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NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay


duma

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If the Raiders moved to St. Louis, I would vomit nonstop. It would just keep coming and coming. People would think I'm a real-life gif.

Ideal situation:

Los Angeles Rams

San Diego Chargers

Oakland Raiders

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The solution, then, should be to tell the NFL to piss off and not spend all that money on a stadium. In the end what would St. Louis lose? Its status as a "NFL city"? Somehow I think they'll survive.

You're telling me.

Not too late to revise the Peacock plan to a 24,000 seat soccer-specific stadium...

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The solution, then, should be to tell the NFL to piss off and not spend all that money on a stadium. In the end what would St. Louis lose? Its status as a "NFL city"? Somehow I think they'll survive.

You're telling me.

Not too late to revise the Peacock plan to a 24,000 seat soccer-specific stadium...

If I were choosing, I certainly would. But that's unlikely to happen as long as an NFL team is a possibility and perhaps ever.

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I really feel like this whole Raiders to St. Louis talk is easily the worst thing that could happen. The Rams are going to leave St. Louis only to be replaced with ANOTHER long time California team? How stupid.

Best solution is Rams and Raiders to LA, Chargers with a new park in San Diego. St Louis can either try for an expansion team or, even better, they can just kick rocks. They've lost TWO teams now (assuming the Rams do end up moving) and San Diego is a better market for pro football than St. Louis anyway.

Go away, Missouri.

You're mean. :(

I won't re-hash the stuff about why St. Louis is underrated as a football market and why losing two teams isn't a fair gauge. (I'll just say it matter of factly in passing so you can't argue with it ;))

But I will say that the desired scenario coming out of the league meetings makes logistical sense. That scenario being 2 teams in Southern California, not 3.

It's not that Southern California can't support 3 teams, but going from 1 to 3 over night would be a dramatic shift. And while Spanos desire to stay in San Diego and protect the LA market is absurd, it is fair to give a committed owner the benefit of not throwing 2 teams into an area he's largely drawn from over night.

It's from that stand point that it makes sense for the Chargers to be in Southern California and either the Rams or the Raiders to join them. The other goes somewhere else, and stadium in Oakland still seems much less likely than one in St. Louis.

Oakland isn't a viable market any longer. Ditch that thing ASAP. But losing BOTH Oakland and San Diego in favor of freaking St. Louis is downright stupid. San Diego can and does support the Chargers, and that wouldn't change much even with two teams up north in LA because the San Diego metro area alone has nearly as many people as the entire city of Phoenix, AZ. Not to mention the other 6 million plus people in Orange County and Los Angeles. They're the most popular ticket in town and pretty much always have been. To lose them over a petty game of real estate chicken between the owners and the city would be the absolute definition of cutting off ones nose to spite their face.

St. Louis, on the other hand, has almost NONE of what San Diego has to offer. The Rams could win ten Super Bowls and they'll never be anything but second fiddle to the Cardinals (hell, third fiddle when the Blues are good, too!). The city and the surrounding area doesn't have nearly the bodies to draw from, either. And, on top of that, with as bad of a history as San Diego has had with dealing with this Chargers stadium issue, it still pales in comparison to the stadium issues that St. Louis has had, TWICE now.

I'm sorry, even with two teams in LA, San Diego absolutely :censored:s on St. Louis as a market, and to lose that in favor of another team in Missouri would be absolutely brain dead.

I preface this by saying that my father is from St. Louis and I really like the city.

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On 11/19/2012 at 7:23 PM, oldschoolvikings said:
She’s still half convinced “Chris Creamer” is a porn site.)
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Oakland will probably be just fine once the Raiders and the Oakland Coliseum cease to be dumpster fires. I think they can hang in there. I wouldn't be too broken up if they went back to Los Angeles, but I'd prefer they stay in Oakland for good. I don't want to see them in San Antonio. I can't bear to see them in St. Louis.

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SI's Peter King, speaking on the Dan Patrick Show this morning, also expressed the likelihood that it will be the Rams and Chargers in SoCal with Oakland eventually moving into a new St. Louis stadium at some point.

So if that gains steam, it brings up a new question: would the Raiders — one of the league's most storied franchises — keep their identity? It would seem sacrilegious for the league to lose the Raiders brand, but it also doesn't seem to fit in a market like St. Louis, on several levels.

Well, he must be fairly certain to say this to the commissioner himself:

The MMQB: Let’s get to the obligatory London and Los Angeles issues.

Goodell: I can see your enthusiasm.

The MMQB: I mean, L.A. is going to happen … As you look at the landscape, what has changed to make it logical and likely that there will be football in Los Angeles?

