NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay

[Gothamite]

If the NFL actually pitches in to get Oakland a new stadium I can agree with that. However, if the Rams get blocked from moving to LA, I think Kroenke takes the STL deal. It would really be his only option.

Well, he could just move anyway. It's not clear that the NFL could stop him, and even if they could under normal circumstances Jerry Richardson has reportedly handed Kroenke the basis of a pretty sound lawsuit against the NFL.

Then there's the other option, which is stay in the Dome on his year-to-year lease while he works on another plan.

He has plenty of options other than to take a deal he doesn't want.

[rams80]

How can anyone (besides LA fans and Stan K) honestly justify the Rams leaving at this point? The NFL asked STL to come up with a plan and they did. If they do allow them to leave, then they can't really pressure existing markets to hand over tax dollars in the future. They also would have falsely led STL on when in reality they had no chance to keep the Rams. Not sure if there are any legal ramifications since STL spent millions coming up with this plan.

3 teams are trying to move. 2 don't have stadium plans. The answer to the LA problem is so simple & that's what makes this so frustrating.

St. Louis' contribution would functionally pay for a nice stadium for a hypothetical resurrection of the St. Louis Billikens football team (or for Missouri-St. Louis to jump to FCS). It would not come close to paying for a full stadium, which means your plan involves Kroenke and the NFL actually carrying most of the freight. Presumably if Kroenke's paying for a stadium regardless, he'd rather it be in Los Angeles, which is quite reasonable unless you spent last week calling Jason Heyward a blood traitor.

[rams80]

If the NFL actually pitches in to get Oakland a new stadium I can agree with that. However, if the Rams get blocked from moving to LA, I think Kroenke takes the STL deal. It would really be his only option.

Or he'll keep renewing the EJD lease for a few years while plotting to move elsewhere because this market is dead and not worth the multi-decade effort it would take to salvage it. Rejoice Cardinal fans! Now you have nothing to distract you during the end of baseball season.

[FiddySicks]

Another thing is, if they do allow the Rams to move, what do you then do with SD & OAK?

Easy. Tell Spanos to take that sweetheart of a deal San Diego is offering him or get bent, and work on moving the Raiders into Levi's Stadium like they should've done in the first place.

[rams80]

Another thing is, if they do allow the Rams to move, what do you then do with SD & OAK?

Easy. Tell Spanos to take that sweetheart of a deal San Diego is offering him or get bent, and work on moving the Raiders into Levi's Stadium like they should've done in the first place.

I like the plan where Stan Kroenke breaks a pool cue and tells Spanos and Mark Davis that there will be "tryouts" for the role of Inglewood tenant.

[IceCap]

My money's on Chuckie.

[StlEagle]

If the NFL actually pitches in to get Oakland a new stadium I can agree with that. However, if the Rams get blocked from moving to LA, I think Kroenke takes the STL deal. It would really be his only option.

Or he'll keep renewing the EJD lease for a few years while plotting to move elsewhere because this market is dead and not worth the multi-decade effort it would take to salvage it. Rejoice Cardinal fans! Now you have nothing to distract you during the end of baseball season.

I don't think the NFL would be too happy while he stands by and lets the market continue to deteriorate while leaving a stadium plan on the table. And all it takes to salvage the market is a winning season.

[rams80]

If the NFL actually pitches in to get Oakland a new stadium I can agree with that. However, if the Rams get blocked from moving to LA, I think Kroenke takes the STL deal. It would really be his only option.

Or he'll keep renewing the EJD lease for a few years while plotting to move elsewhere because this market is dead and not worth the multi-decade effort it would take to salvage it. Rejoice Cardinal fans! Now you have nothing to distract you during the end of baseball season.

I don't think the NFL would be too happy while he stands by and lets the market continue to deteriorate while leaving a stadium plan on the table. And all it takes to salvage the market is a winning season.

This is not exactly a flagship market for the league, which means Kroenke can get away with letting it rot (like Jacksonville's old owner did).

Hell, if anything, the NFL turning down St. Louis' minimal contribution probably helps them down the road in terms of getting public financing, because it destroys the idea that cities can keep their team at fairly bargain basement prices.

As for the winning football team line, LOL. Those frontrunning bandwagoners aren't coming back short of a Super Bowl win following a 13 win season. That's not exactly a recipe for sustainability.

[Gothamite]

I don't think the NFL would be too happy while he stands by and lets the market continue to deteriorate while leaving a stadium plan on the table.

St. Louis needs to actually put a plan on the table before we can get anywhere near that conversation. Right now they have some lovely renderings and a promise from the city and state to pay for part of it. Until they actually come up with all the initial financing, to say nothing of the overruns, Kroenke isn't leaving anything behind.

[STL FANATIC]

I'm not sure there are as many holes in the St. Louis stadium financing as people here are making there out to be. There are really 2 holes—one a bigger deal than the other (though less money).

1. The $100 million in money from the NFL. This is on top of the $200 million in G4 money. This $100 million is the money 2 owners on the LA Committee told Peacock he could expect and the money Roger Goodell said wait what no to. This could exist, but currently doesn't exist in any meaningful way, and that's why it's the biggest hole to me.

