Rams Approved To Relocate
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RamBill
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BenFred: We'll miss the Rams but certainly won't miss their owner
• By Ben Frederickson
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_661842fe-f537-52c5-a73c-8b595f4b74ea.html
St. Louis lost the battle to keep its losing football team from moving to Los Angeles on Tuesday. The loss of its loser of an owner should help ease the sting.
This city really will miss its mediocre Rams.
Stan Kroenke, not so much.
“I’m going to attempt to do everything that I can to keep the Rams in St. Louis.” — Kroenke
Back when Kroenke, a native Missourian, used to talk to the Rams fan base through the media, the billionaire said he wouldn’t do this. St. Louisans should have known better, of course. A liar can’t help but lie.
Some were led to believe the member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame — no kidding — would fight to keep professional football in his home state. Or at least not fight to rip it away.
But the problem was Kroenke’s actions never really seemed to match the assurance he gave the Post-Dispatch in a rare 2010 interview that took place after he exercised his right as minority owner to match a competitor’s bid.
Remember what he said.
“I’m born and raised in Missouri. I’ve been a Missourian for 60 years. People in our state know me. People know I can be trusted. People know I’m an honorable guy.” — Kroenke
Look at what he did.
Kroenke latched onto a regrettable clause in the team’s Edward Jones Dome lease that freed up the opportunity for relocation if the venue wasn’t in the top 25 percent of the league.
Former team president John Shaw made sure the item made it into the paperwork. Kroenke wielded it as his trump card. Meanwhile he made sure his multi-billion dollar dream stadium in Inglewood, Calif., was shovel-ready, with or without the poor second team that will wind up being his tenant.
If only Kroenke’s desire to climb the Forbes ranking and claim Los Angeles matched his desire to own a winning football team.
In his 29-page relocation application — a necessary part of the league relocation guidelines that turned out to be an absolute joke — Kroenke cited the Rams’ to-the-cap spending as a way to knock fans for poor attendance. He failed to mention the Rams are 36-59-1 since he became the majority owner.
He also left out this noteworthy piece of information: Rams coach Jeff Fisher, the man Kroenke hired in 2012, was asked multiple questions about his experience overseeing the Houston Oilers’ transition into the Tennessee Titans during his job interview in Denver. He must have nailed the answers, because Fisher, who is 27-36-1 with the Rams, is about to become the third coach since the AFL-NFL merger to receive a fifth season after a sub-.500 record in each of his first four.
“There’s a track record. I’ve always stepped up for pro football in St. Louis. And I’m stepping up one more time.” — Kroenke
It was wild to track, wasn’t it? The low of Monday night, when reports of a Rams-Chargers partnership surfaced. The thrill of Tuesday afternoon, when the league’s Los Angeles committee recommended the Chargers-Raiders project in Carson, Calif., by a 5-1 vote. Then the disgust when we were reminded that this is the NFL, where money rules.
An initial hope was that Kroenke would be so stubborn he would blow it. Man, it was fun to imagine the league owners with a conscience tackling Kroenke and associate-in-greed Jerry Jones at the goal line.
There were unconfirmed whispers of collusion (rumors that Eric Grubman, the league’s point man on the race to Los Angeles, might be in line for a job with the Rams), and even some humor, such as a report that Kroenke threatened legal action if the league picked Carson.
To be fair, Kroenke probably views the threat of a lawsuit as a sign of his friendship. It’s his version of a handshake.
Eventually, the fun stopped, and reality hit. The men with the money get what they want. Every time. A precedent has been set: If you are the home city of an NFL team that wants to move, do nothing, because it won’t matter in the end.
Kroenke’s fellow con artist, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, painted quite the picture after the NFL mafia cleaned up the blood and paid off the witnesses.
The amount of spin bordered on insanity. It would have been laughable if St. Louis wasn’t the city with the cement blocks strapped to its feet.
The way Goodell told it, Kroenke was leading the Los Angeles Rams home. People here know Kroenke turned his back on his home long ago.
The best part was when Kroenke stepped behind the microphone.
“Um,” he started “Well.”
He recovered and muddled through excuses like a guy who hadn’t talked publicly since .... let me check again ... 2012.
Kroenke said he really tried to make it work here. He said it was bittersweet. He said this was the hardest thing he’s done in his professional career.
St. Louis knows better.
“I’ll do my damnedest.” — Kroenke
Turned out he didn’t give a damn. Good riddance, Stan.
St. Louis will miss your team.
It should celebrate losing you.
• By Ben Frederickson
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_661842fe-f537-52c5-a73c-8b595f4b74ea.html
St. Louis lost the battle to keep its losing football team from moving to Los Angeles on Tuesday. The loss of its loser of an owner should help ease the sting.
This city really will miss its mediocre Rams.
Stan Kroenke, not so much.
“I’m going to attempt to do everything that I can to keep the Rams in St. Louis.” — Kroenke
Back when Kroenke, a native Missourian, used to talk to the Rams fan base through the media, the billionaire said he wouldn’t do this. St. Louisans should have known better, of course. A liar can’t help but lie.
Some were led to believe the member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame — no kidding — would fight to keep professional football in his home state. Or at least not fight to rip it away.
But the problem was Kroenke’s actions never really seemed to match the assurance he gave the Post-Dispatch in a rare 2010 interview that took place after he exercised his right as minority owner to match a competitor’s bid.
Remember what he said.
“I’m born and raised in Missouri. I’ve been a Missourian for 60 years. People in our state know me. People know I can be trusted. People know I’m an honorable guy.” — Kroenke
Look at what he did.
Kroenke latched onto a regrettable clause in the team’s Edward Jones Dome lease that freed up the opportunity for relocation if the venue wasn’t in the top 25 percent of the league.
Former team president John Shaw made sure the item made it into the paperwork. Kroenke wielded it as his trump card. Meanwhile he made sure his multi-billion dollar dream stadium in Inglewood, Calif., was shovel-ready, with or without the poor second team that will wind up being his tenant.
If only Kroenke’s desire to climb the Forbes ranking and claim Los Angeles matched his desire to own a winning football team.
In his 29-page relocation application — a necessary part of the league relocation guidelines that turned out to be an absolute joke — Kroenke cited the Rams’ to-the-cap spending as a way to knock fans for poor attendance. He failed to mention the Rams are 36-59-1 since he became the majority owner.
He also left out this noteworthy piece of information: Rams coach Jeff Fisher, the man Kroenke hired in 2012, was asked multiple questions about his experience overseeing the Houston Oilers’ transition into the Tennessee Titans during his job interview in Denver. He must have nailed the answers, because Fisher, who is 27-36-1 with the Rams, is about to become the third coach since the AFL-NFL merger to receive a fifth season after a sub-.500 record in each of his first four.
“There’s a track record. I’ve always stepped up for pro football in St. Louis. And I’m stepping up one more time.” — Kroenke
It was wild to track, wasn’t it? The low of Monday night, when reports of a Rams-Chargers partnership surfaced. The thrill of Tuesday afternoon, when the league’s Los Angeles committee recommended the Chargers-Raiders project in Carson, Calif., by a 5-1 vote. Then the disgust when we were reminded that this is the NFL, where money rules.
An initial hope was that Kroenke would be so stubborn he would blow it. Man, it was fun to imagine the league owners with a conscience tackling Kroenke and associate-in-greed Jerry Jones at the goal line.
There were unconfirmed whispers of collusion (rumors that Eric Grubman, the league’s point man on the race to Los Angeles, might be in line for a job with the Rams), and even some humor, such as a report that Kroenke threatened legal action if the league picked Carson.
To be fair, Kroenke probably views the threat of a lawsuit as a sign of his friendship. It’s his version of a handshake.
Eventually, the fun stopped, and reality hit. The men with the money get what they want. Every time. A precedent has been set: If you are the home city of an NFL team that wants to move, do nothing, because it won’t matter in the end.
Kroenke’s fellow con artist, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, painted quite the picture after the NFL mafia cleaned up the blood and paid off the witnesses.
The amount of spin bordered on insanity. It would have been laughable if St. Louis wasn’t the city with the cement blocks strapped to its feet.
The way Goodell told it, Kroenke was leading the Los Angeles Rams home. People here know Kroenke turned his back on his home long ago.
The best part was when Kroenke stepped behind the microphone.
“Um,” he started “Well.”
He recovered and muddled through excuses like a guy who hadn’t talked publicly since .... let me check again ... 2012.
Kroenke said he really tried to make it work here. He said it was bittersweet. He said this was the hardest thing he’s done in his professional career.
St. Louis knows better.
“I’ll do my damnedest.” — Kroenke
Turned out he didn’t give a damn. Good riddance, Stan.
St. Louis will miss your team.
It should celebrate losing you.
Yamahopper
Hall of Fame
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- Jul 31, 2010
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- 3,838
North Dakota is one of my favorite states. Devils lake is maybe the best walleye lakes in the country. I spend a week there every spring. Fargo is great and all, but I love Grand Forks, smaller but has a couple great bars, friendly people etc. Best part is the flatness. Just farm fields on a scale I can never fathom, trees a rare sight, just endless fields. Best is the sunsets in the spring driving back to GF from the lake. Everything is bathed in gold. Cars, fields, the beautiful womans skin, passed out in the passenger seat from drinking a bottle of wine at the steakhouse, window down in the cool air and Black keys on the radio.
Only North Dakota.
RamBill
Legend
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Messages
- 8,874
Da-Rock
Pro Bowler
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- May 9, 2014
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- 1,143
I just wanted to come in and say that I really feel for the St. Louis fan base. This is a rough thing to happen. I live in Sacramento, but was born in Anaheim and have been a fan for 44 years. The last time I saw a game in LA was when Dickerson was playing. I saw the Rams in St.Louis against the Cardinals several years ago. Them being in LA now is the same distance for me as St.Louis, (not technically of course).
