urbanSTL

dweebe wrote:It's still a pretty good sized pile of ammunition for those people (both internal and external) who want to knock St. Louis down a few pegs.

Most people aren't out to knock St. Louis down a few pegs, though. Yes, it happens locally. Yes, certain people in Kansas City like to do it.

But I promise most of the country isn't out to bring St. Louis down.

I think there's value in perception an NFL team brings. I just don't think it's huge or tangible, and I don't think it helps or prevents us from doing the actual things that will create tangible change.

Jason - The most likely destination for hotel tax funds after 2021 when the Dome is paid off is the convention center complex, including the Dome itself. We still own that facility, and there are millions of dollars of deferred maintenance, and tens of millions of upgrades that could reasonably happen there. Correct that the tax doesn't sunset. In order for the facility to stay competitive as a host for conventions and other events, it needs ongoing maintenance and investment, so there's no shortage of things to do there to make a better facility.

Scott Ogilvie

i believe that Jason is not his name....

When it comes to perception, I think the argument is how many life events like Monday Night Football will give a positive spin to a city/region to millions of National TV viewers. I wish I could quantify or even provide a clear definition of the benefit of a positive perception to capital markets that finance most of the investment in this country.

Scott, thanks for your comments on convention center. I don't believe their has been much news on ballroom expansion or if their was any movement on the parking garage RFP unless you have something you can share. The ballroom expansion/parking garage RFP seem like a no brainer that should be happening with or without the NFL stadium/EJ Dome improvements. I believe the whole purpose of the parking garage RFP was to create room by knocking down the current parking garage in order to expand the existing ballroom space.

dbInSouthCity wrote:i believe that Jason is not his name....

It's a common mistake. But yeah, it's Justin.

No offense taken, though. I'm just happy I'm memorable enough via other outlets that Scott knew who I was enough to make the initial connection and slip.

ward24 wrote:Jason - The most likely destination for hotel tax funds after 2021 when the Dome is paid off is the convention center complex, including the Dome itself. We still own that facility, and there are millions of dollars of deferred maintenance, and tens of millions of upgrades that could reasonably happen there. Correct that the tax doesn't sunset. In order for the facility to stay competitive as a host for conventions and other events, it needs ongoing maintenance and investment, so there's no shortage of things to do there to make a better facility.

Scott Ogilvie

And thanks very much for the quick answer, Scott. That certainly makes sense. We might as well make that venue as attractive as possible for conventions whether there is a football team playing across the highway or not.

I'm sure just an honest mistake by Steve.

jstriebel wrote:But again, you're not talking about something tangible. And I'm not saying there isn't value in intangible things. I believe there is, and that's why if we the people choose to build this thing, I won't be mad.

But if we the people don't, then there's no problems. Narrative isn't reality. It only takes the next "big story" to shake that up.

We can control the narrative by working on the developments that address the issues of resident population and business population.

We needn't worry about the short-term narrative impacts of having a football team.

If we want one, let's try to keep it. I'm fine with that. But if we—as a city—decide we don't. Then everything is still going to be ok. (Or maybe it isn't. But it won't be because we don't have a football team.)

Perfectly said. More people need to understand and realize that narrative isn't reality. It's more about what will (does) St. Louis do after the Rams leave.

stlien wrote:

jstriebel wrote:But again, you're not talking about something tangible. And I'm not saying there isn't value in intangible things. I believe there is, and that's why if we the people choose to build this thing, I won't be mad.

But if we the people don't, then there's no problems. Narrative isn't reality. It only takes the next "big story" to shake that up.

We can control the narrative by working on the developments that address the issues of resident population and business population.

We needn't worry about the short-term narrative impacts of having a football team.

If we want one, let's try to keep it. I'm fine with that. But if we—as a city—decide we don't. Then everything is still going to be ok. (Or maybe it isn't. But it won't be because we don't have a football team.)

Perfectly said. More people need to understand and realize that narrative isn't reality. It's more about what will (does) St. Louis do after the Rams leave.

Probably the same "2 steps forward, 2 steps back" dance they've been doing for decades. Yeah, I'm excited about stuff like Cortex, too, but in pretty much every city like St. Louis, more or less the same progress (and fallback) is being made. There's absolutely no reason to believe it will be any different in the near future.

This difference is, pretty much every city like St. Louis at least has an NFL team.

Bernie just posted a piece saying he heard the NFL owners may meet this summer just to discuss the St. Louis stadium. He is saying Dave may need to speed up getting the financing nailed down. A public vote in November would be too late however it turned out.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ ... 9ceff.html

Interesting that the people who will pay all of the public funding for the stadium -- players for state funds, visitors using hotels for city funds -- won't be allowed to vote. Just the people getting a free stadium, and they'll vote it down because the outsider money is "laundered" through public buckets since taxes are the only way to get users and outsiders to pay this portion. Taxation without representation.

