NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay

[STL FANATIC]

57 minutes ago, the admiral said:

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.

There's a lot of other possible locations in the city besides the North Riverfront. Not putting the stadium on the North Riverfront doesn't mean putting it in the suburbs. In fact, the MLS almost certainly wants the stadium in the city. They've made a point to support urban stadiums.

I think the North Riverfront would be a fine location for a soccer stadium. It takes up significantly less acreage than a football stadium, and you don't need all the surface parking. So you could build a beautiful stadium and still be able to develop that area as a nice 365-days a year urban environment (not that it will happen over night). Whether the stadium is built there or not, there IS a 365 days a year plan in place (and was before the NFL stadium project existed). Those can be seen here: http://nextstl.com/2015/07/north-riverfront-vision-offers-ideas-with-or-without-nfl-stadium/. It will need support and funding to move forward, but I think parts of it will begin happening. Hopefully that will encourage organic private investment in that area over time as well.

On the other hand, there are a handful of other potential sites for the soccer stadium that people have been speculating on. One is near Union Station. Recently a local architecture firm released an idea intended to spur conversation (http://spacestl.com/an-mls-stadium-as-better-urban-infill-and-the-greatest-sports-street-in-america/). The truth is, this idea was concepted a couple of years back (I believe), and the exact placement of the stadium is almost certainly no longer an option as Union Station is moving forward with other redevelopment plans (http://nextstl.com/2016/01/100m-remake-of-union-station-moves-ahead-ferris-wheel-included/). However, the area just west of Union Station IS a reasonable option, and so the principles mentioned in this concept all would still apply.

Beyond that, there are areas near SLU and in neighborhoods that could fit a stadium with minimal building demolition. I'm not sure site is the favorite. It could be something I haven't heard of yet. But I'm certain they'll pick a city site and move forward with it. And unlike the NFL stadium plans, I'm sure this site will be designed as part of an urban environment rather than a wasteland of parking surrounding a stadium all bizarrely in the middle of an urban environment.

[Sport]

What is going to happen with the dome? 

 

[STL FANATIC]

1 minute ago, McCarthy said:

What is going to happen with the dome? 

 

It needs refurbished to some degree regardless of football, but it will be a part of the America's Center convention center, just as it currently is. But now it and the rest of the facility will be free to host conventions year round and not just February-August or whatever it is. St. Louis may well end up doing better financially in this arrangement than it did having a football team playing there.

Originally, I thought the big gain was just freeing up the rest of the convention center during that time period, but I've been told there's actually a decent amount of interest in the Dome part of the facility itself for conventions.

So that will be its primary use from now on.

[Gothamite]

1 hour ago, STL FANATIC said:

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.

Sure, if you build a SSS.  But only if. 

Now it's time to see what St. Louis is capable of.  Because you're facing stiff competition in Sacramento, Las Vegas, San Antonio among others.  And at least one of those already has their SSS in the works.

[leopard88]

53 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

What is going to happen with the dome? 

 

http://bearsports.wustl.edu/sports/fball/index

 

[HedleyLamarr]

5 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.

 

If there was ever one of the Big 4 that could be based in London, it would be an NFL team.  I've laid out the conditions it would take to field a team in London before.  But I'll try to re-hash them from memory as much as possible:

Red: I think this is an exaggeration.  For one, drafted rookies really don't have much leverage now.  As for coaches and free agents, there's only 32 head coaching positions. only 32 places to be an assistant coach, and there's only so many roster spots available in the NFL.  People will still chase the employment opportunities and the money, even if that means playing for London.  But more on this later.

Blue: You sort of touched on the logistics, but there are ways to make things more workable than you put out there.  I mentioned it before, but a team that calls London home would require a state-side home, a city that's on the eastern half of the US that doesn't have a team already...a city like Louisville, Memphis, St. Louis, Columbus, Birmingham, Orlando, etc.  This state-side home would be the London team's home for training camp, preseason games, practicing during the week, etc.  Conversely, the NFL would have to fund a second practice facility (with housing for players/coaches) in London for the visiting team.

The London team would almost certainly have to have block scheduling...two home, two road, two home, three road, etc.  As far as travel goes, both the London team (when playing state-side) and the visiting team heading to London could both fly out on Monday the week of the game (players don't have practice on Mondays anyway, mainly coaches doing game planning and game reviewing...tasks that are already digitized from the practice facility by team personnel).  The London team would fly to their state-side home, the visiting teams would report to the visitor's training facility in London.  As far as enticing players/coaches to play for London, selling them on "You and your family could live in this US city year-round while we'll supply you an apartment for four months in London (or similar housing owned by the team owner or the NFL).".  You would be in your state-side home for at least 8 weeks during the regular season, and you would be in your London home no longer than three consecutive weeks during the season.  There are ways to maintain a fairly normal NFL work week for the London team and the teams that'd play in London.

Obviously, the London team probably wouldn't be able to host Thursday or Monday night games, though their state-side home could be used to host one of these games.

I think the bigger obstacle would come from the media side of things more so than getting coaches, players, and visiting teams to London.

[rams80]

2 hours ago, STL FANATIC said:

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.

St. Louis may be a target market, but historically St. Louis has struggled to scrape together a viable ownership group for said MLS team (in addition to the Blues' repeated woes when it comes to local owners AND the failure of the St. Louis Stallions.)  With that history, St. Louis is not exactly a sure thing, and the MLS might not want to be held accountable if an expansion/stadium bid fails because of ownership issues.

[STL FANATIC]

1 hour ago, Gothamite said:

Sure, if you build a SSS.  But only if. 