Goodell: I’m not saying it’s likely. I think a couple of things are positive. One is our long-term labor agreement. I would say that when someone is making the kind of investment that you have to make in the Los Angeles market as well as a lot of other markets—you need the long-term stability so that we can invest back in the business. Ultimately that will pay you back. That’s why we’ve seen the salary cap increase by $20 million per team over the past two years. That investment is paying back. I think the long-term labor agreement has given us the ability to evaluate a long-term investment in Los Angeles to make it work successfully—because it’s a challenging market. It’s competitive. The stadium is a critical component of that. They’re not getting cheaper.

http://mmqb.si.com/2015/03/23/roger-goodell-unplugged-peter-king-nfl/6/

Though he does say that he thinks San Diego/Oakland in a shared stadium makes the most sense.

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Yeah, but that's Peter King. You have to take every think he says with a grain of caustic soda.

Thought you were going to say coffee, a overrated beer he had on the road, or how his hotel gym experience was, but King carries their water more than any other.

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I'm sorry, even with two teams in LA, San Diego absolutely :censored:s on St. Louis as a market, and to lose that in favor of another team in Missouri would be absolutely brain dead.

Fine. We'll go there.

San Diego is a fine NFL market just as St. Louis is a fine NFL market. The supposed clear advantage is hogwash.

First just some stats on the markets.

San Diego

MSA Ranking/Size: 17th / 3.2 million

TV Market Rank: 28th

Fortune 500 Companies: 2

Fortune 1000 Companies: 5

St. Louis

MSA Ranking/Size: 19th / 2.8 million

TV Market Rank: 21st

Fortune 500 Companies: 9

Fortune 1000 Companies: 14

San Diego gets a big boost over St. Louis if you also include the LA market in it. And that's fair right now because they're Southern California's team. In a scenario where San Diego NEVER loses the Chargers, you're looking at 2 OTHER teams in LA, though. You can't just keep giving them the advantages of the LA market.

But let's say you do anyways. That's an advantage they've obviously had for the last two decades.

ESPN has full attendance data dating back to 2008. The Chargers have finished in the bottom half in the league in attendance every year since then. The Chargers won their division 3 of those years and finished .500 or better every year but one. It's hard to find out data, but the Chargers did have 10 blackouts from 2010-2013 and at least had blackouts lifted late in the week in years prior.

These were pretty good football teams and they had ALL of Southern California to draw from.

Now, yes, the attendance was definitively better than St. Louis. Yes, St. Louis also had blackout scares (although they had few if any actual blackouts in that time span). Though, it's also undeniable that St. Louis had a definitively worse and in fact historically bad football team during this time period.

The point is that San Diego isn't some clearcut great football town. It's had good teams, it always has great weather, and they've had plenty of people from which to draw attendance, and they've still had struggles.

Now to two St. Louis specific points.

1. St. Louis has arguably not had any stadium issues as bad as San Diego is currently having. Bill Bidwell wanted the city to build him a football only stadium so he could move out of a 20-year old (less when he started) multi-purpose stadium. Now, that's not a crazy desire, but the stadium was far from in bad shape. He just wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. And he was more than willing to move to get it (even though he didn't actually get it for a very long time).

And then now there is the the Edward Jones Dome. Also just 20 years old. No major building issues. It's a flawed place, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it. Kroenke just wants something that will make him more money, has an opening in the lease, and has the money and desire to do what he wants including moving (even though St. Louis is trying to work with him).

San Diego has a stadium that's almost 50 years old, built as a multi-purpose baseball/football stadium. It's essentially the same stadium Bill Bidwell wanted out of in St. Louis all those years ago. The Chargers have been working to get a solution for 14 years. San Diego has done nothing.

The results of the stadium situations in St. Louis (one of which is still TBD) are skewing your perceptions. There's nothing worse than San Diegoabout the stadiums or the way St. Louis has approached building/maintaining/replacing them. San Diego just has an owner that doesn't want (or at least hasn't wanted) to move; that's the difference.

2. The Blues are beloved in St. Louis. They're still very much 2nd fiddle to the Rams, even when they're a Cup favorite and the Rams are garbage.

San Diego has nicer weather than St. Louis (and frankly everywhere else). They have a longer, simpler, more memorable NFL history than St. Louis. But is San Diego a better NFL market than St. Louis? Hey maybe. But suggesting it's clear cut is simply letting your feelings and perceptions get in the way of the many facts and factors that go into figuring out the answer.

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There's definitely more money to throw around regarding San Diego.

A quick google search reveals it has a median household income $20,000 higher and a gross metro product $50 billion higher.

Good stats. These are the sorts of things that really have to be considered, not perceptions. These stats obviously go in San Diego's favor.