I am not going to say much else, except for this:
When the Rams left I was pissed. I said how crappy an owner GF was and that I would never watch them while she was owner....(even when we won the Super Bowl I wanted to puke when she spoke). I tried to become a Panther or Jag fan because they were expansion teams........as you can see that didn't hold.
Hang in there St. Louis.
I am not going to say much else, except for this:
When the Rams left I was pissed. I said how crappy an owner GF was and that I would never watch them while she was owner....(even when we won the Super Bowl I wanted to puke when she spoke). I tried to become a Panther or Jag fan because they were expansion teams........as you can see that didn't hold.
Hang in there St. Louis.
RamBill
Legend
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Messages
- 8,874
The NFL Was Guilty Of a Personal Foul, but a Proud St. Louis Will Rally
Posted by: Bernie Miklasz
http://www.101sports.com/2016/01/13/249021/
It’s late. My my alarm clock will be going off in about three hours, and I’m just about out of rage. But here’s some of what I learned during the bizarre, cruel and draining saga that ended with Tuesday’s official if anticlimactic announcement confirming the NFL’s vote to allow Stan Kroenke and the Rams to move to Los Angeles:
MEANINGLESS AND WORTHLESS:
The NFL’s relocation guidelines. The NFL’s integrity. The NFL’s fairness. Roger Goodell’s word. Stan Kroenke’s word. Kevin Demoff’s word. The influence of the NFL’s “Los Angeles” committee. Eric Grubman’s objectivity and impartiality. The NFL’s cross-ownership rules that were ignored to accommodate Kroenke, the first indication that the league executives would shine his shoes when ordered to do so. The importance of Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was supposed to put the competing Carson project in the winning column. The longstanding belief that the NFL owners would give the first shot at LA to San Diego Chargers owner Dean Spanos who had waited in vain for a new stadium in San Diego. His Carson partnership with Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis and Iger was DOA when the owners cut their back-room deal with Kroenke, who had the most money — and therefore the most power. Meaningless: the personal conduct of an NFL owner (Kroenke) in his market. Meaningless: the hideous performance of the owner’s team in his market. Worthless: the concept of holding an owner accountable. Meaningless and worthless: the NFL’s respect for the relentless and remarkable effort by the St. Louis task force that raised at least $400 million in public money to fund a new stadium for a franchise and a league that didn’t appreciate it or deserve it.
MEANINGFUL AND WORTH EVERYTHING:
Kroenke’s $7.7 billion fortune. Goodell and Grubman’s muscle in shoving the LA committee out of the way to get the desired outcome. Kroenke’s willingness to build a $2 billion stadium-entertainment complex in Inglewood, near Los Angeles. The NFL’s enthusiasm to embrace the project and endorse an owner that the league doesn’t even like — all in the pursuit of a solution for filling a void that Kroenke himself created by pulling the Rams out LA in 1995. The NFL’s lust to reach the league’s annual revenue goal of $25 billion annually — and nothing else mattered, including the unprecedented abandonment of a market that raised nearly $1 billion in public dollars (combined) to fund two new stadiums for the league in fewer than 25 years.
I’LL NEVER REALLY UNDERSTAND:
How the NFL can be so cavalier about walking away from $400 million (at least) of public money in St. Louis. It sets a bad precedent for team owners that one day will need to lobby for public dollars to pour into into stadiums in their own markets. This was an ominous development for mid-market owners that can’t keep pace with the wealth of a Kroenke or a Jerry Jones.
I’ll never understand why the NFL shamelessly encouraged Dave Peacock and Bob Blitz to continue pressing to complete the funding for the proposed north riverfront stadium when the league had absolutely no intention of giving St. Louis a fair and honest process that would keep the Rams here. If the cartel wanted to get Kroenke to LA, then be done with it. The anti-STL fix was in; this was a competition that Peacock and Blitz had no chance of winning. So why put STL leadership through a charade, send them through a maze of glasshouse mirrors, and waste the time and energy of two devoted men (and many other individuals here) that were only trying to satisfy the league’s directive for preserving NFL football in St. Louis?
I’ll never understand why Kroenke and his attorney Alan Bornstein felt such a feverish desire and to napalm the city with a vicious attack in the Rams’ official relocation application that contained outright lies, half-truths, misinformation, and gratuitous condemnation of a struggling but proud town that valiantly tried to come through with a first-class stadium? Why couldn’t Kroenke and Bornstein calmly and professionally make the case for moving without nuking the place on the way out? The NFL had already rigged this process to end happily Kroenke, so why drop bombs?
The unseemly tactics were approved by the NFL. We know that because Goodell piled on a few days later with propaganda that came in the form of an official report that signed off on the Rams’ alleged fulfillment of the official relocation guidelines. Goodell repeated some of Kroenke’s lies, and completely disregarded the $400 million in public money placed on the table by St. Louis. Again: why not just get along with your slimy business and take the team away without insulting and tormenting a fan base that had been battered by horrendous football, a conniving owner, and the open-ended threat of the franchise moving? When Bill Bidwill applied to move the Cardinals to Arizona in 1988, he actually praised the St. Louis fans and expressed appreciation for their support before citing his reason for requesting a transfer: his disappointment over the city-county decision to reject Bidwill’s request for a new stadium.
Why did Goodell throw a tantrum when league finance chairman Bob McNair pledged an extra $100 million of league money for the STL stadium project in exchange for a ticket-tax abatement for the team? Goodell made it clear the $100 million contribution wasn’t going to happen for St. Louis … only to turn around Tuesday and give the Chargers and Raiders $100 million apiece for potential stadium solutions in their current markets. The hypocrisy — even by NFL standards — was appalling.
Why did St. Louis — the only at-risk market that made the effort to come up with at least $400 million in public money — get crushed and swept aside by the league, when Oakland and San Diego didn’t even bother to file an actionable stadium proposal by the league’s Dec. 30 deadline? How could the one market that tried to satisfy the NFL’s demands get blown away in favor of two markets that did nothing to remedy their severe stadium problems?
This is real Malice in Wonderland stuff: hammer the city that did everything to deliver the money — and generously reward the two markets that did nothing. The Chargers and/or Raiders may ultimately move, but at least for now San Diego and Oakland have a chance to keep their teams, and the NFL tossed them a $100 million gift to try and make it happen. St. Louis, and that $400 million? GET OUT. The moral of the story: try to do everything right and lose your team; do everything wrong and keep your team. What a filthy, corrupt enterprise.
I’ll never understand why Kroenke — even after getting permission to flee — deemed it necessary to produce a vomit-inducing written statement in which he declared his everlasting love for St. Louis and Missouri.
“St. Louis is a city known for its incredibly hard-working, passionate and proud people,” Kroenke wrote.
(Yes, the incredibly hard-working, passionate and proud people that you tried to eviscerate in your relocation application. And how generous of Kroenke to say, during a rare news conference, that he hoped his stadium-entertainment complex would help the low-income residents of Inglewood.)
“Being part of the group that brought the NFL back to St. Louis in 1995 is one of the proudest moments of my professional career,” Kroenke said. “Reaching two Super Bowls and winning one are things all St. Louisans should always treasure.”
(The Rams had four winning records in 21 seasons here. They haven’t had a winning season since 2003. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2004. They’re stalled on a streak of 12 consecutive losing seasons that includes nine straight losing seasons and the league’s worst winning percentage (.295) since 2007. Thanks, Stan. We’re grateful.)
“While there understandably has been emotionally charged commentary regarding our motives and intentions, the speculation is not true and unfounded,’ Kroenke wrote. “I am a Missouri native named after two St. Louis sports legends who I was fortunate enough to know on a personal level. This move isn’t about whether I love St. Louis or Missouri. I do and always will. No matter what anyone says, that will never change.”
(I assume that the person who penned this for Kroenke was hopelessly intoxicated, and laughing hysterically while writing this Hallmark card to St. Louis.)
WHAT I DO UNDERSTAND:
The Chicken Littles were right about Kroenke moving to Los Angeles. I made fun of them at first — something I’ve subsequently admitted many times. I simply underestimated Kroenke’s greed, especially after he expressed pride in his Missouri roots and honorable reputation while telling me in 2010 that he’d never lead the charge out of St. Louis to Los Angeles. I took the man at his word … at least until it became obvious to me (belatedly) that he wasn’t telling the truth. Either way, my bad.
I understand that the team’s LA-based fans are celebrating, thrilled to have the Rams on the way. I don’t blame them for being happy. They wanted the Rams to return, and their wish has been granted. We felt the same way in 1995. So I congratulate the LA fans. It would be petty to hate on them. They weren’t responsible for moving the team; that was done by Kroenke, Goodell, Grubman and gutless owners. Many of these same LA fans were heartbroken when the Rams moved to St. Louis; their anguish is now our anguish. This is just one of the ugly, awful sides of professional sports. LA and STL fans know all about it.
Never trust Goodell. Ever. (Stating the obvious here, eh?)
I understand that there are good men in this league … some of whom served on the LA committee. They tried to be fair to Peacock and the task force, only to get bulldozed at the end of the road by Goodell and Grubman (the league’s executive VP.)
I know that you can count me out on leading a charge to recruit an NFL team to St. Louis. And this insanity is bubbling up already. According to Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal, who put this on Twitter Tuesday night, NFL in-house lobbyist Cynthia Hogan said “St. Louis is not necessarily done as an NFL city.” Hogan also said (via Kaplan) that had the (Chargers-Raiders) Carson project prevailed over Inglewood the extra $100 million would have gone to St. Louis instead.
Goodness. Is it even possible to be more callous? The Rams haven’t even packed up and the NFL is already trying to set up St. Louis as a leverage station to be used at a later date by NFL team owners that want to put pressure on their local politicians to come up with substantial public money for a new stadium or extensive stadium renovations.