With regard to perception, my sister and her husband were in St. Louis over the weekend from Oklahoma. My brother-in-law knew the Rams were likely to leave, but he also asked me if the city has any chance of keeping the Cardinals from leaving. I told him there is no way the Cardinals were leaving -- they were the most profitable team in baseball last year. But he insisted he had heard reports in Oklahoma that the Cardinals were leaving too. We know how ridiculous that is, but apparently the perception in Oklahoma City is that St. Louis is losing all of our major league sports.

One more thing -- Scott talked about using hotel tax money to fix up the convention center. If we can't afford to build a stadium for private interests, why does the city own a convention center which is used by private interests even more than a stadium would be. At least a stadium is used for state high school playoffs. The city has no business owning a convention center, or an airport that matter, which only serve private interests. Many airports in Europe were sold to private companies, just like the one in Branson. They should sell both and use the proceeds to reduce crime and improve schools. And I think the Show-Me Institute would agree with me on this. The NFL will not be matching the money we spend on the conventions center, unfortunately.

I know our esteemed Alderman Ogilvie and his eight cohorts are convinced the lawsuit is a bad move on Peacock's part, but I remain convinced that he knows what he's doing, and what he has to do, to get the financing in place in time for the NFL to approve the new stadium for St. Louis's team. He's just in too much contact with too many of the right people. If he thought they need to go the public vote route, then that's what he would have done. That's not what they're doing.

I think this lawsuit is mischaracterized when people refer to it as a "Hail Mary."

gary kreie wrote:Bernie just posted a piece saying he heard the NFL owners may meet this summer just to discuss the St. Louis stadium. He is saying Dave may need to speed up getting the financing nailed down. A public vote in November would be too late however it turned out.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ ... 9ceff.html

There's no way the NFL expects everything to be in order by this summer. That's not reality in any of the three markets.

Interesting that the people who will pay all of the public funding for the stadium -- players for state funds, visitors using hotels for city funds -- won't be allowed to vote. Just the people getting a free stadium, and they'll vote it down because the outsider money is "laundered" through public buckets since taxes are the only way to get users and outsiders to pay this portion. Taxation without representation.

The vote isn't about the tax. We passed the tax over two decades ago. It's about whether we went to spend our money—presumably that tax money, but it wouldn't have to be—on a stadium. It's not like we'll stop getting that money if the Rams leave. We'll just be choosing to spend it on other items within the city. There's nothing morally objectionable there, and it's bizarre to try to spin it that way, in my opinion.

With regard to perception, my sister and her husband were in St. Louis over the weekend from Oklahoma. My brother-in-law knew the Rams were likely to leave, but he also asked me if the city has any chance of keeping the Cardinals from leaving. I told him there is no way the Cardinals were leaving -- they were the most profitable team in baseball last year. But he insisted he had heard reports in Oklahoma that the Cardinals were leaving too. We know how ridiculous that is, but apparently the perception in Oklahoma City is that St. Louis is losing all of our major league sports.

This is just weird. Sometimes people are just very far disconnecting from the reality of another place I suppose. But I don't think that's majority view point by any stretch of the imagination. Nor do I think the perception matters much anyways.

One more thing -- Scott talked about using hotel tax money to fix up the convention center. If we can't afford to build a stadium for private interests, why does the city own a convention center which is used by private interests even more than a stadium would be. At least a stadium is used for state high school playoffs. The city has no business owning a convention center, or an airport that matter, which only serve private interests. Many airports in Europe were sold to private companies, just like the one in Branson. They should sell both and use the proceeds to reduce crime and improve schools. And I think the Show-Me Institute would agree with me on this. The NFL will not be matching the money we spend on the conventions center, unfortunately.

When you say that the convention center is used by private interests even more than a stadium, you actually answer your question. We get WAY more use out of the convention center, that's why we do it. And it's not serving just one organization, it serves dozens and dozens and dozens. The returns on the convention center for the city likely add up a lot more than the returns on the football stadium.

If I were guessing whether conventions or the Rams had a bigger impact on filling city hotel rooms, I'd guess the former by a great deal.

I feel like the NFL moving up deadlines, is a bad thing for St. Louis. Cities like SD and Oakland, have been trying for new stadiums for years and years. We have a 20 year old stadium, have constructed a solid plan in less than 2 years and now the NFL is pressuring the Task Force to put it all together in an even shorter time frame. I look at this as a way to make STL either go or get off the pot. For obvious reasons, I think a lot of people in the NFL, want to see STL fail (unless they have a grand plan to expand we don't know about).

