NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay

[Gothamite]

Even if it was valid, I have a hard time getting past all his whinging. "Unprofessional" is about the kindest thing I can say about it.

There's a valid argument to make, but he's too emotional to get anywhere near it.

[DustDevil61]

That sucks. I like the Panthers, but Richardson can go f*** himself.

EDIT: And that's 2,000 posts. Add me to the long list of weirdos who frequent a message forums about sports logos so often.

Between this and his careless attitude towards player labor--as a fan, I'm not a fan.

But between this collusion and the Raiders' ownership issues, things may be playing into Stan Kroenke's hands.

[The_Admiral]

There has been way too much Charlotte-based ownership in this thread about the fortunes of Los Angeles, WHAT THE HELL, GO AWAY, YOU OLD TURD.

[Gothamite]

Okay, more social media goodness - this apparently made the rounds last July but it's cropping up again now - don't remember it being posted here.

This is Bernie Miklasz's column published shortly after the announcement that the Rams were moving to St, Louis.

Stop Whining, LA; We Deserve Another Chance

By Miklasz, Bernie

St Louis Post-Dispatch

The Rams are vanished, headed to the Midwest, and in Southern California they are in the early throes of a hot-blooded tantrum. Some rather vitriolic analysis is coming over the transom as angry journalists and bitter team boosters accuse the Rams of treason and other high crimes.

Georgia Frontiere is being cast as some sort of football version of Ma Barker - a sinister character who hijacked a Brinks truck and singlehandedly caused Orange County to go bankrupt. The woman with a team and no conscience.

I gather that they will not be throwing Georgia a farewell soiree in LA. In Orange County, she is is about as popular as a liberal Democrat pushing a tax increase.

And you know what? I don't care what these people say.

I don't care what Georgia Frontiere did, or did not do, in Orange County - though the record shows that she has owned this franchise for 16 seasons, and it has made the playoffs in eight of those years.

The first day of the rest Frontiere's life began on a glorious Tuesday afternoon in downtown St. Louis, in a jammed, jubilant convention center room that's a long Jerome Bettis touchdown gallop from the rising stadium.

Sorry, this is our party, we deserved it, and sore losers are not invited. We lost a football team seven years ago, and no one felt sorry for St. Louis. As we had our little revival meeting Tuesday, we easily could disregard the caterwauling from the land of milk, honey and dangerous, high-risk investment strategies made by irresponsible government officials.

Orange County defaulted on its team. Get over it. We hear that Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland is lovely this time of the year.

As for the Rams and Frontiere, I care only about what happens from this day forward. The Los Angeles Rams are dead. The St. Louis Rams are alive.

This city has been assailed for its alleged indifference for football. Frontiere has been condemned for her alleged indifference for the Rams.

Today, we both start over.

We will judge Frontiere and on how she handles this franchise, this city, and our trust, when the Rams kick off in 1995.

Oho, that's rich.

Presented with a clear victory, Bernie could have chosen magnanimity. He could have chosen to be jubilant but not vindictive. He could have well afforded graciousness in his victory. Instead, he decided to kick Angelinos when they were down.

The same man who told the "sore losers" and "whiners" to "get over it" back then is now crying and pleading for "fairness" and "honor" from the league.

The same man who jeered at fans' criticisms of Frontiere now makes his living on the exact same complaints about Stan Kroenke. He also took a shot at Orange County's financial mismanagement, which they deserved but which is also looking oh-so-ironic now.

As I said above, he's a spoiled infant lashing out in emotional tantrums. He's an embarrassment to his former paper, his station and his city.

[rams80]

Don't see an official number, but a local beat writer tweeted this photo of the stands at kickoff:

Insert joke here like "the Rams are getting used to that "fashionably late" LA crowd."

If the Rams lose to the Bucs in Primetime on Thursday night, and nobody shows up, does the loss still count?

[rams80]

Also, good Lord Jerry Richardson, I knew you were an arsehole, but I didn't think you were a dumb arsehole. Kroenke probably would already have an advantage in a legal case without you potentially presenting him a slam dunk collusion charge.

[Cosmic]

Bob Iger was once "tricked" into revealing info at a Disney shareholder meeting by a 6-year-old... maybe he's not the best guy to include in your secret collusion plans.

[Gothamite]

What? I hadn't heard that story.

[STL FANATIC]

Okay, more social media goodness - this apparently made the rounds last July but it's cropping up again now - don't remember it being posted here.