I understand that this is a great city, a tough city with immense pride, a city that faces the inevitable problems that are familiar to most Midwest and Rust Belt towns. It’s also a city with character. It stings to lose the Rams, but the pain will ease. If anything we’ll have more fondness for the Cardinals and Blues and Mizzou. We’ll feel more loyalty, and have a stronger bond, with Blues owner Tom Stillman and Cards owner Bill DeWitt Jr. and the many athletes that bring this town joy.
St. Louis has been knocked around lately, experiencing tragedy and tumult in Ferguson, the damaging floods, and the hard every-day realities that defy easy, simplistic solutions. And now the NFL and Kroenke kicked us when we’re down, abandoning us despite our sincere efforts to make it work for the league and the Rams. We’ll get over it. This metropolitan area didn’t collapse without an NFL team between 1988 and 1994. NFL or no NFL, the challenges remain: better schools, less crime, and more jobs.
I’d rather appreciate what we have instead of agonizing over what we don’t have. No one is going to care about St. Louis except the people who are St. Louis, and a man named after Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial wasn’t going to fix our problems. So we have to look out for each other. Because we’re here. We’re staying. We’ll dig in. We won’t run away. I’m damned proud to live in this city.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Posted by: Bernie Miklasz
http://www.101sports.com/2016/01/13/249021/
It’s late. My my alarm clock will be going off in about three hours, and I’m just about out of rage. But here’s some of what I learned during the bizarre, cruel and draining saga that ended with Tuesday’s official if anticlimactic announcement confirming the NFL’s vote to allow Stan Kroenke and the Rams to move to Los Angeles:
MEANINGLESS AND WORTHLESS:
The NFL’s relocation guidelines. The NFL’s integrity. The NFL’s fairness. Roger Goodell’s word. Stan Kroenke’s word. Kevin Demoff’s word. The influence of the NFL’s “Los Angeles” committee. Eric Grubman’s objectivity and impartiality. The NFL’s cross-ownership rules that were ignored to accommodate Kroenke, the first indication that the league executives would shine his shoes when ordered to do so. The importance of Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was supposed to put the competing Carson project in the winning column. The longstanding belief that the NFL owners would give the first shot at LA to San Diego Chargers owner Dean Spanos who had waited in vain for a new stadium in San Diego. His Carson partnership with Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis and Iger was DOA when the owners cut their back-room deal with Kroenke, who had the most money — and therefore the most power. Meaningless: the personal conduct of an NFL owner (Kroenke) in his market. Meaningless: the hideous performance of the owner’s team in his market. Worthless: the concept of holding an owner accountable. Meaningless and worthless: the NFL’s respect for the relentless and remarkable effort by the St. Louis task force that raised at least $400 million in public money to fund a new stadium for a franchise and a league that didn’t appreciate it or deserve it.
MEANINGFUL AND WORTH EVERYTHING:
Kroenke’s $7.7 billion fortune. Goodell and Grubman’s muscle in shoving the LA committee out of the way to get the desired outcome. Kroenke’s willingness to build a $2 billion stadium-entertainment complex in Inglewood, near Los Angeles. The NFL’s enthusiasm to embrace the project and endorse an owner that the league doesn’t even like — all in the pursuit of a solution for filling a void that Kroenke himself created by pulling the Rams out LA in 1995. The NFL’s lust to reach the league’s annual revenue goal of $25 billion annually — and nothing else mattered, including the unprecedented abandonment of a market that raised nearly $1 billion in public dollars (combined) to fund two new stadiums for the league in fewer than 25 years.
I’LL NEVER REALLY UNDERSTAND:
How the NFL can be so cavalier about walking away from $400 million (at least) of public money in St. Louis. It sets a bad precedent for team owners that one day will need to lobby for public dollars to pour into into stadiums in their own markets. This was an ominous development for mid-market owners that can’t keep pace with the wealth of a Kroenke or a Jerry Jones.
I’ll never understand why the NFL shamelessly encouraged Dave Peacock and Bob Blitz to continue pressing to complete the funding for the proposed north riverfront stadium when the league had absolutely no intention of giving St. Louis a fair and honest process that would keep the Rams here. If the cartel wanted to get Kroenke to LA, then be done with it. The anti-STL fix was in; this was a competition that Peacock and Blitz had no chance of winning. So why put STL leadership through a charade, send them through a maze of glasshouse mirrors, and waste the time and energy of two devoted men (and many other individuals here) that were only trying to satisfy the league’s directive for preserving NFL football in St. Louis?
I’ll never understand why Kroenke and his attorney Alan Bornstein felt such a feverish desire and to napalm the city with a vicious attack in the Rams’ official relocation application that contained outright lies, half-truths, misinformation, and gratuitous condemnation of a struggling but proud town that valiantly tried to come through with a first-class stadium? Why couldn’t Kroenke and Bornstein calmly and professionally make the case for moving without nuking the place on the way out? The NFL had already rigged this process to end happily Kroenke, so why drop bombs?
The unseemly tactics were approved by the NFL. We know that because Goodell piled on a few days later with propaganda that came in the form of an official report that signed off on the Rams’ alleged fulfillment of the official relocation guidelines. Goodell repeated some of Kroenke’s lies, and completely disregarded the $400 million in public money placed on the table by St. Louis. Again: why not just get along with your slimy business and take the team away without insulting and tormenting a fan base that had been battered by horrendous football, a conniving owner, and the open-ended threat of the franchise moving? When Bill Bidwill applied to move the Cardinals to Arizona in 1988, he actually praised the St. Louis fans and expressed appreciation for their support before citing his reason for requesting a transfer: his disappointment over the city-county decision to reject Bidwill’s request for a new stadium.
Why did Goodell throw a tantrum when league finance chairman Bob McNair pledged an extra $100 million of league money for the STL stadium project in exchange for a ticket-tax abatement for the team? Goodell made it clear the $100 million contribution wasn’t going to happen for St. Louis … only to turn around Tuesday and give the Chargers and Raiders $100 million apiece for potential stadium solutions in their current markets. The hypocrisy — even by NFL standards — was appalling.
Why did St. Louis — the only at-risk market that made the effort to come up with at least $400 million in public money — get crushed and swept aside by the league, when Oakland and San Diego didn’t even bother to file an actionable stadium proposal by the league’s Dec. 30 deadline? How could the one market that tried to satisfy the NFL’s demands get blown away in favor of two markets that did nothing to remedy their severe stadium problems?
This is real Malice in Wonderland stuff: hammer the city that did everything to deliver the money — and generously reward the two markets that did nothing. The Chargers and/or Raiders may ultimately move, but at least for now San Diego and Oakland have a chance to keep their teams, and the NFL tossed them a $100 million gift to try and make it happen. St. Louis, and that $400 million? GET OUT. The moral of the story: try to do everything right and lose your team; do everything wrong and keep your team. What a filthy, corrupt enterprise.
I’ll never understand why Kroenke — even after getting permission to flee — deemed it necessary to produce a vomit-inducing written statement in which he declared his everlasting love for St. Louis and Missouri.
“St. Louis is a city known for its incredibly hard-working, passionate and proud people,” Kroenke wrote.
(Yes, the incredibly hard-working, passionate and proud people that you tried to eviscerate in your relocation application. And how generous of Kroenke to say, during a rare news conference, that he hoped his stadium-entertainment complex would help the low-income residents of Inglewood.)
“Being part of the group that brought the NFL back to St. Louis in 1995 is one of the proudest moments of my professional career,” Kroenke said. “Reaching two Super Bowls and winning one are things all St. Louisans should always treasure.”
(The Rams had four winning records in 21 seasons here. They haven’t had a winning season since 2003. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2004. They’re stalled on a streak of 12 consecutive losing seasons that includes nine straight losing seasons and the league’s worst winning percentage (.295) since 2007. Thanks, Stan. We’re grateful.)
“While there understandably has been emotionally charged commentary regarding our motives and intentions, the speculation is not true and unfounded,’ Kroenke wrote. “I am a Missouri native named after two St. Louis sports legends who I was fortunate enough to know on a personal level. This move isn’t about whether I love St. Louis or Missouri. I do and always will. No matter what anyone says, that will never change.”
(I assume that the person who penned this for Kroenke was hopelessly intoxicated, and laughing hysterically while writing this Hallmark card to St. Louis.)
WHAT I DO UNDERSTAND:
The Chicken Littles were right about Kroenke moving to Los Angeles. I made fun of them at first — something I’ve subsequently admitted many times. I simply underestimated Kroenke’s greed, especially after he expressed pride in his Missouri roots and honorable reputation while telling me in 2010 that he’d never lead the charge out of St. Louis to Los Angeles. I took the man at his word … at least until it became obvious to me (belatedly) that he wasn’t telling the truth. Either way, my bad.
I understand that the team’s LA-based fans are celebrating, thrilled to have the Rams on the way. I don’t blame them for being happy. They wanted the Rams to return, and their wish has been granted. We felt the same way in 1995. So I congratulate the LA fans. It would be petty to hate on them. They weren’t responsible for moving the team; that was done by Kroenke, Goodell, Grubman and gutless owners. Many of these same LA fans were heartbroken when the Rams moved to St. Louis; their anguish is now our anguish. This is just one of the ugly, awful sides of professional sports. LA and STL fans know all about it.
Never trust Goodell. Ever. (Stating the obvious here, eh?)
I understand that there are good men in this league … some of whom served on the LA committee. They tried to be fair to Peacock and the task force, only to get bulldozed at the end of the road by Goodell and Grubman (the league’s executive VP.)