Now it's time to see what St. Louis is capable of.  Because you're facing stiff competition in Sacramento, Las Vegas, San Antonio among others.  And at least one of those already has their SSS in the works.

Whether or not St. Louis lands an MLS team will tell us nothing about St. Louis. Just as having or not having an NFL team tells us nothing. Don't judge capabilities off of sports franchises and stadiums.

With that said, St. Louis will get the MLS and it'll be in short order.

[rams80]

4 minutes ago, STL FANATIC said:

Whether or not St. Louis lands an MLS team will tell us nothing about St. Louis. Just as having or not having an NFL team tells us nothing. Don't judge capabilities off of sports franchises and stadiums.

With that said, St. Louis will get the MLS and it'll be in short order.

Who will be the owner?

[Gothamite]

I not judging St. Louis other than we'll see if you can build a stadium.  Nothing more than that.

Because if you can't, you won't get an MLS franchise.  And that too won't say anything about your city other than you're one of the cities with an MLS franchise or not. 

I understand that there are people out in the Interwebs now judging the relative fitness of your city.  But nobody here is. 

[STL FANATIC]

5 minutes ago, rams80 said:

Who will be the owner?

I'm not privy to inside information. It would be my speculation that the ownership group will consist of local investors. The group will probably include some of these names: the Taylor family, Jim Kavanaugh, Bill DeWitt III, Tom Stillman, and Dave Peacock.

[Gothamite]

There certainly are people willing to pony up the $120M expansion fee. I don't think that'll be the most serious hurdle. 

[Cosmic]

12 hours ago, STL FANATIC said:

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

It sounded kinda crazy at first, but they may be on to something. Another article I saw noted that the PSLs were already valid for both Busch and EJD, so LA might not be much different. Is there anywhere to read the full contract?

 

If there's any validity to the lawsuit, then I think everyone's buried the lead here. If the current PSLs are valid (even in LA) until 2025, then they certainly wouldn't have been able to sell new PSLs in St. Louis until 2025, either. That could have been a big nail in the coffin for the St. Louis Rams.

[STL FANATIC]

Really, really interesting point, Cosmic. Not sure how that would have played out.

[Rockstar Matt]

42 minutes ago, Cosmic said:

It sounded kinda crazy at first, but they may be on to something. Another article I saw noted that the PSLs were already valid for both Busch and EJD, so LA might not be much different. Is there anywhere to read the full contract?

 

If there's any validity to the lawsuit, then I think everyone's buried the lead here. If the current PSLs are valid (even in LA) until 2025, then they certainly wouldn't have been able to sell new PSLs in St. Louis until 2025, either. That could have been a big nail in the coffin for the St. Louis Rams.

 

PSL's don't work like that. They're only good for a specific stadium(s), in this case, the Edwards Jones Dome. Not for future unbuilt stadiums. The key point is in the contract which stated that the Rams reserved to the right to terminate the contract at any time. They can't be upset because they didn't read the fine print before agreeing to pay for PSL's. 

 

The STL task force had already said people would need to purchase new PSL's for the riverfront stadium they were proposing to build too, so would these people have sued the team then? Probably not

[STL FANATIC]

I think we really need to see the contract before any of us can even pretend to play lawyer here. One line quoted in the article seems to make it pretty clear that the Rams—as you allude to Matt—do have the right to cancel the contract. But it pretty clearly implies if not outright states that they must do in combination with the issuance of some form of refund.

 

To this point, it appears the Rams have not suggested to any St. Louis PSL holders that such a thing is taking place.

 

I don't expect this to be any massive hit to the Rams, but this actually does seem like an issue they may have to address.

[Cosmic]

5 hours ago, Rockstar Matt said:

 

PSL's don't work like that. They're only good for a specific stadium(s), in this case, the Edwards Jones Dome. Not for future unbuilt stadiums. The key point is in the contract which stated that the Rams reserved to the right to terminate the contract at any time. They can't be upset because they didn't read the fine print before agreeing to pay for PSL's. 

 

The STL task force had already said people would need to purchase new PSL's for the riverfront stadium they were proposing to build too, so would these people have sued the team then? Probably not

Like I said, my first inclination was to completely dismiss the idea of the lawsuit out of hand.  I'm sure the PSL contract language is nailed down now that it's been done dozens of times.  However, I think it's possible that the Rams could have screwed up the PSL contract.  As far as I see on Wikipedia, the Rams' PSLs were the first to see "game action"; the Carolina Panthers' PSLs probably went on sale first (their team wasn't a surprise), but their stadium opened a year after the Rams moved.  Either way, the Rams' PSLs were sold in the infancy of the phenomenon.  There could be something to the lawsuit.  Maybe.  But nobody really knows without reading the whole contract.

[Gothamite]

That's because both Busch and EJD were both written into the contract. 

 

And you're right - Peacock and Blitz certainly knew that the PSLs wouldn't transfer to the riverfront stadium. Can't wait for them to be called to the stand. 

 

If St. Louisans want to earn the "sore loser whiner" tag Bernie tagged Angelinos with back in 1995, nonsense like this is an excellent way to get there. 

[STL FANATIC]

I'll just reiterate that we're all silly to play lawyer, especially before any of us have seen the contract.

 

The Rams certainly wronged these fans in an intangible manner, and IF there is a real legal case, it's not "sore loser whiner" to pursue it. It's protecting your rights.

 

But since none of us know what is in the contract, we have no idea if this case has any merit.

[Gothamite]

True, any jamoke can file a lawsuit.  We'll see what a court makes of it. 

 

But this certainly seems motivated less by legitimate concerns than by the same toxic mix of petulance and entitlement that has characterized the St. Louis response to this whole mess.  Now with a goodly pinch of wounded pride.