This is Bernie Miklasz's column published shortly after the announcement that the Rams were moving to St, Louis.

Stop Whining, LA; We Deserve Another Chance

By Miklasz, Bernie

St Louis Post-Dispatch

The Rams are vanished, headed to the Midwest, and in Southern California they are in the early throes of a hot-blooded tantrum. Some rather vitriolic analysis is coming over the transom as angry journalists and bitter team boosters accuse the Rams of treason and other high crimes.

Georgia Frontiere is being cast as some sort of football version of Ma Barker - a sinister character who hijacked a Brinks truck and singlehandedly caused Orange County to go bankrupt. The woman with a team and no conscience.

I gather that they will not be throwing Georgia a farewell soiree in LA. In Orange County, she is is about as popular as a liberal Democrat pushing a tax increase.

And you know what? I don't care what these people say.

I don't care what Georgia Frontiere did, or did not do, in Orange County - though the record shows that she has owned this franchise for 16 seasons, and it has made the playoffs in eight of those years.

The first day of the rest Frontiere's life began on a glorious Tuesday afternoon in downtown St. Louis, in a jammed, jubilant convention center room that's a long Jerome Bettis touchdown gallop from the rising stadium.

Sorry, this is our party, we deserved it, and sore losers are not invited. We lost a football team seven years ago, and no one felt sorry for St. Louis. As we had our little revival meeting Tuesday, we easily could disregard the caterwauling from the land of milk, honey and dangerous, high-risk investment strategies made by irresponsible government officials.

Orange County defaulted on its team. Get over it. We hear that Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland is lovely this time of the year.

As for the Rams and Frontiere, I care only about what happens from this day forward. The Los Angeles Rams are dead. The St. Louis Rams are alive.

This city has been assailed for its alleged indifference for football. Frontiere has been condemned for her alleged indifference for the Rams.

Today, we both start over.

We will judge Frontiere and on how she handles this franchise, this city, and our trust, when the Rams kick off in 1995.

Oho, that's rich.

Presented with a clear victory, Bernie could have chosen magnanimity. He could have chosen to be jubilant but not vindictive. He could have well afforded graciousness in his victory. Instead, he decided to kick Angelinos when they were down.

The same man who told the "sore losers" and "whiners" to "get over it" back then is now crying and pleading for "fairness" and "honor" from the league.

The same man who jeered at fans' criticisms of Frontiere now makes his living on the exact same complaints about Stan Kroenke. He also took a shot at Orange County's financial mismanagement, which they deserved but which is also looking oh-so-ironic now.

As I said above, he's a spoiled infant lashing out in emotional tantrums. He's an embarrassment to his former paper, his station and his city.

What I think this truly shows is the awfulness that is franchise relocation. Someone always gets screwed.

Can someone explain to me how Richardson seeking out Iger would cross over from typical morally bankrupt activity by an NFL owner to collusion. I've read some of the articles. I don't really get where there's any legal claims, though.

[Cosmic]

What? I hadn't heard that story.

[Gothamite]

Your "curse on both their houses" doesn't work here.

Bernke chose to be childish and nasty when someone else was getting screwed, and now he wants the entire world to come to his aid when he feels he's being screwed. Far as I'm concerned, this is the only good thing about the probable relocation.

As for the collusion - [EDIT: never mind, LMU explained it much more succinctly below.]

[The_Admiral]

Why I can't imagine how having a small-market owner in charge of the league's biggest business decision since the broadcast rights shift of 2005-06 would manage to screw things up.

[LMU]

Can someone explain to me how Richardson seeking out Iger would cross over from typical morally bankrupt activity by an NFL owner to collusion. I've read some of the articles. I don't really get where there's any legal claims, though.

It's pretty obvious. You can't have the head of the relocation committee meeting behind the scenes with one of the applicants and try to sway the vote in what should be an impartial process.

[STL FANATIC]

Your "curse on both their houses" doesn't work here.

Bernke chose to be childish and nasty when someone else was getting screwed, and now he wants the entire world to come to his aid when he feels he's being screwed. Far as I'm concerned, this is the only good thing about the probable relocation.

This is just basically the raw emotion of sports right?

Bad things that happen to your team are bad. Good things that happen to your team are good and deserved because of the bad things that happened to your team. Screw everyone who disagrees.

The NFL thrives on this emotion. I'm not absolving Bernie of hypocrisy, but I'm saying it's something most people are guilty of in sports.

