OT: Rams headed back to Los Angeles?
Don't know how many people have been following this, but the St. Louis Rams could be headed back to LA.
Apparently there is a movement for a new stadium in LA.
The Rams would play at the LA Coliseum until the new LA stadium is completed. However, the city of St. Louis has pitched the Rams organization a new stadium idea to replace the old Edward Jones Dome.
January 12th, 2015 at 12:49 PM ^
This feels like a constantly running topic in the NFL. Every year some team is possibly on the move to LA, and every year it doesn't happen.
I assume, based on little knowledge, that owners essentially leverage "interest in moving to LA" as a way to get new, taxpayer-funded stadiums. Similar to how coaches leverage offers into raises (see Marrow, Turley, etc.).
Wake me up when there's something more than wisps of smoke.
January 12th, 2015 at 12:50 PM ^
One would think the NFL would do great in LA, but they can't keep a team. I don't know if it will work out for the, but I do know that it really sucks for a city that loses an NFL team.
January 12th, 2015 at 12:54 PM ^
teams that constantly move around. I just think it's strange. How do you even establish a fan base?
I couldn't imagine any of the Detroit teams just up and moving somewhere else. Illitch/Ford/Gores would be crucified for even attempting that.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:00 PM ^
:(
I wouldn't wish someone losing their team on my worst enemy. That's so sad.
The Rams were the first NFL team in Cleveland.
- Cleveland Rams, 1937-1945
- Los Angeles Rams, 1946-1994
- St. Louis Rams, 1995-
The series between the Rams and Lions all-time is actually pretty close. Rams lead 42-40-1.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
Well, I mean, St. Louis stole the Rams first, so if any city should lose their team to LA, it should be St. Louis.
It would be better than a team like the Vikings leaving Minnesota.
January 12th, 2015 at 2:00 PM ^
In the last thirty years StL, Oakland, LA(twice), Houston, Baltimore and Cleveland have been wronged, and for the most part their response is to wrong some other city in turn (excepting Cleveland and Houston). Agree with what you say about Minnesota, and I really do feel for the LA fans who had to see that Rams helmet leave their region and win a Super Bowl in another city. So in my mind, the real demon is the NFL. The NFL franchises have taken advantage of municipalities by forcing them to cover a large share of the costs of building new stadiums while reaping all of the revenue from those stadiums. And there is always another city for them to run to. It's a cartel, and despite the fact that there is demand for football across the country (and plenty of talent to fill out pro rosters), they will not be expanding anytime soon. Because when demand is this high and they keep supply so low they can have the public assume the risk while they reap the revenues. Obvious exception is the Packers. I'll give them credit in taking a stronghold of the populous Northeast to limit competitors. But that doesn't change that they've managed their way into being a publicly funded cartel. Oh well, I'm still tuning in every Sunday.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:06 PM ^
Wasn't the Edward Jones Dome built in the 90s? If they want fans to come to a game, put a winning team out there. A 20 year old dome shouldn't need to be replaced and put the taxpayers on the hook.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:07 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 12th, 2015 at 1:22 PM ^
They couldn't get a taxpayer-funded modern pro football stadium built in LA or Orange County, so they bolted for St. Louis, where they had the Eddie Dome about to open.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 12th, 2015 at 1:30 PM ^
What I seem to remember is that Georgia Frontiere blamed the fact that the Rams' organization was essentially a wasteland (after all, they gave up Jim Everett and traded Jerome Bettis and couldn't draft worth a damn) on the encumberance of playing their games in Anaheim. Orange County and Los Angeles both pointed out that, if they wished to move, there were three perfectly suitable venues already in existence in the Los Angeles area - this did not satisfy Frontiere, who even went as far as to claim that with no new stadium, the Rams would go bankrupt. Eventually, Georgia got her way and the team was moved to St. Louis over the loud objections of many owners.
January 12th, 2015 at 3:07 PM ^
Slight correction. The Rams traded Jerome Bettis a year after they arrived in St. Louis.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:10 PM ^
One of my favorite teams & player as a kid growing up were the Los Angeles Rams and their QB Roman Gabrial. They were like the Cowboys in that they AWAYS seemed to wear their white "away" jersey's no matter if they were home or not and they looked pretty damn cool to me. Hope they return - for me the following:
LA = Rams
St. Louis = Cardinals
Baltimore = Colts
Arizona = cactus & old people
Indianapolis = 500 & college basketball
January 12th, 2015 at 1:41 PM ^
January 12th, 2015 at 1:43 PM ^
And Cleveland could have two teams named the Cleveland Browns.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:48 PM ^
He may have bene the only Rams fan I met during my suburban Cleveland childhood.
