

[den-the-coach]

That's the piece I can't help get around. How do you make all three teams happy and not create a PR nightmare?

If you relocate to St. Louis Marc Davis we will waive the relocation fee.

 

[Hacksaw]

I think if you are saying that Inglewood is going to happen and you had to handicap the second team I would agree that it is probably the Chargers. If that happens then the NFL is basically saying we don't give a sh*! about the Raiders. That's the piece I can't help get around. How do you make all three teams happy and not create a PR nightmare?

Cough cough, AL, cough.

 

[iced]

Not so fast. Kroenke would have a much harder time of it, says Marc Ganis, a consultant who advised the Rams and Raiders when they moved out of L.A. in the mid-1990s.

NFL legal ties bind much tighter these days. In 2007, the league won a suit against Davis over whether the Raiders or the NFL “owned” the L.A. market.

Incidentally, that fight was over the same site Kroenke now controls. The NFL wanted Davis to share a new stadium with another team, so he sued to block a competitor.

More to the point, the NFL controls vastly more money today. The league could sack a maverick by holding back his piece of broadcast revenue, which hit $6 billion last year, along with other shared sources that typically make up 80 percent of a team’s revenue.

Such power flows from the NFL’s monopoly structure. One way to understand this is to think of owners as operating, but not fully owning, their individual teams. Instead, they own a 1/32 share of an association, Ganis said. That’s why the NFL, as a collective, is reluctant to pass up $400 million in free public money in St. Louis, or see the Chargers facing stagnant local revenue in San Diego.

@RamFan503 going back to our earlier discussion of 1 business or 32 individuals - this is another way of saying the same thing

 

[iced]

If you relocate to St. Louis Marc Davis we will waive the relocation fee.

I think that's wishful thinking. Has the NFL EVER waived a relocation fee?

Hard to believe these billionaires are gonna pass up an opportunity to make money

 

[bluecoconuts]

Vinny has been more pessimistic about the Rams relocating so I am wondering what he heard or saw that has swayed him. Now he isn't saying anything definitely but the tone of his tweets seem to have changed. He said he is working on an article about his past week here so I will interested in reading it. He was very complimentary to the Midwest hospitality he received while in town.

That is interesting, is there any change in how the Rams have been marketing themselves to the city or anything? To be honest whenever I've been there I've never seen anything, but I've never looked either. Plus I'm out west towards Wildwood/Pacific. I know LA has Dodger and Kings billboards up all over as part of their marketing strategies, maybe it was something like that? Interesting how he may be flippungt on that.

Ultimately I agree the NFL probably wants to look out for Spanos because he's played ball with the other owners for so long. It may have to come down to "look man, Inglewood is gonna happen, you gotta hitch on now or at least drop Carson and we'll keep it open for you." To get him to team up but Billionaires often have their egos.

Either way it'll be interesting to see what happens when the dust settles.

 

[den-the-coach]

I think that's wishful thinking. Has the NFL EVER waived a relocation fee?

Hard to believe these billionaires are gonna pass up an opportunity to make money

I concur, but that would extend an olive branch to put this whole fiasco to rest.

 

[Legatron4]

Fuck, it really sounds like Rams to LA is a done deal. I really don't know how I will handle the news. Probably will have to be without a phone for about a month.

 

[iced]

I concur, but that would extend an olive branch to put this whole fiasco to rest.

Assuming Davis can afford the $450 million for the stadium - and that's not even including the other costs associated with moving...

Which I don't think anyone believes - if he could afford that I think he'd have a new stadium in oakland right now

 

[den-the-coach]

Assuming Davis can afford the $450 million for the stadium - and that's not even including the other costs associated with moving...

Which I don't think anyone believes - if he could afford that I think he'd have a new stadium in oakland right now

Well, something has to give, but they are going to have to come up with some plan for the Raiders and there is no easy answer.

 

[HornsUp]

Well, something has to give, but they are going to have to come up with some plan for the Raiders and there is no easy answer.

I'm still trying to figure out why they're about to spend 10-40 mill on a practice facility up there in Oakland.

 

[iced]

Well, something has to give, but they are going to have to come up with some plan for the Raiders and there is no easy answer.

Sure isn't easy - but if it involves the other owners completely waiving fee's, even significantly reducing fee's, or IE: not making money.... i just don't see it happening.

 

[den-the-coach]

I'm still trying to figure out why they're about to spend 10-40 mill on a practice facility up there in Oakland.

Yeah, that's hard to understand so somebody has some money maybe Marc Davis has been saving money by giving himself his own haircut.

 

[iced]

I hate when the media writes an article to insinuate that something happened and then you come back and say oh well that's not exactly what I meant to say.

Lol knew this was coming the way that was written

 

[HornsUp]

Yeah, that's hard to understand so somebody has some money maybe Marc Davis has been saving money by giving himself his own haircut.

Lol

 

[bluecoconuts]

I think that's wishful thinking. Has the NFL EVER waived a relocation fee?

Hard to believe these billionaires are gonna pass up an opportunity to make money

Have they ever tried to encourage a team to relocate before? I think no matter how things end up, they'll need to move into some uncharted territory.

freak, it really sounds like Rams to LA is a done deal. I really don't know how I will handle the news. Probably will have to be without a phone for about a month.

I'd say it's only half time, nothing even close to done yet.

Although you're a truck driver aren't you? If they do move, maybe take some deliveries out to LA to see them? I really don't know how trucking works other than there's like 50 fucking gear shifts or some crazy shit haha.