NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay

[Cosmic]

(This is what I meant about being shouted down earlier, Goth.)

You are the one who called an opposing viewpoint "disagreeable" only because it disagreed with yours. Once you get personal, people will react badly.

Crap. I think I'm just a victim of my own ignorance.

I thought disagreeable meant "able to be disagreed with."

It doesn't.

/tailbetweenlegs

Holy carp someone admitted they were wrong on the Internet. I must be drunk.

[RichardWitham]

honestly if anything it was a passive agressive post on STL Fanatic's part.......

(This is what I meant about being shouted down earlier, Goth.)

You are the one who called an opposing viewpoint "disagreeable" only because it disagreed with yours. Once you get personal, people will react badly.

Crap. I think I'm just a victim of my own ignorance.

I thought disagreeable meant "able to be disagreed with."

It doesn't.

/tailbetweenlegs

Holy carp someone admitted they were wrong on the Internet. I must be drunk.

[colortv]

Well, another day and another conflicting pool of information. Gruden says Raiders to LA is inevitable and the reporter from Bleacher Report says the thinking right now among owners is the Raiders don't have the money to get it done, leaving the Rams and Chargers:

“I have a feeling, just being with the Raiders for a few years, that something’s going on down there,” Gruden, Oakland's coach from 1998 through 2001, said Wednesday on a conference call to preview the upcoming season.

“I have a couple of my sources down there that say it’s inevitable.”

Gruden was responding to a question in which he was asked to rank, on a scale of 1-to-10, the likelihood the MNF crew would be calling a game in Los Angeles next year.

Gruden’s broadcast partner, Mike Tirico, answered with an eight.

Gruden responded with a “10.”

“It’s gonna happen. There is just too much going on in that Hollywood Park area,” Gruden said, referencing the piece of land purchased by St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2015/09/02/jon-gruden-oakland-raiders-los-angeles-monday-night-football-chargers-rams/71600362/

http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/09/02/oakland-raiders-los-angeles-relocation-jon-gruden-inevitable

Jason Cole ‏@JasonColeBR 11h11 hours ago

One other thing about #Rams & #Chargers in LA: Rams are ok with it but Chargers aren't right now. Not a lot of trust between the 2 just yet

Jason Cole ‏@JasonColeBR 13h13 hours ago

And, finally, the idea of #Jaguars going to StL is again being bandied about #NFL owners and executives. That's top StL solution, for now

Jason Cole ‏@JasonColeBR 13h13 hours ago

#Rams & #Chargers pairing in Inglewood is gaining momentum among #NFL owners. Big reason: They don't think #Raiders have $ to make it work

https://twitter.com/JasonColeBR?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[Evil G]

I won't seriously believe that an owner as dedicated to his city as Khan would move his team.

[colortv]

Not to mention it's nearly impossible to get out of their lease for like 10 years right?

[Gothamite]

(This is what I meant about being shouted down earlier, Goth.)

You are the one who called an opposing viewpoint "disagreeable" only because it disagreed with yours. Once you get personal, people will react badly.

Crap. I think I'm just a victim of my own ignorance.

I thought disagreeable meant "able to be disagreed with."

It doesn't.

/tailbetweenlegs

Holy carp someone admitted they were wrong on the Internet. I must be drunk.

I've always liked our Fanatic.

[Gothamite]

Not to mention it's nearly impossible to get out of their lease for like 10 years right?

No, he just has to show losses in consecutive years. Hard to do with revenues where they are, but not impossible.

[DarkJourney]

I still think it's stupid of Spanos to abandon a good San Diego market. If he wants to be in LA so bad then so be it. The Raiders on the other hand might want to start begging Dork York to share Erector Set Stadium.

[2001mark]

Would St. Louis want the Jaguars? I suppose they would, an NFL franchise is an NFL franchise.

AFC South

Houston Texans

Indianapolis Colts

St. Louis Jaguars

Tennessee Titans

?

Looks pretty good to me.

[The_Admiral]

It does, but two relocations of two mostly crappy teams probably means the end of the NFL in St. Louis (see also: NHL in Atlanta).

[STL FANATIC]

Not to mention it's nearly impossible to get out of their lease for like 10 years right?

No, he just has to show losses in consecutive years. Hard to do with revenues where they are, but not impossible.

I ponder this still believing the concept of the Jags moving is not happening, but...

I wonder how that clause is written? Khan has made some investments in the stadium and it's surroundings right? I wonder if he's able to count that against his revenue.

If so, I suppose the investments could be something of a hedged bet if they turned the bottomline red.

[STL FANATIC]

Would St. Louis want the Jaguars? I suppose they would, an NFL franchise is an NFL franchise.

AFC South

Houston Texans

Indianapolis Colts

St. Louis Jaguars

Tennessee Titans

?

Looks pretty good to me.

If you asked St. Louis right now if they'd want the Jaguars, you'd get an emphatic yes*. People love Khan here. We all thought we'd like Khan anyway. And now right or wrong, his hypothetical (not totally hypothetical—he talked about it) commitment to St. Louis combined with his investment to the Jacksonville market has turned Khan into the complete anti-Kroenke.

(* - That "yes" would probably be a combination of "if we can't keep the Rams" and "screw Kroenke's Rams just swap them asap.")