I know that you can count me out on leading a charge to recruit an NFL team to St. Louis. And this insanity is bubbling up already. According to Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal, who put this on Twitter Tuesday night, NFL in-house lobbyist Cynthia Hogan said “St. Louis is not necessarily done as an NFL city.” Hogan also said (via Kaplan) that had the (Chargers-Raiders) Carson project prevailed over Inglewood the extra $100 million would have gone to St. Louis instead.
Goodness. Is it even possible to be more callous? The Rams haven’t even packed up and the NFL is already trying to set up St. Louis as a leverage station to be used at a later date by NFL team owners that want to put pressure on their local politicians to come up with substantial public money for a new stadium or extensive stadium renovations.
I understand that this is a great city, a tough city with immense pride, a city that faces the inevitable problems that are familiar to most Midwest and Rust Belt towns. It’s also a city with character. It stings to lose the Rams, but the pain will ease. If anything we’ll have more fondness for the Cardinals and Blues and Mizzou. We’ll feel more loyalty, and have a stronger bond, with Blues owner Tom Stillman and Cards owner Bill DeWitt Jr. and the many athletes that bring this town joy.
St. Louis has been knocked around lately, experiencing tragedy and tumult in Ferguson, the damaging floods, and the hard every-day realities that defy easy, simplistic solutions. And now the NFL and Kroenke kicked us when we’re down, abandoning us despite our sincere efforts to make it work for the league and the Rams. We’ll get over it. This metropolitan area didn’t collapse without an NFL team between 1988 and 1994. NFL or no NFL, the challenges remain: better schools, less crime, and more jobs.
I’d rather appreciate what we have instead of agonizing over what we don’t have. No one is going to care about St. Louis except the people who are St. Louis, and a man named after Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial wasn’t going to fix our problems. So we have to look out for each other. Because we’re here. We’re staying. We’ll dig in. We won’t run away. I’m damned proud to live in this city.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
RamBill
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Rams COO Kevin Demoff talks to Randy Karraker about the team’s approval to move to L.A.
Listen to Demoff Interview
Listen to Demoff Interview
FiftyFive
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I'm a Chargers fan, not a Rams fan. But seeing as how our teams have been tied together in this drama, I figured I'd reach out to the only fanbase who understands how we're feeling right now.
It's flat-out awful what Kroenke just did to you guys. Nobody deserves to have an owner lie their way out of town. Our owners (the Spanos family) have been hiding, deflecting and lying for decades about our stadium situation, sending out their sleazebag lawyer (Mark Fabiani) to shut down any attempt by the city government to get a stadium built - so we know exactly how it feels.
Technically, the Chargers have been granted a temporary stay of execution. Realistically, the Chargers will be joining you in Inglewood soon. There's been numerous reports on our end that Kroenke and Spanos are negotiating behind closed doors and even that they're close to a deal. A cursory glance on social media will reveal how little political will exists among San Diego's voters to hand this franchise and its scummy owners a stadium after the steaming crap they've taken on us. The Spanos family certainly has had zero interest in keeping the Chargers in San Diego since they started demanding a new stadium in 1995; I think it's just too late for any major changes on this front.
All in all, our fanbases have a kinship now based on the screwjob that was just handed down to us by the NFL. I realize they're the most popular league in America right now, but the NFL is really pushing their luck. Their bubble is about to burst if they don't smarten up and start valuing their paying customers instead of treating us as a pawn for backroom deals between billionaires. Best wishes to all of you in St. Louis and I'm sorry this had to happen to us.
It's flat-out awful what Kroenke just did to you guys. Nobody deserves to have an owner lie their way out of town. Our owners (the Spanos family) have been hiding, deflecting and lying for decades about our stadium situation, sending out their sleazebag lawyer (Mark Fabiani) to shut down any attempt by the city government to get a stadium built - so we know exactly how it feels.
Technically, the Chargers have been granted a temporary stay of execution. Realistically, the Chargers will be joining you in Inglewood soon. There's been numerous reports on our end that Kroenke and Spanos are negotiating behind closed doors and even that they're close to a deal. A cursory glance on social media will reveal how little political will exists among San Diego's voters to hand this franchise and its scummy owners a stadium after the steaming crap they've taken on us. The Spanos family certainly has had zero interest in keeping the Chargers in San Diego since they started demanding a new stadium in 1995; I think it's just too late for any major changes on this front.
All in all, our fanbases have a kinship now based on the screwjob that was just handed down to us by the NFL. I realize they're the most popular league in America right now, but the NFL is really pushing their luck. Their bubble is about to burst if they don't smarten up and start valuing their paying customers instead of treating us as a pawn for backroom deals between billionaires. Best wishes to all of you in St. Louis and I'm sorry this had to happen to us.
RamBill
Legend
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- 8,874
Loss of Rams is a hard hit for fans in St. Louis
By Jeff White
http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-st-louis-reaction-rams-20160113-story.html
Now that the Rams are headed back to Los Angeles, St. Louis has lost two NFL teams in less than three decades.
This isn't why the city was nicknamed the "Gateway to the West," but it fits.
The Rams made St. Louis their home since 1995 before Tuesday's vote allowed the club to return to L.A. for the 2016 season. In 1988, the Cardinals headed west to Arizona after making St. Louis their home from 1960 to 1987.
See the most-popular stories in Sports this hour>>
"I think it's horrible. St. Louis is a phenomenal sports town. Mr. Kroenke good riddance," said Dan Gett, 36, of Rams owner Stan Kroenke, "and St. Louis will get another football team that is better than the Rams anyway."
The Rams have not been good for quite a while. They haven't made the playoffs in a dozen seasons that included a five-year stretch of averaging three victories per season. In fact, they've had only four winning seasons out of the 21 in St. Louis. Compare that to the St. Louis Cardinals, who have won the World Series twice in the last 10 years.
"The Blues and the Cardinals reflect that if you put a team out there and the ownership group is a participant and active in the community the fans support it," Mike Prost said from a downtown sports bar.
St. Louis did support the team when it arrived, and were rewarded with the franchise's only Super Bowl victory, in 2000. Two years later, a Rams ticket was difficult to come by when they advanced to the Super Bowl again, only to lose to New England on a late field goal.
To many, that loss felt a lot like losing the team.
"It's just horrible. It's like getting punch in the stomach really hard," said Jack Stapleton, 59. "You know you hear rumblings that the fix is in and you just don't want to believe it."
At the conclusion of the NFL owners' vote to approve the move, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay issued this statement:
"The NFL ignored the facts, the loyalty of St. Louis fans, who supported the team through far more downs than ups, and the NFL ignored a strong market and viable plan for a new stadium. I am proud of our effort and what St. Louis was able to accomplish in an extraordinarily short period of time. I thank everyone who worked so diligently on this project, especially the Governor's Task Force.
"In the meantime, we need to increase our focus on the region's hospitality industry — conventions, tourism and amateur sports. These events and the hotels and restaurants that support them put thousands of City and County residents to work in good jobs. St. Louis is great place to live and build a business — with or without NFL football."
The mayor ignored some facts as well. The Rams were last in attendance among the 32 NFL teams this season, averaging 52,402 spectators per game in a stadium that can hold more than 66,000. Observers say many of those seats were filled by fans of the opposing teams.
In fact, St. Louis also has been near the bottom in attendance the previous seven seasons — 30th in 2014, 31st in 2013, 30th in 2012, 31st in 2011, 30th in 2010, 29th in 2009 and 30th in 2008.
Six of those seven seasons, Oakland was one of the teams ranked below St. Louis in attendance, the Raiders being another club given permission to seek a new home by the NFL because of stadium issues.
"There is more to it than the fans and the stadium," said Prost. "There is a lot of other monetary issues in Mr. Kroenke's eyes. I would like to see an ownership group who wants to come here."
There are monetary issues in the city's eyes too.
"It's horrible for the city; it's horrible for us," said Joe Sanfilippo, owner of J.F. Sanfilippo's Restaurant. "We had 10 days a year that we were traditionally closed, but we were opened for the Rams and we became big Rams fans and supporters.
"The income lost from the big Sunday games will be a big loss. It's shocking to know that it's final and it's painful."
By Jeff White
http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-st-louis-reaction-rams-20160113-story.html
Now that the Rams are headed back to Los Angeles, St. Louis has lost two NFL teams in less than three decades.
This isn't why the city was nicknamed the "Gateway to the West," but it fits.
The Rams made St. Louis their home since 1995 before Tuesday's vote allowed the club to return to L.A. for the 2016 season. In 1988, the Cardinals headed west to Arizona after making St. Louis their home from 1960 to 1987.
See the most-popular stories in Sports this hour>>
"I think it's horrible. St. Louis is a phenomenal sports town. Mr. Kroenke good riddance," said Dan Gett, 36, of Rams owner Stan Kroenke, "and St. Louis will get another football team that is better than the Rams anyway."
The Rams have not been good for quite a while. They haven't made the playoffs in a dozen seasons that included a five-year stretch of averaging three victories per season. In fact, they've had only four winning seasons out of the 21 in St. Louis. Compare that to the St. Louis Cardinals, who have won the World Series twice in the last 10 years.
"The Blues and the Cardinals reflect that if you put a team out there and the ownership group is a participant and active in the community the fans support it," Mike Prost said from a downtown sports bar.
St. Louis did support the team when it arrived, and were rewarded with the franchise's only Super Bowl victory, in 2000. Two years later, a Rams ticket was difficult to come by when they advanced to the Super Bowl again, only to lose to New England on a late field goal.
To many, that loss felt a lot like losing the team.
"It's just horrible. It's like getting punch in the stomach really hard," said Jack Stapleton, 59. "You know you hear rumblings that the fix is in and you just don't want to believe it."
At the conclusion of the NFL owners' vote to approve the move, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay issued this statement:
"The NFL ignored the facts, the loyalty of St. Louis fans, who supported the team through far more downs than ups, and the NFL ignored a strong market and viable plan for a new stadium. I am proud of our effort and what St. Louis was able to accomplish in an extraordinarily short period of time. I thank everyone who worked so diligently on this project, especially the Governor's Task Force.
