Moving from St. Louis to Los Angeles could be costly chore for the Rams' players
By RYAN KARTJE
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/players-701135-move-rams.html
It was 1995, only months before the Browns would leave Cleveland for Baltimore to become the Ravens, when Matt Stover decided it was finally time to put down roots in Ohio. This turned out to be very unfortunate timing.
But for the Browns’ fifth-year kicker, it seemed like a sensible time to settle down. Stover was 27, with a newborn daughter and a son on the way. Stability is rare for an NFL kicker, but on the heels of his best season yet, he’d just signed a new four-year contract. So he and his wife found a modest, $240,000 home in an up-and-coming neighborhood and moved in.
Then, in November, the Browns announced they were moving out.
“Obviously, we didn’t have any control over it,” Stover said this week, 20 years later. “We had to move. So we thought, ‘The (team is) going to help us. They’re going to move us.’”
“Well, that’s not what happened.”
Instead, players found themselves wrapped up in a logistical nightmare, shelling out their own money and ironing out their own details for a move to Baltimore. Some didn’t wind up moving until June. And for many of the organization’s lower-paid players, the move turned out to be a significant financial burden.
Stover, making a modest salary by NFL standards, was forced to take a loss on his family’s new house. By the time he’d finally made the move, he was out $50,000, without a single dollar reimbursed by the organization.
Now, with the NFL’s latest massive relocation project underway in Los Angeles, the former kicker cautions that Rams players moving from St. Louis could experience a similar – and assuredly more expensive – relocation nightmare in the coming months, if the organization doesn’t provide the proper help.
Article 36 of the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement calls for relocating teams to cover the cost of player moving expenses. But it notes that players must “establish permanent residence” prior to the first regular-season game to be eligible. When Stover finally found a furnished place in April 1996, just before the start of offseason activities, he opted to rent in Baltimore and send his belongings to his home state of Texas, instead of buying another house. Under the CBA, the organization wasn’t on the hook to reimburse him.
In the language of the current CBA, the definition of “moving expenses” remains vague. The explicitly listed offerings for traded or claimed players are extensive, including first-class, round-trip airfare, equivalent of two months rent or mortgage payments in the player’s current city not exceeding $6,950, and the cost of a week’s hotel stay. But there’s no mention of any financial package entitled to relocating players.
As the Browns’ players union representative in 1996, Stover even went to the NFL to broker a deal for a financial package for relocating players. The league approved it. The team didn’t.
“It would cost millions of dollars,” he said. “So they said no because they didn’t have to do it. I understand; I get it. But basically, the organization just said, ‘See you in Baltimore.’”
Stover understands that asking for sympathy for professional athletes is a futile exercise. But he’s quick to remind that most players don’t make enough over the course of their often-short careers to be “set for life.” And for players moving from St. Louis to Los Angeles, there will already be a substantial pay cut to factor in, before adding the expense of moving.
State income tax rates in California (12.3 percent) are more than double the rate in Missouri (6 percent). The 27 current Rams making more than $1million per year will also have an additional 1 percent added to their income tax rate. So for defensive end Robert Quinn, with his team-high $14.253million annual salary, that’s the equivalent of handing over an extra $1million per year in state income taxes.
Consider, as well, the difference in the housing market. According to the most recent statistics from the National Association of Realtors, the median price of a home in the Los Angeles area is $506,800. That’s more than the average annual salary of 11 current Rams and three times the cost of housing in St. Louis, where the median price is $160,000.
“If they’re coming from a 20,000 square-foot home in St. Louis, it might be more like a 4,000-square foot home here,” Manhattan Beach-based real estate broker Ed Kaminsky said.
Kaminsky might be one of the few who actually sympathizes with the athletes. Twenty years ago, he was shocked to find out that teams often didn’t make real estate arrangements for their players. Now, as president of SportsStar Relocation, which offers concierge services to relocating athletes nationwide, Kaminsky understands the logistics involved better than most. Those logistics are a primary source of his income.
“People usually just say, ‘Well that’s what (athletes) signed up for,’” Kaminsky said. “But that doesn’t make it any easier for them. The moves themselves can be very expensive, and it’s an extremely stressful move. They have families. They’re taking their kids out of school. They don’t know the city.”
That’s where Kaminsky and other real estate experts, looking to capitalize on an untapped market for helping constantly moving athletes relocate, have stepped in.
“It’s a trying time,” said Ikem Chukumerjie, luxury real estate broker and president of SportsRelocation.com. “We try to really streamline the process. Our job is to make it as easy as possible on them.”
That could mean anything from selling the athlete’s home to finding movers to transporting cars to hiring an “education consultant” to find new schools for the athletes’ kids. Chukumerjie said brokers usually are paid a commission of 2 or 3 percent on a leased home. For the athlete, most relocations, sans the extra perks and the cost of the house, figure to cost $20,000-$30,000.
The Rams’ move then, for real estate brokers like Chukumerjie and Kaminsky, is the Holy Grail of athlete relocation. With a 53-man roster and dozens of coaches, management, and staff looking to move, the potential has the luxury real estate market in Los Angeles buzzing. “This is something we’ve been working on for months,” Chukumerjie said.
Both have been in contact with agents, financial advisors, team officials, and anyone they can find who is affiliated with Rams players. A few players, they said, were already in Los Angeles this weekend. But most are waiting until a decision is made on the site of the team’s practice facility, which Kaminsky says, “could still be anywhere from Oxnard to Long Beach.” Even then, most will likely lease homes to start, instead of buying.
Still, the costs will add up. And for those not making Quinn’s $14 million salary, hiring a broker to solve your relocation needs only compounds the chance for future financial issues, which are prevalent among former football players.
“I really don’t think it’s something that the players should be completely responsible for,” Chukumerjie said. “At worst, maybe they should get a little stipend to smooth out the process.”
Paying for the entirety of a move for upward of 150 Rams personnel wouldn’t be cheap. Chukumerjie estimates it might cost as much as $5 million -$10 million.
Not even two weeks out from announcing the franchise’s move, Rams management is still deciding on the best course for physically relocating the team, according to a team spokesman. The NFL Players Association, which did not respond to requests for comment, recently told ESPN that it was not concerned about moving expenses being an issue.
Rams coach Jeff Fisher does have a firsthand understanding of the challenges inherent to the relocation process. He was head coach of the Houston Oilers for three seasons before they moved to Tennessee and became the Titans.
“It’s not an easy experience,” Fisher said, “but you can do things to help, and you can make mistakes if you’re not careful. Stan and I have discussed this at length. We have a pretty good idea how to handle it.”
For Stover, who felt the full brunt of relocation in 1996, that would mean paying for all moving expenses and setting up a “reception staff” – essentially, to provide concierge services similar to what the athlete relocation brokers offer.
“Certain companies move their employees fully,” he said. “They pay for the realtor, the closing costs, all of that with your home. They’ll even buy your house from you sometimes. I wasn’t expecting all of that, but I was expecting the organization to work with me.”
Even after his frustrating move, Stover played another 13 years in Baltimore and retired as the franchise’s leading scorer – a title he still holds. Several times, he reiterated that he holds no ill will toward the organization. But as someone who has been through the process, he hopes the Rams can learn from the issues he and his Ravens teammates faced in the past.
“As someone who has been through it, get that team help,” Stover said. “If you just rely on all of the players to figure it out, there’s no way to avoid your team being distracted. The success this year of the Los Angeles Rams is going to come down, in part, to how fast they can get into Los Angeles, transition, and get their work done. The more the owner does to help that, the better for the team.
“But it’s going to be expensive.”