January 12th, 2015 at 10:23 PM ^
for one of my football games back in the day. the kids ask to see the videos once in a while. talk about some nostalgia.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:59 PM ^
How about we go way back and have the Cleveland Rams and the Chicago Cardinals?
Bam. Two brand new cross-town rivalries.
January 12th, 2015 at 5:06 PM ^
when we were kids we had the football game where the metal 'field' vibrated and the players would move around. we had the rams with those uni's, against the packers in the colors. so old...
January 12th, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
LA is a college football town.
January 12th, 2015 at 2:36 PM ^
really? i've always thought it should be, but never saw that.
i've been to a few rose bowls and they were pretty well attended, but i remember watching actual television ads to sell college football tickets as far back as the '80's and i was in shock. coming from michigan i had never seen such a thing. years later i went to a UCLA vs. Wash st. game and at the time they were something like #1 and #2 in the nation. the rose bowl was half to 2/3rds full. been to USC games at the coliseum and the place wasn't full either.
January 12th, 2015 at 3:40 PM ^
January 12th, 2015 at 4:57 PM ^
i neither attended nor played in a game at the coliseum during that time period. and we're home now, so no going back to socal for me.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:21 PM ^
Green Bay has the right idea. Have the city/citizens own the team, then greedy owners can't keep fucking with you and threatening to move the team every time you dont lick their ass just so.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:45 PM ^
if the taxpayers are expected to pay for a new stadium every 20-30 years, they should own the team.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:23 PM ^
St. Louis is a baseball town anyways. Plus in Kansas they seem to show the Rams on Fox when I just want to see the Lions!
January 12th, 2015 at 1:45 PM ^
Green Bay, Chicago or Dallas probably slides in as the next NFC team you'll be stuck with. It's why I hate taking trips to the southeast US in the fall. I hate watching any combination of Panthers, Falcons, Buccaneers or Redskins.
January 12th, 2015 at 2:03 PM ^
The traffic is bad enough without 80,000 fans coming to see a pro team ten or so times a year. We get all the pro football we want on television or Direct TV. The owners benefit bedause they can leverage for a new stadium where they are at or reap more money if they move when they eventually sell their team. Stay away !!
January 12th, 2015 at 2:53 PM ^
Do you need to drive in the vicinity of the stadium on those 10 Sunday afternoons a year?
This isn't like a baseball team moving in where there are home games all the time. NFL stadiums aren't used much.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:42 PM ^
I would be devastated if the Rams left St. Louis. However, I'm not sure it's worth it to build a new stadium in St. Louis for the Rams given the financial situation the city is in already.
Yes, St. Louis is and always will be a baseball town, but that hasn't stopped the Blues from being successful, and they haven't won a single Stanley Cup. The difference between the Blues and the Rams is that the Blues actually put out a competitive product. When the Rams were good the dome was rocking and one of the best home field advantages in the NFL. It's not the city's fault the franchise was horribly mismanaged for a decade. Once the Rams get a competent QB they'll be a playoff-calibur team and the Edward Jones Dome will sell out. Hopefully the city will have the opportunity to show that.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:46 PM ^
The defense is there and I like Tre Mason. If their offense catches up, they can be a player even in the NFC West.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:56 PM ^
I'm not going to hold my breath. He's even more fragile than Derrick Rose.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:46 PM ^
This has seemingly been talked about for years. Once LA has a team, then every other owner won't have that threat to goose up new stadium deals and better tax breaks. If the NFL wanted a team in LA, they'd just give them a new franchise and we'd be set. So the fact LA hasn't had a team in over a decade despite exploding value and new TV deals makes this seem even more smoke than fire.
January 12th, 2015 at 2:07 PM ^
January 12th, 2015 at 3:00 PM ^
Does the new plan have anything to do with the Forum?
I hope they don't plan to tear that down. That place is actually pretty nice venue for music after they remodeled it.
January 12th, 2015 at 3:46 PM ^
January 12th, 2015 at 5:21 PM ^
By all means he might move, but I've been hearing about guys moving their teams to LA for years. Personally, I still think the Raiders move to LA at some point, especially if they can get a nice deal on said stadium. And that doesn't even consider the fact that any move needs to be approved by 3/4 of the owners, which might be dicey if other owners like the idea of an open LA driving up their franchise/stadium prices. Just because he bought a bunch of land doesn't make it a clear move.
January 12th, 2015 at 9:35 PM ^
January 12th, 2015 at 1:54 PM ^
and folks here, WRT the NFL, are quite defeated. The Rams really aren't very good, they seem like they feel another piece of bad luck is right around the corner. So, they're reaction to this news has been, "Ahh well, typical..." Although some diehard fans are pissed, I don't feel like the city will miss them much. I personally like having a pro team here, but the city really is baseball centric. We'll see what happens, I hope the Rams stay.