"In the meantime, we need to increase our focus on the region's hospitality industry — conventions, tourism and amateur sports. These events and the hotels and restaurants that support them put thousands of City and County residents to work in good jobs. St. Louis is great place to live and build a business — with or without NFL football."
The mayor ignored some facts as well. The Rams were last in attendance among the 32 NFL teams this season, averaging 52,402 spectators per game in a stadium that can hold more than 66,000. Observers say many of those seats were filled by fans of the opposing teams.
In fact, St. Louis also has been near the bottom in attendance the previous seven seasons — 30th in 2014, 31st in 2013, 30th in 2012, 31st in 2011, 30th in 2010, 29th in 2009 and 30th in 2008.
Six of those seven seasons, Oakland was one of the teams ranked below St. Louis in attendance, the Raiders being another club given permission to seek a new home by the NFL because of stadium issues.
"There is more to it than the fans and the stadium," said Prost. "There is a lot of other monetary issues in Mr. Kroenke's eyes. I would like to see an ownership group who wants to come here."
There are monetary issues in the city's eyes too.
"It's horrible for the city; it's horrible for us," said Joe Sanfilippo, owner of J.F. Sanfilippo's Restaurant. "We had 10 days a year that we were traditionally closed, but we were opened for the Rams and we became big Rams fans and supporters.
"The income lost from the big Sunday games will be a big loss. It's shocking to know that it's final and it's painful."
RamBill
Legend
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Messages
- 8,874
Hochman: Feckless thugs of NFL leave us with just memories
• By Benjamin Hochman
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_1edbbfeb-72ee-50ac-b1f4-675829353ae2.html
You’ll forever remember that body-freezing feeling of bliss when St. Louis won the Super Bowl, when Rams linebacker Mike Jones corralled the player on the 1-yard line, and it hit you, all at once: it’s over, time has run out, it’s irreversible.
That feeling again paralyzed St. Louis on Tuesday night, but this time from the losing side, in a warped, diabolical, evil-twin sort of way: it’s over, time has run out, it’s irreversible.
They took St. Louis’ Rams. They’re gone. The feckless thugs in business suits decided St. Louis isn’t suited for the NFL, and just like that, they’re in Los Angeles, as if St. Louis was an annoying, yipping dog they shooed away.
Roger Goodell, whose heart is as black as a hockey puck, saw the St. Louisans trying to save the Rams and essentially laughed. Silly old St. Louis. You think you’re an NFL city? The commissioner of the danged NFL didn’t even have the courtesy to even publicly applaud the efforts of the St. Louisans trying to get a new stadium here; on the contrary, he publicly bashed their plan, again and again. And then, had the audacity to give NFL monies to Oakland, a city that did nothing to save its own team, in efforts to save its team.
Stan Kroenke, he should just go by “Kroenke” now, one name like Cher or Madonna. Going by Stan is an insult to the St. Louis sports icon he was named after. Stan Musial will forever be remembered as what was best of St. Louis sports. Stan Kroenke will forever be remembered for what was worst: moving the team so the billionaire could make more billions.
We get it. St. Louis messed up with that top-tier stadium stuff, the loophole in the lease. But come on. That’s a weak crutch. You know it.
What happened in Houston was atrocious, an embarrassment to sport, something the NFL seems to be mastering in. The NFL commissioner and his owners had a chance to save an NFL city. We know how much the NFL supposedly cares about its fans, from those NFL family commercials, from the way they honor the military and breast-cancer fighters. But they’ll only honor you if it’s convenient to them. Here’s a whole city, hundreds and thousands of people, the same people who packed the Dome when the team was run well and winning, the same people who spent hard-earned money on overpriced tickets and jerseys, and said: We don’t need you anymore.
Roger Goodell, you botch everything. You’re an embarrassment to integrity. Concussions. Ray Rice. Now abandoning a city in your NFL fraternity, the sports equivalent to leaving a soldier behind?
And to think, that L.A. committee actually voted in favor of the Chargers and Raiders project. After all that, think about it. After all that, the NFL folks said that the Chargers and Raiders L.A. project was better for the league than the Rams’ L.A. project. And what happened? It, too, was shooed to the side.
St. Louisans are the latest to realize that fans are pawns. Fans are powerless. Used. Played. It hurts.
And the efforts of Dave Peacock, Bob Blitz and the task force? What precedent does the NFL now set and send to any other city in this situation? St. Louis had no stadium hope. These guys moved mountains. Think about it: they got the Board of Aldermen to agree to that big payout. They got a multimillion-dollar naming rights deal. They accomplished so much.
Yet the NFL did not care. Maybe there were flaws in the task force’s plan, we don’t know for sure. But clearly the NFL, if it wanted to, could have worked together with them to save football in St. Louis. Instead, there is no football in St. Louis.
As Joe Buck, the St. Louis-bred broadcaster, texted me on Tuesday night: “(Tuesday was) a bad day for a great city. I couldn’t be more proud of Dave Peacock and all he tried to do for the future of St. Louis. It was always bigger than football.”
So to recap, the Rams build a huge following in the late 1990s and early 2000s, win the Super Bowl and go to another. Then, the same fans are treated to some of the worst football seen in NFL history. For a decade.
The last time the Rams made the playoffs was 11 years ago this Friday. The fans still cared. But the ownership and league said: You don’t even get bad football anymore, we’re moving this terrible product to put on display in Los Angeles.
I keep thinking of the fans. Of the readers. Of the people I grew up with here. Of the generations in their blue and gold jerseys, chanting BRUUUUUUUUCE! They didn’t do anything wrong.
But there was more money to be made, and the NFL went and snatched it. We’re not in a normal world. We’re in the world described and predicted by Ned Beatty’s character in the classic film “Network.”
He screamed and bellowed to get his point across: “There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels.
“It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today.”
• By Benjamin Hochman
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_1edbbfeb-72ee-50ac-b1f4-675829353ae2.html
You’ll forever remember that body-freezing feeling of bliss when St. Louis won the Super Bowl, when Rams linebacker Mike Jones corralled the player on the 1-yard line, and it hit you, all at once: it’s over, time has run out, it’s irreversible.
That feeling again paralyzed St. Louis on Tuesday night, but this time from the losing side, in a warped, diabolical, evil-twin sort of way: it’s over, time has run out, it’s irreversible.
They took St. Louis’ Rams. They’re gone. The feckless thugs in business suits decided St. Louis isn’t suited for the NFL, and just like that, they’re in Los Angeles, as if St. Louis was an annoying, yipping dog they shooed away.
Roger Goodell, whose heart is as black as a hockey puck, saw the St. Louisans trying to save the Rams and essentially laughed. Silly old St. Louis. You think you’re an NFL city? The commissioner of the danged NFL didn’t even have the courtesy to even publicly applaud the efforts of the St. Louisans trying to get a new stadium here; on the contrary, he publicly bashed their plan, again and again. And then, had the audacity to give NFL monies to Oakland, a city that did nothing to save its own team, in efforts to save its team.
Stan Kroenke, he should just go by “Kroenke” now, one name like Cher or Madonna. Going by Stan is an insult to the St. Louis sports icon he was named after. Stan Musial will forever be remembered as what was best of St. Louis sports. Stan Kroenke will forever be remembered for what was worst: moving the team so the billionaire could make more billions.
We get it. St. Louis messed up with that top-tier stadium stuff, the loophole in the lease. But come on. That’s a weak crutch. You know it.
What happened in Houston was atrocious, an embarrassment to sport, something the NFL seems to be mastering in. The NFL commissioner and his owners had a chance to save an NFL city. We know how much the NFL supposedly cares about its fans, from those NFL family commercials, from the way they honor the military and breast-cancer fighters. But they’ll only honor you if it’s convenient to them. Here’s a whole city, hundreds and thousands of people, the same people who packed the Dome when the team was run well and winning, the same people who spent hard-earned money on overpriced tickets and jerseys, and said: We don’t need you anymore.
Roger Goodell, you botch everything. You’re an embarrassment to integrity. Concussions. Ray Rice. Now abandoning a city in your NFL fraternity, the sports equivalent to leaving a soldier behind?
And to think, that L.A. committee actually voted in favor of the Chargers and Raiders project. After all that, think about it. After all that, the NFL folks said that the Chargers and Raiders L.A. project was better for the league than the Rams’ L.A. project. And what happened? It, too, was shooed to the side.
St. Louisans are the latest to realize that fans are pawns. Fans are powerless. Used. Played. It hurts.
And the efforts of Dave Peacock, Bob Blitz and the task force? What precedent does the NFL now set and send to any other city in this situation? St. Louis had no stadium hope. These guys moved mountains. Think about it: they got the Board of Aldermen to agree to that big payout. They got a multimillion-dollar naming rights deal. They accomplished so much.
Yet the NFL did not care. Maybe there were flaws in the task force’s plan, we don’t know for sure. But clearly the NFL, if it wanted to, could have worked together with them to save football in St. Louis. Instead, there is no football in St. Louis.
As Joe Buck, the St. Louis-bred broadcaster, texted me on Tuesday night: “(Tuesday was) a bad day for a great city. I couldn’t be more proud of Dave Peacock and all he tried to do for the future of St. Louis. It was always bigger than football.”
So to recap, the Rams build a huge following in the late 1990s and early 2000s, win the Super Bowl and go to another. Then, the same fans are treated to some of the worst football seen in NFL history. For a decade.
The last time the Rams made the playoffs was 11 years ago this Friday. The fans still cared. But the ownership and league said: You don’t even get bad football anymore, we’re moving this terrible product to put on display in Los Angeles.