But, if you asked that same question in 3-5 years, I don't think it'd be so emphatic. You might get a good split of yes and no, but more importantly, I don't think the initiative and desire to build a stadium would be there. I think that goes off the table pretty quickly.

[Gothamite]

Not to mention it's nearly impossible to get out of their lease for like 10 years right?

No, he just has to show losses in consecutive years. Hard to do with revenues where they are, but not impossible.

I ponder this still believing the concept of the Jags moving is not happening, but...

I wonder how that clause is written? Khan has made some investments in the stadium and it's surroundings right? I wonder if he's able to count that against his revenue.

If so, I suppose the investments could be something of a hedged bet if they turned the bottomline red.

I too would love to see the language. And that would seem to be the easiest way to show paper losses; offset the large revenues with even larger expenditures. It would be very expensive, but it could be possible.

If he even wanted to relocate. Which is far from certain. But just speaking hypothetically, that's how he could conceivably break the lease.

[DarkJourney]

It was only six seasons between the Cardinals leaving and the Rams arriving in St. Louis. Would St. Louis fans sit around and wait a possible 10 years for another team to come back?

[STL FANATIC]

It was only six seasons between the Cardinals leaving and the Rams arriving in St. Louis. Would St. Louis fans sit around and wait a possible 10 years for another team to come back?

It's really impossible to predict. But I think we'll all have moved on by then. But the world will be a different place in 10 years, so it could go any which way.

My hope will be that we've built a smaller, soccer-specific stadium on the riverfront and are enjoying the MLS as American soccer surges forward and American football is in the midst of its decline.

[Mac the Knife]

But we all KNOW they're different. We do. This whole forum wouldn't exist if they weren't. Nobody is very good at explaining why they're different, but they are, and it seems strange to me to deny that.

(It's okay if you still think the Rams should move. That's a valid—if debatable—viewpoint. But it is strange to deny that the sports industry is—in practicality—different from other businesses.)

Also, as admiral points out, they're legally different in many ways also. They don't have to play by the same rules as most businesses.

No, they aren't different, legally or in any other way. They're treated differently by a whole lot of people because having a professional sports franchise in a city in North America is a symbol of civic pride. Do you root for IBM to have a good quarter? Microsoft? ExxonMobil? Not unless you have an ownership stake in them or are bat :censored: insane, no. But in professional sports, people substitute wins and losses for such financial gains and losses, equating performance on that basis and projecting loyalty based on that to an extent. In day to day practice and operation though, they're absolutely no different.

I won't seriously believe that an owner as dedicated to his city as Khan would move his team.

If you poke around here deeply enough, you'll find me saying that Khan would, at some point, move the Jaguars to St. Louis if a vacancy occurred there. I'm not saying what he's doing in Jacksonville is window dressing for a move - he's definitely making a genuine effort to make the team viable there, and I hope he succeeds and I'm wrong. But I still see the Jaguars somewhere else (maybe St. Louis, maybe London) once freed from their Gator Bowl (or whatever it's called this week) lease.

It was only six seasons between the Cardinals leaving and the Rams arriving in St. Louis. Would St. Louis fans sit around and wait a possible 10 years for another team to come back?

No, but St. Louis could snag a team in the late 2020's, when the next round of "We want a new stadium or we're moving" cries start.

[Gothamite]

It was only six seasons between the Cardinals leaving and the Rams arriving in St. Louis. Would St. Louis fans sit around and wait a possible 10 years for another team to come back?

It's really impossible to predict. But I think we'll all have moved on by then. But the world will be a different place in 10 years, so it could go any which way.

My hope will be that we've built a smaller, soccer-specific stadium on the riverfront and are enjoying the MLS as American soccer surges forward and American football is in the midst of its decline.

So if you can't have it, nobody should?

[TheOldRoman]

Jason Cole ‏@JasonColeBR 13h13 hours ago

#Rams & #Chargers pairing in Inglewood is gaining momentum among #NFL owners. Big reason: They don't think #Raiders have $ to make it work

Of course they don't. The Raiders never had money! If they did, there wouldn't be raw sewage in their locker rooms. The Raiders were always an afterthought in this and a "throw-in if you want them" team. The only way they control a situation is by moving to San Antonio, and even that would be a bad market with a horrible stadium. The Raiders will either bunk up with the stadium-builder who ends up in LA or have to crawl out to Santa Clara.

And I fully believe the NFL views the Rams and Raiders as the best LA outcome, since they obviously want two teams in LA. So they'd force the Chargers to take San Diego's deal if they had the ability. But with Goodell's recent public history of stepping on rakes, I doubt he has anything close to that power.

[STL FANATIC]

It was only six seasons between the Cardinals leaving and the Rams arriving in St. Louis. Would St. Louis fans sit around and wait a possible 10 years for another team to come back?

It's really impossible to predict. But I think we'll all have moved on by then. But the world will be a different place in 10 years, so it could go any which way.

My hope will be that we've built a smaller, soccer-specific stadium on the riverfront and are enjoying the MLS as American soccer surges forward and American football is in the midst of its decline.

So if you can't have it, nobody should?

Precisely.

No, I'm actually long on record (and maybe you already know this, I don't know) about being done with the league and the sport of football and believing it will see a decline. But I also accept that I'm controlled by loyalty to my team and can't really give it up until they bail on me.

But once they do, it will probably be a blessing.

[Gothamite]

I don't think I knew that. Thanks!