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Rams possibly returning to LA?

Discussion in 'Football: NFL, College, High School' started by ItsMyFault, Jan 30, 2014.

  1. Nick

    Nick Contributing Member

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    Watching the Rose Bowl last week made me realize how great a venue that really is... and how the LA market gets a negative rep due to the relative apathetic nature of some of the fans.

    That green grass, perfect weather, mountainous backdrop... would be a great place to watch games every week.
     
  2. Rockets34Legend

    Rockets34Legend Contributing Member

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  3. jdh008

    jdh008 Member

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    Honestly can't blame Kroenke for moving the team if the reports are true.

    He is a businessman, and, all things equal, a team in LA is worth more than a team in STL. For a business man, that's all that matters. Adding the fact that he's far more likely to get a new stadium in LA than he is in STL is just icing on the cake.

    Above all else, though, there just isn't enough support for the Rams in St. Louis, and I say that as someone who lives in the St. Louis area. The team could not be more irrelevant in this city.

    I use the example of the office where I work. I work in an office of ~150 people just on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River from St. Louis. The company is very local when it comes to their employees, as I'm one of the few transplants from outside the area.

    Those in the office that follow baseball are almost exclusively Cardinals fans. Those that follow hockey are almost exclusively Blues fans. But when it comes to football, I would guess the Rams are at least fourth in the pecking order, behind the Bears, Cowboys (ugh), and Packers. The Colts probably aren't far behind, either. Sure, some of that is because the Rams have been mediocre for ten years now and terrible for almost as long, but there are plenty of NFL teams without huge track records of success that have much better followings in their local area.
     
  4. Nick

    Nick Contributing Member

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    St. Louis is the only major metropolitan area with multiple sports teams where the NFL is not #1. They've also already lost a previous team.

    If the early 2000's Super Bowl seasons weren't enough to create a generation of fans, its not surprising this run of mediocrity could basically lead to them losing another team.

    The Rams going back to LA will make perfect sense, division-wise, since they never moved them out of the NFC west to begin with.
     
  5. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    I'm guessing there are contingency clauses in every set of agreements between bankers, developers and contractors and some kinds of earnest deposits accounting for being the losing party. But yeah, having three sets of projects seems like a mess without necessarily knowing when, how and by whom the winning proposal will be judged.
     
  6. zeeshan2

    zeeshan2 Member

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    <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Was told Monday that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chargers?src=hash">#Chargers</a> owner Dean Spanos will try to block the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rams?src=hash">#Rams</a> from going to LA and believes he has 9 votes. We shall see.</p>&mdash; Jason Cole (@JasonPhilCole) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonPhilCole/status/552442875796258817">January 6, 2015</a></blockquote>
    <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
     
  7. Brando2101

    Brando2101 Contributing Member

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    That's a shame. The Rams belong back in LA. They had been there since the 40s. The chargers though already have a solid finical relationship with the market.
     
  8. TheRealist137

    TheRealist137 Member

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    Maybe he wants to block it just so he can move his team to LA and watch its value skyrocket.
     
  9. DonnyMost

    DonnyMost not wrong
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    Obvious "no" votes: Oakland, San Fran, San Diego

    Likely "no" votes: Miami, Buffalo, Washington (they all probably wanna use the LA market to threaten to get a new stadium)

    Possible "no" votes: Seattle, Arizona
     
    #69 DonnyMost, Jan 6, 2015
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2015
  10. Nick

    Nick Contributing Member

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    Didn't Washington just finish an expensive renovation? And Miami is also in the process of approving the same (so they can get back in the Super Bowl rotation). Buffalo has leverage in Toronto, but didn't they also get backing for a new downtown stadium with the new ownership group?

    Also, why would you consider Seattle and Arizona as possible "no" votes? And San Fran is like 9 hours away... with a team that plays only 30 minutes away from them currently... why would they care what happens in LA (unless their no vote is so that Oakland goes back there...)?

    Given the SB awarding/voting history, $$$ trumps everything. A team in LA raises the average value of each and every one of these franchises vs. a team in St. Louis.
     
    #70 Nick, Jan 6, 2015
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2015
  11. mtbrays

    mtbrays Contributing Member
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    That is clearly the reason. Los Angeles is already treated as a television market for the Chargers, so when San Diego games aren't sold out, LA TVs are blacked out, too. He sees the opportunity to move to Los Angeles just like the Rams.
     
