NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

What are the Rams going to do for the 1%? Are they going to be able to partition off some sections and make some sort of ersatz club seating somewhere? I think there are luxury suites in the cool-looking end of the Coliseum but for the most part it's just a great big seating bowl.

They are essentially at the mercy of USC.  There are 10 suites on the field level and some suites inside the Peristyle.  Behind the field suites is a club which USC has, but its capacity is currently at 100.  USC also has two clubs outside two entry gates for their athletic boosters. 

[TheOldRoman]

15 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

The NFL WANTS London to be the new LA. It's no coincidence that this story comes out days after LA lands a team.

Goth's right though. It's just not going to happen. The NFL, despite its infinite arrogance, cannot bend time and space to its will.

I think the bigger hurdle will be that nobody in London outside of American expatriates will GAF about this team. But I feel they'll try their best to shoehorn this in. We saw the 9:30 EST game added this year. Even if that only drew half the fans as the 1:00 game, that's still a whole bunch of more people watching NFL branding and advertising when they would otherwise be eating breakfast, sleeping late or watching a masturbatory 4 hour pregame show on ESPN or NFLN. Maybe they would have 2-3 early starts per year, make them "special" with premier east coast teams and ESPN hyping the living hell out of them, and make it an event people make sure to wake up for. The rest of their home games could be 1 ET starts.

There are so many hurdles in terms of a London team not being able to play on Thursdays or any SNF game, but I think they'll just exempt them from that if they want it badly enough. As for the travel taking a toll on the players, the league never cared about player safety before. I don't think they'll start now when there's potentially billions to be made in London.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

6AM football is a fun novelty, but nothing I would want every week.

Unless we get some 7PM west coast starts to even it out.

[Sykotyk]

16 minutes ago, TheOldRoman said:

I think the bigger hurdle will be that nobody in London outside of American expatriates will GAF about this team. But I feel they'll try their best to shoehorn this in. We saw the 9:30 EST game added this year. Even if that only drew half the fans as the 1:00 game, that's still a whole bunch of more people watching NFL branding and advertising when they would otherwise be eating breakfast, sleeping late or watching a masturbatory 4 hour pregame show on ESPN or NFLN. Maybe they would have 2-3 early starts per year, make them "special" with premier east coast teams and ESPN hyping the living hell out of them, and make it an event people make sure to wake up for. The rest of their home games could be 1 ET starts.

There are so many hurdles in terms of a London team not being able to play on Thursdays or any SNF game, but I think they'll just exempt them from that if they want it badly enough. As for the travel taking a toll on the players, the league never cared about player safety before. I don't think they'll start now when there's potentially billions to be made in London.

I think a London team would always have the 930am ET start time. They can't do TNF, SNF, or MNF. And even 4pm ET would be a rather late start and just make it 'one of many' games in the U.S. given the current scheduling. The only exception would be west coast teams traveling to London. But, that would be for west coast viewers. Not the benefit of Londoners. The NFL would prefer 930am starts because it gives another window for advertising. Even if that one game gets 1/3 of the regular 'block' rating on CBS or Fox for the 1pm start time, it still is a window of sales for advertising that they currently do not have. Which gives them inventory. Maybe put it on NFL Network or create a new package for CBS/NBC/ABC/ESPN/Fox/etc to put in bids.

[Sport]

London team would be terrible from a competitive standpoint.

- Personnel: Every high profile draft pick will Steve Francis Vancouver Grizzly the London team, hold out, refuse to report etc etc. No free agent will sign there. No high profile head coach will go there. No good GM would touch that job. The assistants will be bottom of the barrel as well. So from a personnel standpoint they’re starting with scraps.

- Location: Every single road game is at best an 8 hour flight and when they have to play Seattle or LA it's a nearly 12 hour flight. That's one way. So they’re getting off a plane, and then two days later have to play an NFL game. They’d be the easiest home game on your schedule. So you figure maybe to combat this the league would schedule the London Sillynanies with multiple road games in a row so the team just stays on this side of the Atlantic for 3-4 weeks at a time. Then that means the players and coaches have to be on the road for weeks at a time and they essentially become a traveling team for a quarter of the season with no home. They’re going to be constantly practicing and training in temporary facilities, living out of hotels, eating road kill etc etc.

Combine those two most obvious things and I just don’t see how that team could compete with the rest of the NFL on the field. Bad team and I don't see Londoners supporting them. It’s an awful idea and it’s why I don’t feel like London is a legitimate threat. It’s nowhere near the scare tactic LA was for so many years.

[STL FANATIC]

St. Louis Rams PSL holders are suing claiming they're PSLs should transfer to LA. Hard to know how valid that is without seeing the legal language on them.

This is a separate lawsuit from the class action suit filed by some fans earlier alleging the Rams misled fans and misrepresented themselves.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/illinois/personal-seat-license-holders-sue-rams/article_0d6e239f-639a-5d95-b20e-14e514e074e9.html

[Gothamite]

The fine print in the original PSL contract would seem to render those suits frivolous.  

There's a poster on the Post-Dispatch message boards who posted this from his original PSL contract:

Quote

Section 11.) Additional Terms = "All rights granted to Licensee pursuant to this Agreement are subject to the terms and conditions of the Stadium Agreements and those other agreements signed in connection with the Team's agreement to relocate to St. Louis. Licensee understands and acknowledges the possibility that the Team may not play its games in the Stadium or St. Louis for the entire term contemplated by this License. Licensee expressly agrees not to sue the Team for damages or injunctive relief related to this CPSL, including without limitation should the Team not play its home games in the Stadium or in St. Louis for any reason."

I understand the desire to extract their pound of flesh, but at some point they're going to have to just let go.