2. The other hole is the $250 million from the NFL team who occupies the stadium. In terms of actually getting the stadium built, this is a huge hole because Stan Kroenke does not appear remotely willing to offer it. However, to the rest of the league, this is probably not a very big deal because $250 million is not an unreasonable amount to ask the NFL team to cover.

The rest of the project is funded. The rough breakdown is as follows:

$150m in bonds from the state

$90m in tax credits from the state

$70m in bonds from the city

$75m in bonds from the RSA (agency that owns the building)

$15m in funds from the RSA

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$160m from Personal Seat Licenses

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$200m from the NFL G4

$100m from the NFL something?

$250m from the team

That's $400m in private funds (which are no longer in question IF the project happens), $160 in PSLs which the NFL does not consider public but also isn't private, and $350m in private funds from the NFL and team.

This is not the best deal the NFL has ever seen for a stadium. It ain't the worst either. From the NFL's perspective, the only hole should be the $100m. And it's a legitimate hole, and they're free to hold that against the St. Louis plan. They shouldn't hold the $250 in team funds against it however. They can't make Kroenke pay for it, but they can tell him it's not an unreasonable request and as a result not approve his move to LA.

Nothing is concrete enough to make any decision obvious. And I don't want the Rams to stay at this point. But (the politicians) of St. Louis and Missouri have swindled enough tax dollars to be the best of a weak crop of home market solutions. That's a reasonable statement, I believe.

[DustDevil61]

Apparently there has been a snag in the Inglewood development, as the FAA ruled that the project plans leave the development as planned too reflective and too tall.

However, developers are working with the FAA and should have the plan revisions resolved with little impact to the project.

[Mac the Knife]

Ooo. That should be good.

Here is the meeting from YouTube.

While Alderwoman Tyus starts at around the 1:08:00 mark, there was another alderwoman (Marlene Davis) who gives us her good five minutes at about 37:00 mark after the caroling proresters. Before Davis there was an alderman who was up there for about 12 minutes and was pretty good too and Cara Spener was asking great question to the bill's sponsors at about the hour mark right before Tyus, Tyus was the passion plea, but Spenser was throwing the haymakers.

Also note than Tyus speaks for over 30 minutes.

I'm listening to this now as background whilst doing other things, and a number of thoughts run through my mind. Among them are that there are some creative St. Louisians to have sang a carol against the deal. Another is wondering how a city like St. Louis has so many Alderman, while my own (Raleigh, NC) has I believe, in total, either seven or nine City Council reps. Third, I've never ever attended or seen a city council meeting that began with a legislative equivalent of "shout outs" - kinda fun. But lastly and more important, it really seems as if there are going to be a number of Alderman who are going to be out on their asses after the next election.

If the NFL actually pitches in to get Oakland a new stadium I can agree with that. However, if the Rams get blocked from moving to LA, I think Kroenke takes the STL deal. It would really be his only option.

Or he could just go to LA anyway. The NFL can't actually stop him from moving his team. They could try to sue him but no judge is going to tell a man he can't move the business he owns to land he owns in a more lucrative market.

Plus moving both the Raiders and Chargers to LA would mess up the historic AFC West.

The NFL can prevent it, but they're not prepared to because they'd have to take an NBA/Donald Sterling-like step (threatening to revoke the Rams' franchise) - and then be prepared to fight it out in court - to do so. They've never used that tactic, primarily because it would be something of a logistical nightmare to call a bluff in that fashion, but it's at least possible. Kroneke could move the Rams assets to Timbuktu, but if the NFL takes control of its player contracts (as its empowered to do), takes control of the stadium lease (as its empowered to do), and doesn't schedule any of its games in Los Angeles... then what?

Apparently there has been a snag in the Inglewood development, as the FAA ruled that the project plans leave the development as planned too reflective and too tall.

However, developers are working with the FAA and should have the plan revisions resolved with little impact to the project.

Minor snag. Nothing that would prevent a deal.

[IceCap]

What lease? He'll own the stadium he wants to move into in LA. As for everything else? They could but they're not going to do any of that. Even if Stan leads the moving trucks himself flipping off the City of St. Louis on the way out.

The "process" to approve relocation is nonsense. The owner has all the leverage.

[BBTV]

All other things being equal, in 2015 is Oakland really more worth saving as a market than St. Louis? I get that Oakland is technically part of a huge market in the SFBA, but is the franchise relevant enough anymore to really capitalize on that? It seems like they're second fiddle in that market, and it seems to me that even winning football won't change that. Not sure if it's due to the team's demise as much as it is the city's, but while the "Oakland Raiders" are more important to the league than the "St. Louis Anythings" from a historical perspective, is the "Oakland Raiders" as a brand really worth as much as it once was anymore, and is Oakland as a market really that valuable to the league anymore?

I know there's a good chance that I'm wrong about a lot of that, but it seems to me that the St. Louis Raiders and LA Rams (or, if they executed a franchise swap, the Kroenke-owned LA Raiders and Davis owned (yeah, I know) St. Louis Rams makes the most sense here. San Diego seems like a better market than either of those cities, and it would make sense to keep pursuing a solution there, unless they've deemed it hopeless.