  12. DonnyMost

    DonnyMost not wrong
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    Yes, but Dan Snyder is still a turd.

    http://deadspin.com/dan-snyder-wants-a-new-stadium-because-fedex-field-is-1627895467

    Renovations don't mean much. It's the lease that matters.

    Buffalo has tried, and failed, to leverage the Toronto market. That's not a question/concern anymore. No idea about the new ownership group though.

    Because they play in the same division. If I'm the owner of Seattle or Arizona, I don't want a division rival improving themselves (albeit in a non-football sense). In addition, it can only serve to draw west coast timezone eyeballs away from their own teams. And if things get REALLY wacky (i.e. the Raiders jump on the bandwagon), it might actually affect the makeup of their division.

    I don't think the Chargers owner has 9 votes either, but 6-7 wouldn't surprise me. The rest is up to how many friends he has, I guess.
     
  13. moestavern19

    moestavern19 Member

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    Nobody gives a **** about Dean Spanos. The Chargers might as well be in Tijuana.
     
  14. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>No secret that the Rams could move to LA. What you don't know is that the NFL has been in lockstep with them. Story: <a href="http://t.co/3f0NQOUstQ">http://t.co/3f0NQOUstQ</a></p>&mdash; Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlbertBreer/status/559821246871789568">January 26, 2015</a></blockquote>
    <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

    [rquoter]
    After two decades away, the NFL is closer than it has ever been to returning to Los Angeles.

    And after so many false starts since the Raiders and Rams bolted at the end of the 1994 season, one league source said, "we're beginning to see the goal line."

    The early January announcement that Rams owner Stan Kroenke is planning an extravagant Inglewood stadium sent shockwaves through NFL circles, but -- according to those with direct knowledge of the proceedings -- was met with quiet applause at the league office, which has been waiting for a powerful plan like this one to get behind. And despite St. Louis and Missouri officials responding quickly with their own stadium vision, the momentum here has very clearly shifted west.

    The bottom line is, this L.A. proposal is not like its predecessors. It's the first led by a team owner, blowing up the league's long-held belief that juggling the task of running a team with managing such a project in the nation's second biggest city would be too big a burden. It's on the largest plot of land of any of the proposed L.A. sites. It's in a more desirable end of the region. It's to be privately funded by a man who can afford it.

    It's not done, of course. But the idea that the Rams could be playing at the Rose Bowl, L.A. Coliseum or Dodger Stadium in 2016 and 2017 and in Kroenke's new Southern California football palace in 2018 is not at all far-fetched. In fact, it's trending toward becoming a likelihood.

    "It's a bold move by Stan," said one source who has worked with the league on Los Angeles. "Whether it results in a stadium at the site billed by the parties, whether it's the Rams going in, or a different team, or two teams, that much we don't know."

    There is more certainty here than meets the eye, though.

    According to two involved sources, the Rams presented the project to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell before the December owners meetings in Dallas. As it worked out, that was as Goodell and the league were getting the new personal conduct policy ready for voting. And the plan had always been for the commissioner to turn more attention to L.A. once the policy was done. Suffice it to say, Kroenke gave him plenty to chew on.

    Two big steps are expected this week. The Rams will provide notice to St. Louis that they're going year-to-year on their lease before Wednesday's deadline to do so. And they'll likely turn in to the city of Inglewood the 8,500 signatures necessary to set up a public vote, which will most likely take place in the spring, to re-zone the land where the stadium will be built. According to a source, the team already has the signatures in hand.

    The 60-acre plot Kroenke bought in January 2014 is approved for a stadium, but the adjacent 238-acre area owned by the Stockbridge Capital Group isn't. Once all 298 acres are zoned properly, shovels can go in the ground.

    And therein lies the other difference in Inglewood: the size of the area where the stadium would go up. By comparison, the NFL's largest physical structure, Cowboys Stadium, sits on a plot of just 73 acres.

    NFL officials deferred comment on the recent developments to the Rams, who declined to discuss their plans. But no matter how you chop all this up and put it together, St. Louis is on the clock. A St. Louis stadium task force presented its plan to Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon earlier this month. It included the dream of an open-air 64,000-seat stadium on the banks of the Mississippi River that could also potentially be home to a Major League Soccer franchise.