[STL FANATIC]

Can someone explain to me how Richardson seeking out Iger would cross over from typical morally bankrupt activity by an NFL owner to collusion. I've read some of the articles. I don't really get where there's any legal claims, though.

It's pretty obvious. You can't have the head of the relocation committee meeting behind the scenes with one of the applicants and try to sway the vote in what should be an impartial process.

I guess I'm still not sure why that's legal collusion. The relocation committee has no formal say in the decision making process. All of them have been in touch to varying degrees with the various projects, and some have surely offered support and help and guidance.

I just don't see how this is anything but par for the course for the NFL. Haven't we been over how they don't really have to follow any guidelines and can dictate the plan as they see fit?

I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, but this just seems like standard scummy NFL stuff. If the LA committee was anything other than bully pulpit, I MIGHT see how it could be legal collusion. But it's not.

You could frankly argue that strengthening the LA options is good for the league as a whole. Grubman says all the time that's his job, to create strong competing proposals. (No comment from Grubman on what it says about his job performance that by his own admission none of the current host cities have compelling proposals... but I digress.)

[STL FANATIC]

Proponents of the St. Louis Stadium are hoping for a vote on the financing bill from the full Board of Aldermen tomorrow.

The Board of Alderman just received a new financing plan at about 11:30 PM tonight.

Garbage all of it.

A few details:

• Projected cost now up to $1.1 billion.

• The amusement tax has been waived (details below).

• The RSA (public agency that owns the stadiums) will bond the rent money from a hypothetical lease to cover extra funding.

• The plan calls for another $100 million from the NFL.

On that amusement tax...I don't have a 100% understanding of this, but basically sports events in the city of St. Louis have a 5% tickets tax, I believe. Organizations that contribute $200m to their building have the tax waived of their tickets. The Cardinals did that easily. The Blues used to pay it but no longer do, I'm not sure when they changed. It may have been waived when they made renovations to the Scottrade Center and helped restore and renovate the attached Peabody Opera House a few years back.

When the St. Louis Stadium financing plan removed the bonding of the naming rights money from the plan, they replaced it with bonding the revenue from the ticket tax. The NFL was quick to point out that by city ordinance, they shouldn't be subjected to that tax, and therefore opposed it or at least weren't willing to consider that as part of the public portion of the financing. (Presumably St. Louis would have modify their ordinance to make it appropriate to charge the tax, I'm not sure.)

It's already stupid enough that St. Louis has a fixed $200m number as the exemption qualification. How they didn't have the foresight to make that a percentage, I have no idea. Not sure if would have mattered in this case regardless, though.

Anyways, the removal of the amusement tax mentioned above is surely in response to that criticism from the NFL. Nevermind the fact that the new solution relies on money from a mythical lease.

And again, the Aldermen will have had all of 11.5 hours to review this new plan before the meeting starts tomorrow... assuming they were up and checking their email.

This whole things just stinks.

[Mac the Knife]

I'm more and more hoping St. Louis tells the NFL to go piss up a rope. And that Oakland and San Diego's proposals continue to be "unsuitable" in the eyes of the league. Let's see what happens when 3 teams apply to LA and none of their current home cities continue to put up a fight to keep them.

[Gothamite]

Your "curse on both their houses" doesn't work here.

Bernke chose to be childish and nasty when someone else was getting screwed, and now he wants the entire world to come to his aid when he feels he's being screwed. Far as I'm concerned, this is the only good thing about the probable relocation.

This is just basically the raw emotion of sports right?

Bad things that happen to your team are bad. Good things that happen to your team are good and deserved because of the bad things that happened to your team. Screw everyone who disagrees.

The NFL thrives on this emotion. I'm not absolving Bernie of hypocrisy, but I'm saying it's something most people are guilty of in sports.

Hardly. Most sports fans are able to maintain a semblance of rationality from time to time.

But he's not a fan. He's a journalist. Or at least he's supposed to be. Behaving like the worst kind of fan is beneath him, and beneath his station. He loses all credibility.

It's one thing for fans to whinge about "fairness" and "rules" and "the process". But this man has a Hall of Fame vote. He has to have just a little more prospective than your average internet troll.

[The_Admiral]

Alternatively, I, an average internet troll, can get a Hall of Fame vote while Bernie Miklasz keeps doing what he does. Time to get Alan Trammell, Tim Raines, and Youppi! to Cooperstown!

EDIT: More like Youpperstown if I have my way

[Gothamite]

I could get behind that.