I keep thinking of the fans. Of the readers. Of the people I grew up with here. Of the generations in their blue and gold jerseys, chanting BRUUUUUUUUCE! They didn’t do anything wrong.
But there was more money to be made, and the NFL went and snatched it. We’re not in a normal world. We’re in the world described and predicted by Ned Beatty’s character in the classic film “Network.”
He screamed and bellowed to get his point across: “There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels.
“It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today.”
RamBill
Legend
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Messages
- 8,874
NFL will return to Los Angeles for 2016 season
By Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno
http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-nfl-la-chargers-rams-20160113-story.html
For more than two decades, billionaire developers, corporate titans, Hollywood power-brokers and four Los Angeles mayors tried and failed to bring the National Football League back to the nation's second-largest market.
The odyssey ended Tuesday.
NFL owners voted 30-2 to allow the St. Louis Rams to move to Los Angeles for the 2016 season and to give the San Diego Chargers a one-year option to join the Rams in Inglewood.
See the most-popular stories in Sports this hour>>
The Rams' home will ultimately be on the site of the old Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood in what will be the league's biggest stadium by square feet, a low-slung, glass-roofed football palace with a projected opening in 2019 and a price tag that could approach $3 billion.
“We realized this was our opportunity,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said.
Goodell, while pointing out the Rams are returning to their former home market, also predicted the Inglewood stadium would change “not just NFL stadiums and NFL complexes but sports complexes around the world.”
Meet the Los Angeles Rams
The historic vote in a fourth-floor conference room at a suburban hotel left open the possibility of the Chargers or Oakland Raiders sharing the Inglewood stadium.
The league will also give the Chargers and the Raiders each $100 million to put toward new stadiums if they stay in their current home markets. No public money will be used to build the Inglewood stadium.
If the Chargers do not exercise their right to move to Inglewood by Jan. 15, 2017, the Raiders will have a one-year option to join the Rams.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke called the decision to leave St. Louis “bittersweet.”
So you're new to L.A. and need a temporary NFL venue? Try the Coliseum first
“We understand the emotions involved with our fans,” he said in his first public comments in more than a year. “It's not easy to do these things. It's purposefully made hard.
L.A. is “a difficult place to permit a stadium and build something that we as a league can all be proud of. I think we worked hard and we got a little bit lucky and we had a lot of good people help us,” said Kroenke.
Eric Dickerson, a Hall of Fame running back for the Rams when they played in Anaheim before leaving for St. Louis after the 1994 season, followed the final vote as it took place.
“I can't put it into words, man,” Dickerson said of his reaction. “When I see them kick off, the first time they play, that's when I'll believe it's really happened.”
NFL already has Los Angeles Rams listed on its website
Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Raiders owner Mark Davis joined Kroenke on stage during Goodell's news conference. All were subdued and looked fatigued after meetings that started at 9 a.m. and broke around 8 p.m.
“This is not a win for the Raiders today, but at the same time I'm really happy for Stan Kroenke,” Davis said. “We'll be working really hard to find us a home. … Don't feel bad. We'll get it right.”
Spanos was equally noncommittal about returning to his home market for good.
“You know, I'm going to try to take a day off,” he said. “This has really been excruciating for everyone. I'm going to look at all our options. … It's very difficult to say right now I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that.”
The two owners stepped off stage and left the room before the news conference ended.
Earlier Tuesday, the Committee on L.A. Opportunities, composed of six NFL owners, endorsed the Carson site backed by the Chargers and Raiders. The recommendation didn't sway other owners.
NFL owners voted to allow the St. Louis Rams to move to Los Angeles and give the San Diego Chargers the option to join. The Oakland Raiders will not be moving to Los Angeles.
A solution became imminent when owners were presented with the option of the Rams and a team to be determined at Inglewood. That received 20 votes in the first balloting, four shy of the 24 needed to pass, and 21 on the second vote. The outcome appeared inevitable to owners, prompting Goodell to pull aside Davis and Spanos and begin negotiating an exit.
Before the final vote, Davis agreed to stay in Oakland for now and Spanos' options dwindled. It left a clear choice for the owners. In the end, a tight race between the projects that had stretched almost a year became a landslide.
“They made the right decision,” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “It's such a natural to have the Los Angeles Rams back in Los Angeles.”
Developers envision transforming the 298-acre Inglewood site into a multibillion-dollar entertainment, retail and housing complex, with the privately financed stadium and a performing arts venue as the centerpiece.
Chris Meany, development manager for the Hollywood Park Land Co., said he isn't sure when stadium construction will begin, but “I'm expecting tomorrow to be told not to sleep for a while.”
The stadium will have identical locker rooms, offices and owner's suites for two teams. There will be 70,240 seats and the capacity can be expanded to add 30,000 people in standing-room-only areas for large events.
The venue, set 100 feet into the ground and with a 175-foot above-ground profile, and developers hope to host such indoor events as college basketball's Final Four, the NFL Pro Bowl and scouting combine in addition to conventions and award shows.
The design calls for a roof with metal borders and an area over the playing field made of a transparent material called ETFE, which is as clear as a car windshield and believed to be strong enough to support the weight of a vehicle.
The stadium would be open on the sides, allowing breezes to flow through and enhance the outdoor feel.
“It's going to be so much more than going to a football game,” said Mark Williams of HKS Inc., the firm designing the stadium. “You're going to be absorbed into the site, absorbed into the stadium and get a very wide bandwidth of experience. It's the kind of memory people are going to cherish for a lifetime.”
Until the stadium is complete, the Rams are expected to play at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. If the Chargers decide to relocate, it's unclear where they will play.
Left on the outside looking in is Carson and the $1.7-billion stadium the Chargers and Raiders planned to build on 157 acres atop an old landfill.
The city, which owns the property, said Tuesday that it planned to pursue a commercial development on the site.
St. Louis was disappointed, too. The region proposed a $1.1.-billion riverfront stadium to keep the Rams that included about $400 million in public funding. The NFL and the Rams called the plan unworkable, one that the team said no other franchise would accept.
The “decision by the NFL concludes a flawed process that ends with the unthinkable result of St. Louis los-
ing the Rams,” said Jim Woodcock, spokesman for the St. Louis stadium task force.
In a statement, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the city understands the Raiders' frustration about their stadium situation and is “excited to have this chance to rededicate ourselves to getting a deal done.”
The tone differed in San Diego, where the Chargers, the city and county have engaged in heated rhetoric since the franchise walked away from stadium negotiations in June.
“If Mr. Spanos has a sincere interest in reaching a fair agreement in San Diego, we remain committed to negotiating in good faith,” said a joint statement from San Diego Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer and County Supervisor Chairman Ron Roberts. “We are not interested in a charade by the Chargers if they continue to pursue Los Angeles.”
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti called the NFL's decision “confirmation that this is a town that nobody can afford to pass up.
“It also confirms our strategy over the past 20 years, as painful as it was, that you can bring a sports team without having to spend taxpayer money on it.”
Over the years, dreamers fervently believed they had the answer to bring back the NFL. They wanted to build a Spanish-style stadium dubbed the “Hacienda” in Carson, turn the Rose Bowl into a craftsman-style venue or construct a hilltop NFL neighbor to Dodger Stadium.
There were multiple plans for stadiums in downtown L.A. — the Anschutz Entertainment Group abandoned its proposal in March — as well as fleeting visions in Anaheim, Industry, Irvine and several attempts to remake the Coliseum while preserving its historic character.
Things changed in January 2014, when Kroenke bought 60 acres of land for an estimated $101 million next to 238 acres of the Hollywood Park site owned by San Francisco-based developer Stockbridge Capital. At the time, the NFL downplayed the development in public but behind the scenes the league was pushing to return a team to L.A.
“This is the hardest undertaking I've faced in my professional career,” said Kroenke, a billionaire real estate magnate and sports mogul who owns a compound in Malibu.
Later in 2014, Kroenke and Stockbridge Capital agreed to combine their properties and work together. The developers estimate between 125 and 150 architects have been working full-time since mid-2014 on the stadium project.
The Carson backers, meanwhile, proposed a “silver bullet solution” that would provide a new home for the Chargers and Raiders, who play in the NFL's two oldest stadiums, thereby solving what they termed the league's California dilemma.
They envisioned a “mega-market” stretching from Santa Barbara to Mexico.
That project officially ended Tuesday, as did L.A.'s long wait for an NFL team.
By Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno
http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-nfl-la-chargers-rams-20160113-story.html
For more than two decades, billionaire developers, corporate titans, Hollywood power-brokers and four Los Angeles mayors tried and failed to bring the National Football League back to the nation's second-largest market.
The odyssey ended Tuesday.
NFL owners voted 30-2 to allow the St. Louis Rams to move to Los Angeles for the 2016 season and to give the San Diego Chargers a one-year option to join the Rams in Inglewood.
See the most-popular stories in Sports this hour>>
The Rams' home will ultimately be on the site of the old Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood in what will be the league's biggest stadium by square feet, a low-slung, glass-roofed football palace with a projected opening in 2019 and a price tag that could approach $3 billion.
“We realized this was our opportunity,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said.
Goodell, while pointing out the Rams are returning to their former home market, also predicted the Inglewood stadium would change “not just NFL stadiums and NFL complexes but sports complexes around the world.”
Meet the Los Angeles Rams
The historic vote in a fourth-floor conference room at a suburban hotel left open the possibility of the Chargers or Oakland Raiders sharing the Inglewood stadium.
The league will also give the Chargers and the Raiders each $100 million to put toward new stadiums if they stay in their current home markets. No public money will be used to build the Inglewood stadium.
If the Chargers do not exercise their right to move to Inglewood by Jan. 15, 2017, the Raiders will have a one-year option to join the Rams.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke called the decision to leave St. Louis “bittersweet.”