    Two things need to happen for that stadium -- which, on paper, isn't as modern as projects in Minneapolis or Atlanta, though that could certainly change -- to go forward, and neither step will be simple. First, the land needs to be acquired. Second, financing needs to be secured, with the expectation being that it'll be a 40-60 public-private split. It's unclear at this point whether it'll take a vote to get there.

    How that plays out will determine whether or not the club meets the league's relocation guidelines, which call for a team to demonstrate that the existing market has failed. If the financing includes an eventual public contribution, that will make it tougher for the Rams to qualify for relocation, but if the St. Louis plan does not end up including much public money, that could grease the skids for a move. In any case, the Rams have been less successful than the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders when it comes to demonstrating that their market has failed.

    But all of that might not matter. Remember, the league has a huge interest in making Los Angeles work, one way or another, and this project seems to meet the right-team, right-owner, right-stadium threshold.

    The way it's been laid out to the clubs, the league wants the L.A. stadium to be an iconic venue that's a sports and entertainment destination. This vast property would satisfy that, with a number of projects expected to pop up on the periphery within the grounds around the team's home, creating a West Coast headquarters of sorts for the league.

    Kroenke is also amenable to the idea of having a second team as part of the project, according to a source, which would help the NFL make the most of the effort.

    At the very least, Kroenke's bombshell accelerated the L.A. timeline and put pressure on a number of entities with an interest in the market -- on the cities of Los Angeles (proper) and Carson to push their projects forward, on the cities of Oakland, San Diego and St. Louis to ramp up efforts to keep their own teams, and on the Raiders and Chargers to figure out their futures. The movement on the St. Louis stadium effort is proof positive of that.

    The NFL does still have some control here. Three-quarters of the owners must vote to approve the move, as is required in the bylaws for relocation, and some league waivers and funding would likely be needed to make the project right. Also, Kroenke still hasn't satisfied the league's cross-ownership rules by divesting himself of the NBA's Denver Nuggets and NHL's Colorado Avalanche, something he has until the end of the calendar year to do.

    But what's really important here is much simpler than that: The powers that be on Park Avenue have been waiting a long time for the right roadmap to get back to L.A.

    It seems like Kroenke gave it to them.

    And if they see it like that, it's unlikely anything will stand in the way.
    [/rquoter]
     
  15. Remii

    Remii Member

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    So does this mean there's a chance for San Antonio to get the raiders...?
     
  16. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    I sincerely think the Raiders believe they still own the rights to an LA franchise and would act on that legally. Also, San Antonio will never get an NFL franchise because the radio rights and ratings would be pennies compared to the Longhorns, Aggies, Red Raiders, Cowboys, and the Texans in a good year. This is the same problem with a lot of the hypothetical franchise cities, along with their smaller population density relative to their geographic sprawl.
     
  17. Scarface281

    Scarface281 Contributing Member

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    Lol, the population density vs geographical sprawl has nothing to do with it.
     
  18. mtbrays

    mtbrays Contributing Member
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    Anybody who thinks that the Double J and Bob McNair wouldn't combine their Captain Planet rings to stop a team moving to San Antonio is delusional.
     
  19. Nick

    Nick Contributing Member

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    I really don't think they'd even have to... the amount of money the city of San Antonio would have to put up initially will probably face some local opposition (didn't they already make this mistake when they built the Alamodome), along with the questionable ability to obtain the required minimum PSL/Suite sales that need to occur for stadiums to be built.

    Owners also have to consider that teams in smaller cities simply are not as profitable/valuable as teams in major media markets (other than Green Bay, of course)... its why Jacksonville, St. Louis, and Tennessee will always be discussed as possible move candidates, or they outgrow a new stadium in just 10-15 years because their revenues are maxed out and they don't have the other avenues that major market teams do.
     
  20. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>AEG abandoning plans for NFL stadium downtown <a href="http://t.co/2t5N7Nu6Rl">http://t.co/2t5N7Nu6Rl</a></p>&mdash; Sam Farmer (@LATimesfarmer) <a href="https://twitter.com/LATimesfarmer/status/575095453953339392">March 10, 2015</a></blockquote>
    <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
     

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