January 12th, 2015 at 1:57 PM ^
Please , no pro football team in Los Angeles...the traffic is bad enough. We can get all the pro football we need or want on television or Direct TV..
I will fight the traffic when the Wolverines play UCLA at the Rose Bowl in 8 years !
January 12th, 2015 at 2:04 PM ^
Jacksonville should move to LA. They can never sell out and they are certainly not a football town.
January 12th, 2015 at 2:50 PM ^
The Jaguars are heading for London
January 12th, 2015 at 2:12 PM ^
This isn't like the nineties, the NFL is a WAY larger entity now. If I am the Rams owner, I move in a heartbeat, the two markets just aren't comparable in size.
January 12th, 2015 at 2:58 PM ^
As I understand, it wasn't even an issue of attendance for the Rams or Raiders last time around. It was just that both owners wanted new stadiums and the region didn't want to spend taxpayer money for them.
January 12th, 2015 at 2:59 PM ^
And a move to Los Angeles would increase the Rams value to around $3 Billion. There are a lot of teams wanting to move to LA then sell there team.
January 12th, 2015 at 3:26 PM ^
and it's amazing to me how Buffalo has held on to their team for so long, especially watching larger market teams like Oakland, St Louis, Jacksonville, etc have their teams threaten to leave.
January 12th, 2015 at 3:32 PM ^
Under the Rams' contract with the St. Louis, they have the right to convert their stadium lease to year-to-year if, after 20 years, the stadium (owned by the city) is no longer among the leagues' top 25% of stadia in various criteria (see those plurals, everyone; i experienced the Michigan difference, too). And that has now happened.
With the announcement by Stan Kroenke, the Rams' owner, of plans to build a stadium in LA, everyone in St. Louis assumes that he wants to move the Rams there though he hasn't officially announced it or applied for a move. It's ironic for someone from Columbia, Missouri, who was named for two Cardinals' Hall-of-Famers (Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial). But I don't think he has ever attended a Rams' game here. He hasn't even spoken to city officials about the Rams' future.
St. Louis, somewhat belatedly, is now hard at work on plans for a new, outdoor, riverfront stadium. One of the two people heading up the project is a former Anheuser-Busch executive said to have great relations with the NFL from his days with A-B. The hope is that the city can persuade the NFL to disapprove a move since it doesn't appear that Kroenke will be able to meet the league's official criteria.
But will the NFL find a way around them? Or maybe other owners won't want to hand the keys to such a huge treasure to Kroenke? We'll see. In the meantime, civic leaders in St. Louis say that they are working closely with the NFL on their new stadium plans.
Support for the Rams has been pretty good considering how terrible the team has been. They haven't had a winning season in over a decade. In 20 years here, the Rams have finished with a winning record four times. Support was very strong in the days of the "Greatest Show on Earth," as you'd expect.
By the way, the NFL has announced there won't be any moves for at least a year. The Raiders and Chargers are also said to be looking at LA.
January 12th, 2015 at 3:35 PM ^
"Silent" Stan Kroenke is becoming Public Enemy #1 here in St. Louis to put it mildly. The city is working hard to keep the Rams here but getting no dialogue from the man with $5 billion in his pockets.
January 12th, 2015 at 3:45 PM ^
The whole "LA is a bad sports town" is yet another one of those lame cliches about the city. Most of its teams -- Dodgers, Lakers, Kings, even the Galaxy -- draw very well. The Clips and Angels do respectably. So do USC and UCLA. Yes, attendance tends to flag when the teams struggle. But you could say that about most cities. Been to a Pistons game lately? Or a typical MSU football game?
LA's NFL reputation had merit only to the extent that LA -- where there's plenty of alternatives, and where there's no real winter -- doesn't desperately need NFL football. But its "failure" to keep an NFL team stemmed mostly from bad, flighty ownership. Also, today's NFL is far more popular than it was when the Rams played in LA. And while it's true that LA fans tend to arrive late and leave early, that's generally a function of LA freeway traffic. If you're leaving work at 6 PM, or if you've got to get the kids in bed by 10, you're gonna miss part of the game.
January 12th, 2015 at 4:02 PM ^
January 12th, 2015 at 4:09 PM ^
I love sports and am not naive enough to know that cities benefit from the economic benefit of pro teams, but taxpayer subsidies are just crazy with the Bucks made in pro sports.
It is what it is, but the Rams owner is yet another rich douches who wants to own the pro sports franchise, but not pay all of the freight. I'm not a Jerry Jones fan, but I believe he (Cowboys) built their stadium.
Enough ranting. LA deserves a team, but I just don't like the way this guy is playing St Louis.