[STL FANATIC]

Holy cow. What're you doing spending time delving into that cesspool, Goth? lol

[STL FANATIC]

Reading that, though, I'm not entirely sure if that negates the lawsuit. They're suing for the validity of their PSL's, not for relief because the team moved. And I don't see anything in there that says the PSLs become invalid after a move.

Also, I do think the RSA should file a lawsuit against the NFL on whatever weak grounds they can muster. $16.2 million is pocket change for the NFL. They should make a play to recoup those expenses from the NFL. I'm very skeptical that they have the legal standing on which to get a ruling in their favor, but I'm less skeptical that the NFL might quietly settle just to move on.

[Gothamite]

Hey, I like to keep my ear to the ground.   And in this case, there's actual substantive information to be found there.  But your characterization isn't that far off....

9 minutes ago, STL FANATIC said:

Also, I do think the RSA should file a lawsuit against the NFL on whatever weak grounds they can muster. $16.2 million is pocket change for the NFL. They should make a play to recoup those expenses from the NFL. I'm very skeptical that they have the legal standing on which to get a ruling in their favor, but I'm less skeptical that the NFL might quietly settle just to move on.

Talk about throwing bad money after good - if you want to prop up the St. Louis economy, there are better ways than subsidizing lawyers.  

[STL FANATIC]

That would be a risk to be sure. Perhaps better to cut the losses now. I could go either way in that regard.

[dfwabel]

2 hours ago, McCarthy said:

London team would be terrible from a competitive standpoint.

 

- Personnel: Every high profile draft pick will Steve Francis Vancouver Grizzly the London team, hold out, refuse to report etc etc. No free agent will sign there. No high profile head coach will go there. No good GM would touch that job. The assistants will be bottom of the barrel as well. So from a personnel standpoint they’re starting with scraps.

 

- Location: Every single road game is at best an 8 hour flight and when they have to play Seattle or LA it's a nearly 12 hour flight. That's one way. So they’re getting off a plane, and then two days later have to play an NFL game. They’d be the easiest home game on your schedule. So you figure maybe to combat this the league would schedule the London Sillynanies with multiple road games in a row so the team just stays on this side of the Atlantic for 3-4 weeks at a time. Then that means the players and coaches have to be on the road for weeks at a time and they essentially become a traveling team for a quarter of the season with no home. They’re going to be constantly practicing and training in temporary facilities, living out of hotels, eating road kill etc etc.

 

Combine those two most obvious things and I just don’t see how that team could compete with the rest of the NFL on the field. Bad team and I don't see Londoners supporting them. It’s an awful idea and it’s why I don’t feel like London is a legitimate threat. It’s nowhere near the scare tactic LA was for so many years.

 

Bold for emphasis.  That is the biggest issue for the NFLPA and the individual players.

Coaches will be aplenty, especially those age 55+ who are empty-nesters with a wife who thinks that it will be for a few years.  But the team will have to offer the entire coaching staff multi-year guaranteed contracts.

While the current Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury Secretary) really would like a team, issues regarding taxes, work permits and EU regulations still need to be addressed way before team logistics. 

[rams80]

1 hour ago, STL FANATIC said:

Reading that, though, I'm not entirely sure if that negates the lawsuit. They're suing for the validity of their PSL's, not for relief because the team moved. And I don't see anything in there that says the PSLs become invalid after a move.

Also, I do think the RSA should file a lawsuit against the NFL on whatever weak grounds they can muster. $16.2 million is pocket change for the NFL. They should make a play to recoup those expenses from the NFL. I'm very skeptical that they have the legal standing on which to get a ruling in their favor, but I'm less skeptical that the NFL might quietly settle just to move on.

If you want an MLS team, I suspect this would not be an effective strategy.

[Gothamite]

That's a good point.

If St. Louis wants a MLS team, then they should be working on a SSS rather than playing the dumped boyfriend.  There's a lot of work to do, and that $16M could be wrapped into the costs of the soccer stadium.

[STL FANATIC]

They could 100% do both things, so I don't see that as a real issue. I think it's just a matter of when on the soccer stadium and MLS team. It's going to happen.

[The_Admiral]

Do you think they should build the soccer stadium on the riverfront, or put that in the suburbs and develop something more a little more 365-day than a stadium? That whole hellscape north of the Landing seems like a waste of perfectly good land. Looks like West East St. Louis.

[rams80]

14 minutes ago, STL FANATIC said:

They could 100% do both things, so I don't see that as a real issue. I think it's just a matter of when on the soccer stadium and MLS team. It's going to happen.

I think its more like, the MLS has enough suitors that it can ignore the one that seems a bit high maintenance when things go really bad.  If St. Louis goes after the NFL to recoup what is essentially sunk costs, the other pro leagues may think twice about dealing with that particular municipal government.

[B-Rich]

14 hours ago, colortv said:

http://www.boltsfromtheblue.com/2016/1/18/10784714/san-diego-chargers-stadium-inglewood-economic-potential-money-spanos

Economic breakdown of the Chargers San Diego vs. Inglewood options.

Very good article there.

 

[dfwabel]

Aren't there five NFL owners in (or to be in) MLS?  Allen, Blank, Hunt, Kraft and Kroenke?  While definitely not even close to a majority, they could still be a voting block.

[STL FANATIC]

28 minutes ago, rams80 said:

I think its more like, the MLS has enough suitors that it can ignore the one that seems a bit high maintenance when things go really bad.  If St. Louis goes after the NFL to recoup what is essentially sunk costs, the other pro leagues may think twice about dealing with that particular municipal government.

I think that's a lot of extrapolating. I don't think there's much real concern to that. St. Louis is the MLS's 1st or 2nd priority as far as new expansion markets goes. They're not going to back off on St. Louis because there's a lawsuit against one of their competitors.