I think the income stat is a little more pertinent and easier to interpret. People make more money in San Diego, so there's either ( A ) more money to spend, and/or ( B ) the ability to support higher ticket prices.

I'm guessing it's mostly B as I imagine everything costs more in San Diego as well—especially real estate. However, even if it's just B, I think that's an advantage to San Diego since the NFL-specific economy (paying players and whatnot) is even across the board. It doesn't cost more to sign a player in San Diego than it does in St. Louis, unlike other professions where the salaries probably are higher in San Diego to adjust for cost of living (and thus the number in the first place). So definitely a positive for San Diego.

The GMP is also a positive, I just think that's a little murkier of a stat. It's tied to the higher income and the high cost of living (if everything costs more, more money is being spent), but even aside from that, that's not a particularly severe difference when the list of GMP (well, GDP for Metros—essentially the same thing, I believe) is looked at.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_areas_by_GDP

San Diego's is $50 billion higher, but the context is $196.8 billion to $145.9 billion. San Diego is 16th in the country, St. Louis is 21st. Both ahead of many other NFL markets that most here probably consider even more "essential" markets.

My goal wasn't to prove that St. Louis is the better market or even that San Diego specifically isn't. Just that when you look at the real data, it's no sure thing. They're both markets that should be well within the top 32, but also not so good that the league needs to make sure they're saved if their stadiums aren't a go. And if both gets stadiums, it's less about the market and more about the owners. (Clear cut advantage to San Diego in that scenario.)

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I did have a question Fanatic, what would you say is the general pulse of the city regarding the Rams? Is there a great deal of public pressure, anxiety? Any polls?

I did find this interesting tidbit regarding Kroenke:

IN 1995, KROENKE paid $80 million for 40 percent of the Rams when they moved from Los Angeles to St. Louis, with the guarantee that if the rest of the team ever went up for sale he'd have first dibs. In 2010, that opportunity arrived: He spent $450 million to purchase the remaining 60 percent of the team from the heirs of former longtime Rams owner Georgia Frontiere. "I'm born and raised in Missouri," Kroenke told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at the time. "I've been a Missourian for 60 years. People in our state know me. People know I can be trusted. People know 
I am an honorable guy."

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/page/hotread150318/st-louis-rams-owner-sparks-nfl-chaos-plan-move-team-los-angeles

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There's a lot of anxiety about the Rams future. The low attendance figures have never been an accurate indication of interest. It's a frequent topic of conversation and people are curious, concerned, and opinionated about what will happen. Now the opinions very widely. Plenty want to keep them at all costs, others are torn, others spitefully want them gone, and others just take the strict economic approach and don't believe it makes sense. So there's not unanimous support for the stadium (I can't even begin to guess how a vote would go—it'd be close). But the interest and anxiety is high.

As for that quote, yeah, it's popped up every now and then around here, obviously a lot more lately. Who knows whether his feelings have changed, whether he's always had a grander plan to spurn STL, or what. But it's not a good look, and he's certainly not liked around these parts as a result.

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There's definitely more money to throw around regarding San Diego.

A quick google search reveals it has a median household income $20,000 higher and a gross metro product $50 billion higher.

The cost of living is also dramatically higher in San Diego than in St. Louis.

That $20k higher may actually represent less money.

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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The low attendance figures have never been an accurate indication of interest.

Of course they are.

It's not the only indication of the market's interest, but it is an indication. Take it all in context, but we can't pretend those numbers aren't what they are.

That's fair. But I certainly meant looking at the attendance alone doesn't give you an accurate idea of how much interest there is in the Rams. And that's the truth.

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If I was the Raiders and LA or Oakland was no longer an option, I'd look to San Antonio before St.Louis.

And so will they, for one reason most folks overlook: taxes. Texas' taxes (try saying that out loud three times in a row) are, overall, substantially lower than Missouri's. Unless St. Louis were to offer to match San Antonio dollar-for-dollar in tax incentives (which, if they have to go to a referendum on certain tax initiatives, they never could), San Antonio's the more attractive market as it'd have bigger upside potential.

I don't think we'll see the Raiders identity leave California. It's too iconic and tied to the state.

Tied to the state? I'm sorry, but I've followed (not necessarily been a fan of, but followed) the Oakland/Los Angeles/El Segundo/Irwindale/Carson/Oakland Raiders since 1977, and I've never thought of the Raiders identity as inseparable from California. The only sports identity that fits that description is that of the 49'ers... and maybe, maybe the Padres. All the others, from the A's, Giants and Dodgers to the Chargers and Raiders, from the Kings and Ducks to the Lakers, Clippers, Warriors and other Kings, could be moved anywhere.

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