City vs Rams Lawsuit

dmelsh · PostJun 08, 2015#20012015-06-08T15:19+00:00

It's funny how people are only focusing on the NFL side of things. I think being able to keep a NFL team here is a big win for the city. Just think of the storyline, STL fights back and keeps NFL team. It will be carried in every major newspaper in the country. Major PR points for people outside the city looking in and a boost in city pride. FYI, I believe Stan is gone but the NFL gives us another team somehow.

But the other story to this has nothing to do with football. If we build this stadium, we will prob get a MLS team, get a USMNT soccer game ever few years and World Cup games in the future. As it stands right now, the USMNT will never play in STL. The Dome is turf and Busch Stadium cannot hold a full field so Klinsmann won't let them play here. We can only hold friendlies but no major tournament games. As we have seen from the Women's game and all the past soccer events, STL loves soccer. If we build a proper sized stadium we will get major events every year. This adds additional tax money to the city and more jobs instead of just 8 home games. Plus other major event could come too. This is only possible with a new stadium.

blzhrpmd2 · PostJun 08, 2015#20022015-06-08T16:25+00:00

^Agree. That PR momentum is partly what I was hinting at in my previous post. Those previous comments were not necessarily directed at anyone here, mostly just in response to a general attitude more of which I come across on other sites.

It seems hard to argue that the headlines, "St. Louis fights and saves_________" wouldn't be a welcomed addition in these current times. Right now it's the NFL. With more regional unity, drive, and passion, the list to the fill in that blank can be expanded.

gary kreie · PostJun 08, 2015#20032015-06-08T19:45+00:00

Nobody is counting the increase in property values that comes with being a major league town. Hard to quantify but the one study that tried concluded there is some, probably enough to justify public investment. Stenger needs to consider that.

stlien · PostJun 09, 2015#20042015-06-09T07:18+00:00

gary kreie wrote:Nobody is counting the increase in property values that comes with being a major league town. Hard to quantify but the one study that tried concluded there is some, probably enough to justify public investment. Stenger needs to consider that.

From being a major league town? What constitutes a "major league town?" Also, which property values are you talking about? Downtown property values?

gary kreie · PostJun 09, 2015#20052015-06-09T12:23+00:00

stlien wrote:
gary kreie wrote:Nobody is counting the increase in property values that comes with being a major league town. Hard to quantify but the one study that tried concluded there is some, probably enough to justify public investment. Stenger needs to consider that.
From being a major league town? What constitutes a "major league town?" Also, which property values are you talking about? Downtown property values?

http://college.holycross.edu/RePEc/spe/ ... Values.pdf

St.Louis1764 · PostJun 10, 2015#20062015-06-10T02:28+00:00

I think some of you really need a reality check. If you think some good pr is going to change the way people may view saint.louis really need to wake up! That pr perception starts from within and for a long time saint.louis has been its own worse enemy. If we build this new stadium theres no guarantees at all nil. Rams leave Raiders Chargers aren't moving here and who's going to come up with the money for a expansion team? It all sounds good however right now saint.louis should be fighting for survival our transit system still sucks our downtown still isn't even close to its potential still way too many eyesores theres way too many dead zones in the city education is still a mess crime is our worse enemy theres way too many leaders poaching from each other sadly we can't even attract top notch tech companies such as google amazon cisco apple but yet we all seem to think keeping the Rams here will be beneficial to our economy the region is way over fragmented. I'm not against this project all I'm saying is that some of you are living in a fantasy world particularly with all the good PR perception crap. Saint.Louis needs vacuuming badly.
many of you will likely get your wish however at the end of the day Saint.Louis will still have its annual bad pr and perception.

blzhrpmd2 · PostJun 10, 2015#20072015-06-10T13:27+00:00

Exactly, good PR starts within.....and many people in the region will view this as one more reason why the world sees us as irrelevant if the NFL decides we are not worth their time. Of course there are no guarantees that if we build a stadium our image will change drastically, it won't. But there is a guarantee that if we don't, there will be one more opportunity for negative press to run rampant. How can you say PR doesn't change the way society views things? Why will good PR not change the way people see STL? Negative PR certainly made things worse last summer. No one expects it to be a silver bullet, but it won't hurt our image for the NFL to stay here.

It's just as much of a fantasy to think that letting the Rams walk or the NFL letting them will "allow" us fix all our other problems. If we don't build this stadium, there are no guarantees, nil. It will be the same place with yet one more conversation point regarding STL's loss and someone elses gain. Let's both keep an asset from leaving (which will cause negative PR, I don't care what anyone says), and "fight for survival" by focusing on strong regionalism, addressing the many civic challenges we face. I don't understand why they have to be mutually exclusive.

In stadium related news, I heard Frank Cusamano speak last night and he said that it has not been publicized much but the Carson project is being "pitched" again by Policy today to Goodell in NYC.

roger wyoming II · PostJun 10, 2015#20082015-06-10T14:46+00:00

^ Pursuing a project like this largely on the basis of "improving/fighting negative perception" or "intangible benefits" is dangerous.... it should stand or fall on a measurable cost/benefit analysis for the city. (And I think there are arguments that can be made on both sides.)

Also, clearly it is being demonstrated that we're giving it the good college try, and that perception would be sealed if voters approved the funding plan, so unless the Peacock team just can't overcome the hurdles or voters or aldermen rejected a submitted plan I think we'd get more national sympathy and viewed as getting jerked around by billionaire arseholes than anything else.

Anyway, we need to be prepared for the possibility that despite best efforts we may not gave NFL football anymore and will need to deal with it. It may sting a bit but it wouldn't be doom and you just pick yourself up and go about building things up.

sirshankalot · PostJun 10, 2015#20092015-06-10T15:00+00:00

Thanks Roger for your wrap-up/summary....The problem is the city is on very tenuous ground right now and any more negative momentum may start a spiral even your pom-poms won't be able to wave....