You just kind of get the feeling that the NFL will keep moving the goal line until they finally declare that the LA stadium is ahead of the St. Louis one, and at $1.8 Billion vs. $1 Billion, will be better for the franchise and the NFL. Never mind that Stan has been working this plan for years but won't say he plans to move the team so he can get way ahead of any local response. Then they'll pick one of these reasons for St. Louis failing: 1) City finance portion not firm, 2) Attendance down, 3) Lease lapse allows the owner to move, or 4) Too little, too late. But I do believe our best shot is to do exactly what Dave Peacock is doing -- steely determination to do exactly what Grubman says we need to do to keep the Rams. Then we'll do like Cleveland someday an make the NFL finally give us an expansion team with committed local ownership.

At the Chris Long Foundation kickoff dinner last night, Chris hosted and then partook in a Q & A session (along with his father Howie, James Laurinaitis, Joe Buck, and Gregg Williams). It was short and I was afraid nobody would be willing to ask the question about relocation, but the last question was indeed that.

Joe Buck asked to start the response off, and he really got after it. We heard him speak similarly a few months back in an interview, but this was a little different due to the setting. But he stuck up for the St. Louis market hard. Did his best to make sure he wasn't offending the many players in the room, but really went in on how the product has sucked. He cut Stan no slack. I don't remember anything word for word, but he passionately stated how it would be a complete injustice for the NFL to let this city lose a team.

I hope we'll hear him speak this sentiment on his telecasts this fall.

The other guys didn't speak a ton directly on it, but what Chris said made it pretty clear he loves this community. Loves it. And he talked about how they feel terrible that they haven't "met the fans half way" (which was Buck's description of what was needed), but that they're working their tails off to finally do so. He said they can only control what happens on the first floor of Rams park. He said even the people on the second floor don't have control. He joked that Stan is on the third or fourth floor (Rams park just has two floors).

Basically, there's nothing those guys can do, but the players that have been around love this community and know what the fan base can be and why it's been the way it has.

Here's hoping they dominate this year. I know it's unlikely, and I've said this before, but I don't think a championship team has ever moved the following year in modern major sports history. (Wouldn't shock me if it happened in the early decades of the 1900s.)

It would perhaps be too late to change anything by then—maybe—but at least it'd be a big black eye for the league.

i remember Joe Buck appearing (via video) at the initial C+A+R presentation with some strong St. Louis boosterism too. i think his sister emcee'd. To my point though...

I'd still like more discussion on how making the team (a team, whatever) relocate its headquarters to the City could further decrease the financial burden associated with publicly financing a large portion of the new stadium, by way of the earnings tax.

Doing some light research, I've seen a couple mentions of NFL "duty days" -- i.e. days for which players are considered to be working -- set at 210 (and as low as 120). Based on that 210 number a player whose salary is, say, $2 million per year (average NFL salary) makes about $9,523/duty day. Right now, with Rams LLC located in Earth City, that player would only pay into the 1% earnings tax pool for ten of those 210 duty days (eight games, two preseason games). So, 0.01 ($9,523 x 10) = $952.30 in St. Louis city earnings tax.

If the team is headquartered in the City though, instead of paying the earnings tax for only ten days a year, the players and staff suddenly pay in for two hundred duty days. Using the $2 million salary from before, 0.01 ($9523 x 200) = $19,046 in St. Louis city earnings tax.

Run that out through the full payroll -- 2013-14 combined players' salary for Rams was $109,300,000 -- and the value of keeping the team (and requiring it locate operations/HQ in the city) suddenly becomes incredibly apparent...$52,047 for ten duty days or $1,040,952 for two hundred.

If, as has been suggested, the City ends up being the primary funder for the public portion of the new stadium, I don't think it's unreasonable to demand the team's operations/HQ be located within the City itself. A much easier pill to swallow for folks when the NFL players playing, the staff staffing and the owners owning are subject to the same taxation as those who also work (or live) in the City.

[Note: I'm really not sure how NFL players/staff are actually taxed in relation to standard "salary" formula and duty days. If you take the standard 260-day formula, then the daily player payroll for the 2013-14 Rams was $420,384 (using $109,000,000/260), meaning the earnings tax received for 200 duty days would be around $840,768 (or, $420,384 x 200 x 0.01). Professional sports, man...]

In case you didn't hear about the "bogus" report that the Rams will announce a move in August. It came from an LA TV station. Sam Farmer was quick to shoot it down. He did a spot on a local LA radio show. Nothing much new, but he did say he thinks Carson is not a bluff and it has legs.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... in-august/



This interview is very interesting. Sam Farmer is the go-to guy for LA NFL relocation news:

http://www.mighty1090.com/episode/sam-f ... ys-hiring/

So this just came out...

http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-a ... touch=true

imthewiz wrote:So this just came out...

http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-a ... touch=true

I would so much rather see this done than a stadium surrounded by parking. why can't we put the football stadium out in the suburbs. I don't car about the taxes that much but I hate seeing all those gorgeous building torn down.