So you're new to L.A. and need a temporary NFL venue? Try the Coliseum first
“We understand the emotions involved with our fans,” he said in his first public comments in more than a year. “It's not easy to do these things. It's purposefully made hard.
L.A. is “a difficult place to permit a stadium and build something that we as a league can all be proud of. I think we worked hard and we got a little bit lucky and we had a lot of good people help us,” said Kroenke.
Eric Dickerson, a Hall of Fame running back for the Rams when they played in Anaheim before leaving for St. Louis after the 1994 season, followed the final vote as it took place.
“I can't put it into words, man,” Dickerson said of his reaction. “When I see them kick off, the first time they play, that's when I'll believe it's really happened.”
NFL already has Los Angeles Rams listed on its website
Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Raiders owner Mark Davis joined Kroenke on stage during Goodell's news conference. All were subdued and looked fatigued after meetings that started at 9 a.m. and broke around 8 p.m.
“This is not a win for the Raiders today, but at the same time I'm really happy for Stan Kroenke,” Davis said. “We'll be working really hard to find us a home. … Don't feel bad. We'll get it right.”
Spanos was equally noncommittal about returning to his home market for good.
“You know, I'm going to try to take a day off,” he said. “This has really been excruciating for everyone. I'm going to look at all our options. … It's very difficult to say right now I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that.”
The two owners stepped off stage and left the room before the news conference ended.
Earlier Tuesday, the Committee on L.A. Opportunities, composed of six NFL owners, endorsed the Carson site backed by the Chargers and Raiders. The recommendation didn't sway other owners.
NFL owners voted to allow the St. Louis Rams to move to Los Angeles and give the San Diego Chargers the option to join. The Oakland Raiders will not be moving to Los Angeles.
A solution became imminent when owners were presented with the option of the Rams and a team to be determined at Inglewood. That received 20 votes in the first balloting, four shy of the 24 needed to pass, and 21 on the second vote. The outcome appeared inevitable to owners, prompting Goodell to pull aside Davis and Spanos and begin negotiating an exit.
Before the final vote, Davis agreed to stay in Oakland for now and Spanos' options dwindled. It left a clear choice for the owners. In the end, a tight race between the projects that had stretched almost a year became a landslide.
“They made the right decision,” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “It's such a natural to have the Los Angeles Rams back in Los Angeles.”
Developers envision transforming the 298-acre Inglewood site into a multibillion-dollar entertainment, retail and housing complex, with the privately financed stadium and a performing arts venue as the centerpiece.
Chris Meany, development manager for the Hollywood Park Land Co., said he isn't sure when stadium construction will begin, but “I'm expecting tomorrow to be told not to sleep for a while.”
The stadium will have identical locker rooms, offices and owner's suites for two teams. There will be 70,240 seats and the capacity can be expanded to add 30,000 people in standing-room-only areas for large events.
The venue, set 100 feet into the ground and with a 175-foot above-ground profile, and developers hope to host such indoor events as college basketball's Final Four, the NFL Pro Bowl and scouting combine in addition to conventions and award shows.
The design calls for a roof with metal borders and an area over the playing field made of a transparent material called ETFE, which is as clear as a car windshield and believed to be strong enough to support the weight of a vehicle.
The stadium would be open on the sides, allowing breezes to flow through and enhance the outdoor feel.
“It's going to be so much more than going to a football game,” said Mark Williams of HKS Inc., the firm designing the stadium. “You're going to be absorbed into the site, absorbed into the stadium and get a very wide bandwidth of experience. It's the kind of memory people are going to cherish for a lifetime.”
Until the stadium is complete, the Rams are expected to play at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. If the Chargers decide to relocate, it's unclear where they will play.
Left on the outside looking in is Carson and the $1.7-billion stadium the Chargers and Raiders planned to build on 157 acres atop an old landfill.
The city, which owns the property, said Tuesday that it planned to pursue a commercial development on the site.
St. Louis was disappointed, too. The region proposed a $1.1.-billion riverfront stadium to keep the Rams that included about $400 million in public funding. The NFL and the Rams called the plan unworkable, one that the team said no other franchise would accept.
The “decision by the NFL concludes a flawed process that ends with the unthinkable result of St. Louis los-
ing the Rams,” said Jim Woodcock, spokesman for the St. Louis stadium task force.
In a statement, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the city understands the Raiders' frustration about their stadium situation and is “excited to have this chance to rededicate ourselves to getting a deal done.”
The tone differed in San Diego, where the Chargers, the city and county have engaged in heated rhetoric since the franchise walked away from stadium negotiations in June.
“If Mr. Spanos has a sincere interest in reaching a fair agreement in San Diego, we remain committed to negotiating in good faith,” said a joint statement from San Diego Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer and County Supervisor Chairman Ron Roberts. “We are not interested in a charade by the Chargers if they continue to pursue Los Angeles.”
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti called the NFL's decision “confirmation that this is a town that nobody can afford to pass up.
“It also confirms our strategy over the past 20 years, as painful as it was, that you can bring a sports team without having to spend taxpayer money on it.”
Over the years, dreamers fervently believed they had the answer to bring back the NFL. They wanted to build a Spanish-style stadium dubbed the “Hacienda” in Carson, turn the Rose Bowl into a craftsman-style venue or construct a hilltop NFL neighbor to Dodger Stadium.
There were multiple plans for stadiums in downtown L.A. — the Anschutz Entertainment Group abandoned its proposal in March — as well as fleeting visions in Anaheim, Industry, Irvine and several attempts to remake the Coliseum while preserving its historic character.
Things changed in January 2014, when Kroenke bought 60 acres of land for an estimated $101 million next to 238 acres of the Hollywood Park site owned by San Francisco-based developer Stockbridge Capital. At the time, the NFL downplayed the development in public but behind the scenes the league was pushing to return a team to L.A.
“This is the hardest undertaking I've faced in my professional career,” said Kroenke, a billionaire real estate magnate and sports mogul who owns a compound in Malibu.
Later in 2014, Kroenke and Stockbridge Capital agreed to combine their properties and work together. The developers estimate between 125 and 150 architects have been working full-time since mid-2014 on the stadium project.
The Carson backers, meanwhile, proposed a “silver bullet solution” that would provide a new home for the Chargers and Raiders, who play in the NFL's two oldest stadiums, thereby solving what they termed the league's California dilemma.
They envisioned a “mega-market” stretching from Santa Barbara to Mexico.
That project officially ended Tuesday, as did L.A.'s long wait for an NFL team.
RamBill
Legend
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Messages
- 8,874
Los Angeles Rams Coming Home –Tribute Video
This video was made for all of you Los Angeles Rams fans, old and young.
Watch LA Rams Coming Home
This video was made for all of you Los Angeles Rams fans, old and young.
Watch LA Rams Coming Home
Pee Pee? lol I love the thought of this being my potentially last post here. My post always read so well with the profanity filters on. Well... it is officially the last one as a Ram fan I guess.
Barrison
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2010
- Messages
- 2,507
- Name
- Barry
Sucks man, gonna miss all the poster's and awesome Rams fans this stupid relocation is gonna cause...
RamBill
Legend
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Messages
- 8,874
The NFL Returns to L.A.
By Peter King
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/01/12/los-angeles-rams-st-louis-nfl-inglewood-stadium-vote
The Rams are leaving St. Louis for SoCal and building a new stadium in Inglewood. Here’s why Stan Kroenke’s proposal got the votes and where it leaves the two bridesmaids—the Chargers and Raiders. Plus, reader mail
As triumphant Rams owner Stan Kroenke and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, one of Kroenke’s biggest champions in the long, slow slog to a new NFL reality, celebrated quietly at trendy Houston restaurant Vallone’s near midnight Tuesday, they had to be thinking, “How exactly did this happen?”
And as disappointed San Diego owner Dean Spanos dined privately back at the hotel where NFL owners voted to change the history of football in Los Angeles, he had to be thinking, “How exactly did this happen?”
Noted Los Angeles Times NFL scribe Sam Farmer kept repeating throughout the process of returning pro football to Los Angeles after a 21-year absence: “Anyone who tells you he knows what’s going to happen in L.A. is lying, because the owners don’t even know.” That continued into Tuesday morning at the nondescript Westin Memorial City Hotel in Houston. That where’s the six-owner committee charged with finding the best NFL option for Los Angeles voted 5-1 in favor of building a new stadium complex in suburban Carson anchored by the Chargers. Within hours, the NFL owner membership, voting by secret ballot (that was important), rebuked the L.A. committee hours later by voting 20-12 and then 21-11 for the Inglewood project.
The Rams are scheduled to begin play—with or without another team as a neighbor—in the 70,240-seat stadium and $2.6-billion complex in Inglewood in 2019.
“It was unbelievable,” Jones said. “I’ve never been in a meeting where that many people voted for what the committee didn’t want.”
So why the switch? Two things. “The key was changing from public to secret ballots,” said one NFL source. “The reversal of support [from Carson to Inglewood] from what Dean expected shocked him. And absolutely the 21 votes for Inglewood was a shock.” Conversely, the lack of support for Carson once the ballots went secret was very surprising. The Carson support evaporated in a flash, which few people in Houston saw coming.
The switch came about, another high-ranking club source said, because of the quality of Kroenke’s proposal for a 298-acre stadium site, and so much more. One high-ranking club executive said the overall quality of the Inglewood site, with inclusion of a new campus for NFL media—NFL Network, NFL digital ventures and NFL.com, including a theater for premieres of NFL-produced programming and documentaries and films—was a big factor in swaying so many owners to the Kroenke side.
“The surprise of the day was getting the 21 votes right off the bat,” the high-ranking club source said. “That set the tone. This is the league’s biggest asset, and it’s significant that they awarded it to Stan. They trust him.”