[Gothamite]

The NFL ran market analyses of all of them, and you can bet that's behind the choices they're making.

They ran market analyses of all three, and while the St. Louis one is the only one that's leaked, it didn't present a picture of a valuable and needed market. Basically said that they'll support a winner, but not too well, and that the region itself doesn't present a lot of opportunity for growth. The Cardinals fanbase shows that the city will support a team, but acknowledges that it is likely an outlier.

They may feel differently about a second team in the Bay Area.

[FiddySicks]

Yeah, Oakland as a brand entity can be sacrificed with no real hit. I do think that the Raiders are salvageable as a Bay Area team, though. Might as well move them closer to where the majority of the population is and save on having to construct another billion dollar plus sporting venue, though. It seems kind of irresponsible for them to be even considering it when there's a brand new multi purpose park just down the road and there have at least been initial talks from ownership about sharing it.

Or move them to LA. That's fine, too.

Really, as long as the Raiders can start actually winning games again, they're going to have a following no matter where they play. Instead of the league trying to step in to help them fund another huge stadium project, they should be doing what the NBA is doing with the Sixers and help them put together a competent on-field product.

[rams80]

I'm listening to this now as background whilst doing other things, and a number of thoughts run through my mind. Among them are that there are some creative St. Louisians to have sang a carol against the deal. Another is wondering how a city like St. Louis has so many Alderman, while my own (Raleigh, NC) has I believe, in total, either seven or nine City Council reps. Third, I've never ever attended or seen a city council meeting that began with a legislative equivalent of "shout outs" - kinda fun. But lastly and more important, it really seems as if there are going to be a number of Alderman who are going to be out on their asses after the next election.

Without knowing too much of the backstory, I suspect part of this is related to St. Louis (the city) being on the county-equivalent level, so the city government also is responsible for stuff the county government normally would handle. Also, one assumes the government setup is left over from when St. Louis had more than 700,000 people living in its city limits.

[The_Admiral]

All other things being equal, in 2015 is Oakland really more worth saving as a market than St. Louis?

I'd say so. Bigger population, more money, and being up the coast from L.A. allows the Raiders to still kinda keep their toes dipped in that market. St. Louis is redundant with teams in Chicago, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Nashville. Remember that the Rams have a much smaller geographic footprint than the Cardinals do: areas that lean to St. Louis in baseball often lean to Chicago and K.C. in football, and that really handicaps St. Louis.

[Mac the Knife]

What lease? He'll own the stadium he wants to move into in LA. As for everything else? They could but they're not going to do any of that. Even if Stan leads the moving trucks himself flipping off the City of St. Louis on the way out.

The "process" to approve relocation is nonsense. The owner has all the leverage.

The lease in St. Louis. The one that's still in effect. The NFL could seize it along with the player contracts, revoke the Rams franchise, and either operate a team in St. Louis on their own or with a new owner - that's an established right in the NFL's Constitution and Bylaws. But it's a nuclear option that hasn't been exercised in around 70 years and even threatened in 50.

All other things being equal, in 2015 is Oakland really more worth saving as a market than St. Louis?

I'd say so. Bigger population, more money, and being up the coast from L.A. allows the Raiders to still kinda keep their toes dipped in that market. St. Louis is redundant with teams in Chicago, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Nashville. Remember that the Rams have a much smaller geographic footprint than the Cardinals do: areas that lean to St. Louis in baseball often lean to Chicago and K.C. in football, and that really handicaps St. Louis.

All three teams being considered in this relocation would be financially better off in Los Angeles in 2016, and all three would now have NFL franchises prosper in their cities only if (i) the team were new to the city (e.g., St. Louis Raiders), (ii) the team had new ownership (e.g., someone buying the Rams), or (iii) a new stadium deal magically got done.

I can't help but think that two completely outside factors - in the forms of Shalid Khan and Pat Bowlen - aren't going to ultimately factor into this somehow. Some weird part of me thinks a 1973 Rams/Colts, Expos/Marlins/Red Sox team ownership swap might be the end result. Like the whole thing's going to end up with the Rams and Chargers in Los Angeles and the Raiders in St. Louis. Or with the Rams in Los Angeles with the Jaguars somehow. Or with the Broncos sold to Kroenke. Or with the Jaguars in London with Kroenke as the owner and Shalid Khan owning the Rams. The potential variants are pretty fun to play with.

[STL FANATIC]

I'm listening to this now as background whilst doing other things, and a number of thoughts run through my mind. Among them are that there are some creative St. Louisians to have sang a carol against the deal. Another is wondering how a city like St. Louis has so many Alderman, while my own (Raleigh, NC) has I believe, in total, either seven or nine City Council reps. Third, I've never ever attended or seen a city council meeting that began with a legislative equivalent of "shout outs" - kinda fun. But lastly and more important, it really seems as if there are going to be a number of Alderman who are going to be out on their asses after the next election.

St. Louis knows it has too many Alderman. It's a remnant of when the city was much larger. A few years back, voters approved a move to cut the board from the current 28 in half to 14 in 2020.