So this is the way the vote happened, and how the three tenuous teams stand today:
The Rams: Owners eventually voted 30-2 for Kroenke to move to Inglewood and shepherd the NFL back to Los Angeles for the first time since 1994. Owners, in addition, gave the Chargers until January 2017 to make a deal to move to Inglewood with Kroenke. The Rams will play in the Los Angeles Coliseum for either two or three seasons, beginning in August, while the Inglewood stadium is being built. St Louis, meanwhile, bitterly accepted the NFL decision and prepared to move forward without a team. “This sets a terrible precedent not only for St. Louis but for all communities that have loyally supported their NFL franchises,” said Missouri governor Jay Nixon.
The Chargers: For a decade Charger brass felt frustrated that it couldn't get a deal done in San Diego. The NFL has given Spanos and the city a year and one final chance to get a new stadium arranged—or to join Kroenke in Inglewood in a facility that Kroenke finances totally. There were indications that Dean Spanos, who seems to be done with San Diego, will move to strike a deal in Inglewood within a month or two, though it’s certainly not his first preference.
The Raiders: “We’ll be working really hard to find us a home,” owner Mark Davis said in a statement Tuesday night. “We’ll get it right.” How, exactly? The Raiders will almost certainly return to the O.co Coliseum for the 2016 season while Davis considers his option, which are bleak. He has no stadium lease. (The one at the Coliseum just expired, and he likely would have to go year-to-year there now.) The Raiders will have the option to join the Rams in a year if Spanos doesn’t get the deal done in that time, but it is a longshot to think the Kroenke stadium would ever be an option for Davis. The Raider future, which will be supplemented by a $100-million check from the NFL in the effort to get an Oakland stadium done, would be best spent in Northern California, with a second owner helping Davis get a good stadium deal done.
As far as NFL alignment goes, the Rams’ move makes make great geographical sense. The NFC West will now presumable be comprised of Seattle, San Francisco, Arizona and the Los Angeles Rams, a perfect top-to-bottom West Coast (and slightly inland) group. If the Chargers move, the AFC West would consist of Oakland (for now), Denver, Kansas City and the Los Angeles Chargers. The franchises, they are a-changin’.
The folks in Missouri won’t appreciate that, when the vote was over Tuesday evening, the membership gave Kroenke—a silent partner for the most part, the NFL’s Howard Hughes owner—a warm ovation. That’s stunning in itself, because of fractious nature of the multi-year relocation process and the enmity Kroenke engendered among some owners who felt St. Louis was a perfectly fine market willing to bend over backwards for an NFL franchise.
“Stan is a tremendous asset to the NFL,” Jones said after the vote. “I don't think there was anything short about Carson. There was everything long about Inglewood. The best thing we could have done was have Stan Kroenke lead the Rams back to Los Angeles, with absolutely the greatest plan that has ever been conceived in sports as far as how to put the show on.”
To the victors go the NFL franchise. The bitter taste won’t soon leave the mouths of Rams fans in St. Louis. And, possibly soon, San Diego.
By Peter King
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/01/12/los-angeles-rams-st-louis-nfl-inglewood-stadium-vote
The Rams are leaving St. Louis for SoCal and building a new stadium in Inglewood. Here’s why Stan Kroenke’s proposal got the votes and where it leaves the two bridesmaids—the Chargers and Raiders. Plus, reader mail
As triumphant Rams owner Stan Kroenke and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, one of Kroenke’s biggest champions in the long, slow slog to a new NFL reality, celebrated quietly at trendy Houston restaurant Vallone’s near midnight Tuesday, they had to be thinking, “How exactly did this happen?”
And as disappointed San Diego owner Dean Spanos dined privately back at the hotel where NFL owners voted to change the history of football in Los Angeles, he had to be thinking, “How exactly did this happen?”
Noted Los Angeles Times NFL scribe Sam Farmer kept repeating throughout the process of returning pro football to Los Angeles after a 21-year absence: “Anyone who tells you he knows what’s going to happen in L.A. is lying, because the owners don’t even know.” That continued into Tuesday morning at the nondescript Westin Memorial City Hotel in Houston. That where’s the six-owner committee charged with finding the best NFL option for Los Angeles voted 5-1 in favor of building a new stadium complex in suburban Carson anchored by the Chargers. Within hours, the NFL owner membership, voting by secret ballot (that was important), rebuked the L.A. committee hours later by voting 20-12 and then 21-11 for the Inglewood project.
The Rams are scheduled to begin play—with or without another team as a neighbor—in the 70,240-seat stadium and $2.6-billion complex in Inglewood in 2019.
“It was unbelievable,” Jones said. “I’ve never been in a meeting where that many people voted for what the committee didn’t want.”
So why the switch? Two things. “The key was changing from public to secret ballots,” said one NFL source. “The reversal of support [from Carson to Inglewood] from what Dean expected shocked him. And absolutely the 21 votes for Inglewood was a shock.” Conversely, the lack of support for Carson once the ballots went secret was very surprising. The Carson support evaporated in a flash, which few people in Houston saw coming.
The switch came about, another high-ranking club source said, because of the quality of Kroenke’s proposal for a 298-acre stadium site, and so much more. One high-ranking club executive said the overall quality of the Inglewood site, with inclusion of a new campus for NFL media—NFL Network, NFL digital ventures and NFL.com, including a theater for premieres of NFL-produced programming and documentaries and films—was a big factor in swaying so many owners to the Kroenke side.
“The surprise of the day was getting the 21 votes right off the bat,” the high-ranking club source said. “That set the tone. This is the league’s biggest asset, and it’s significant that they awarded it to Stan. They trust him.”
So this is the way the vote happened, and how the three tenuous teams stand today:
The Rams: Owners eventually voted 30-2 for Kroenke to move to Inglewood and shepherd the NFL back to Los Angeles for the first time since 1994. Owners, in addition, gave the Chargers until January 2017 to make a deal to move to Inglewood with Kroenke. The Rams will play in the Los Angeles Coliseum for either two or three seasons, beginning in August, while the Inglewood stadium is being built. St Louis, meanwhile, bitterly accepted the NFL decision and prepared to move forward without a team. “This sets a terrible precedent not only for St. Louis but for all communities that have loyally supported their NFL franchises,” said Missouri governor Jay Nixon.
The Chargers: For a decade Charger brass felt frustrated that it couldn't get a deal done in San Diego. The NFL has given Spanos and the city a year and one final chance to get a new stadium arranged—or to join Kroenke in Inglewood in a facility that Kroenke finances totally. There were indications that Dean Spanos, who seems to be done with San Diego, will move to strike a deal in Inglewood within a month or two, though it’s certainly not his first preference.
The Raiders: “We’ll be working really hard to find us a home,” owner Mark Davis said in a statement Tuesday night. “We’ll get it right.” How, exactly? The Raiders will almost certainly return to the O.co Coliseum for the 2016 season while Davis considers his option, which are bleak. He has no stadium lease. (The one at the Coliseum just expired, and he likely would have to go year-to-year there now.) The Raiders will have the option to join the Rams in a year if Spanos doesn’t get the deal done in that time, but it is a longshot to think the Kroenke stadium would ever be an option for Davis. The Raider future, which will be supplemented by a $100-million check from the NFL in the effort to get an Oakland stadium done, would be best spent in Northern California, with a second owner helping Davis get a good stadium deal done.
As far as NFL alignment goes, the Rams’ move makes make great geographical sense. The NFC West will now presumable be comprised of Seattle, San Francisco, Arizona and the Los Angeles Rams, a perfect top-to-bottom West Coast (and slightly inland) group. If the Chargers move, the AFC West would consist of Oakland (for now), Denver, Kansas City and the Los Angeles Chargers. The franchises, they are a-changin’.
The folks in Missouri won’t appreciate that, when the vote was over Tuesday evening, the membership gave Kroenke—a silent partner for the most part, the NFL’s Howard Hughes owner—a warm ovation. That’s stunning in itself, because of fractious nature of the multi-year relocation process and the enmity Kroenke engendered among some owners who felt St. Louis was a perfectly fine market willing to bend over backwards for an NFL franchise.
“Stan is a tremendous asset to the NFL,” Jones said after the vote. “I don't think there was anything short about Carson. There was everything long about Inglewood. The best thing we could have done was have Stan Kroenke lead the Rams back to Los Angeles, with absolutely the greatest plan that has ever been conceived in sports as far as how to put the show on.”
To the victors go the NFL franchise. The bitter taste won’t soon leave the mouths of Rams fans in St. Louis. And, possibly soon, San Diego.
Yeah. I'll consider all you guys (the regulars and most of the newbies) good people and friends. I'll never come by to hate on the team, but that said I won't come by to celebrate any victory's either. I'm no longer a Rams fan. I'm loyal to my city 1st, and they certainly didn't let me down. In fact they did even more than I thought they were capable of in such a short time, for such a historically terrible product. The way this was handled will never be forgiven by me. I wish the worst for this team as long as they have Kroenke for an owner and the current front office. Sorry to see my Demoff post got deleted too. About as sorry as I was to see his fraudulent dishonest personality emerge through all of this. Trashing the city he "backed" for years as one of the greatest sports towns in the nation when it didn't even need to be done for the move to happen.
Lol My mom sent me this tonight (hope it sends on my phone.)
http://www.bravotv.com/watch-what-h.../videos/andy-chooses-stan-kroenke-as-jackhole
http://www.bravotv.com/watch-what-h.../videos/andy-chooses-stan-kroenke-as-jackhole
theramsruleUK
Pro Bowler
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2013
- Messages
- 1,079
Shout out to all my St Louis Ramily. This must be horrible for you. To all my LA Ramily, keep them in your thoughts and remember how you felt when it happened to you.
Still hope to see you all in the UK this year
Still hope to see you all in the UK this year