MarkHaversham · PostJun 10, 2015#20102015-06-10T15:02+00:00

sirshankalot wrote:Thanks Roger for your wrap-up/summary....The problem is the city is on very tenuous ground right now and any more negative momentum may start a spiral even your pom-poms won't be able to wave....

Eh, what project isn't the tipping-point that either sparks postive momentum or sends the city into a death spiral or both?

jstriebel · PostJun 10, 2015#20112015-06-10T15:28+00:00

Pom-poms and perception just don't matter THAT much. They compound things, sure. So if things are going well, hype helps. If they're not, negativity hurts.

But perception does not change the game so to speak.

And with that in mind, you don't spend half a billion dollars for the sake of gaining a couple PR points. You especially don't do it because you're afraid of losing a couple PR points.

We've discussed over and over some good reasons to spend that money, though. (And we've discussed some good reasons not to.) So I'm not saying don't build the stadium (necessarily). All I'm saying is I don't think it's valid to use PR battle as a significant, legitimate reason to do it.

roger wyoming II · PostJun 10, 2015#20122015-06-10T15:53+00:00

sirshankalot wrote:The problem is the city is on very tenuous ground right now and any more negative momentum may start a spiral even your pom-poms won't be able to wave....

That is plain silly. At the end of the day an NFL team just isn't that big of a deal in terms of the socio-economic fundamentals that determine the direction of a city. It isn't pom-pom waving to say that we have a renewed interest and investment in the city that we haven't seen in some time, a stabilizing population, etc. etc. while also recognizing in a level-headed fashion our challenges.

blzhrpmd2 · PostJun 10, 2015#20132015-06-10T18:59+00:00

I agree that PR should not be the primary force guiding this effort. It will only be a by-product of the outcome, but it has worth. If it truly doesn't matter that much then why do corporations, cities, firms, and individuals pay tons of money on advertising, marketing, PR, etc?

Looking more into today's events, it seems all three teams are pitching their LA case today in New York, not just Carson.

https://twitter.com/dailynewsvinny

Carmen Policy's reasoning for San Diego and Oakland to set up shop in Carson makes too much sense for the NFL to listen.

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/2015061 ... -in-carson

jstriebel · PostJun 10, 2015#20142015-06-10T20:29+00:00

blzhrpmd2 wrote:I agree that PR should not be the primary force guiding this effort. It will only be a by-product of the outcome, but it has worth. If it truly doesn't matter that much then why do corporations, cities, firms, and individuals pay tons of money on advertising, marketing, PR, etc?

I work in advertising. I absolutely believe that strategic marketing and PR can help lead to the types of trends that make a tangible impact.

I don't think this is that, though.

We could do a lot of great marketing for the city with a $500 million budget, though.

I definitely see what you're saying. I don't want to come off dense. I just think the impacts PR-wise will be relatively short-term and relatively negligible.

sirshankalot · PostJun 10, 2015#20152015-06-10T20:49+00:00

Unfortunately, I think we're going to find out. With these two lawsuits they should just resign....screw it.

blzhrpmd2 · PostJun 11, 2015#20162015-06-11T14:39+00:00

What little respect I had left for Demoff and Kroenke is just about gone. How that little man can face STL fans this season is beyond me. I realize we put ourselves in this position with the lease, but if the NFL thinks that they are trying to work anything out here, they are delusional. Rams willing to financially help out the Raiders and Chargers? Are you freaking kidding me?

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/2015061 ... -nfl-to-la

Mound City · PostJun 11, 2015#20172015-06-11T14:48+00:00

blzhrpmd2 wrote:What little respect I had left for Demoff and Kroenke is just about gone. How that little man can face STL fans this season is beyond me. I realize we put ourselves in this position with the lease, but if the NFL thinks that they are trying to work anything out here, they are delusional. Rams willing to financially help out the Raiders and Chargers? Are you freaking kidding me?

http://interact.stltoday.com/forums/vie ... #p15010430

BernieM wrote:I didn't read the piece but I did enjoy reading this thread and your comments. Some insightful opinions. Thank you.

To echo something my friend T Bone said ...

Apparently the Rams exec who is floating this trial balloon to the guy at the LA Daily News is the same guy that told me -- two days before the Super Bowl in New York -- that Kroenke's land purchase in Inglewood was made to shake up St. Louis by propping up Kroenke's land grab as leverage ... you know, create a stir and a scare and get something rolling on a new STL stadium to make The Kronk happy.

Of course by then I already knew Dave Peacock was in the early stages of putting together the STL plan that we know so well today ... so this "leverage" spin from the exec made no sense to me ... because Peacock was in fact at work, behind the scenes, to come up with a solution to satisfy The Kronk. The exec obviously was unaware of what I knew.

Of course it was a lie. As we now know with certainty, Kroenke wasn't going for leverage. His goal was to get the team back to LA after helping Frontiere rip the same franchise out of LA in 1995. (Gotta appreciate the irony). And the land grab was step one.

So why was this floated to me under false pretenses? So I would write a column saying OH MY GOD BUILD A STADIUM NOW!!! And then, when nothing happened The Kronk and his exec could go to work on the NFL and point to the column (among other things) and say -- "See, even the town's senior sports columnist tried to get STL to take action and nothing happened. This just shows we have no realistic hope of getting a new stadium there."

That's why I think this Vinny stuff is so hilarious ... Most likely the same exec, floating another trial balloon. That's my theory anyway.

Anyway, none of this really matters. Just another interesting story from my career I think it's funny more than anything.

I try to keep my distance to avoid getting sucked in. I am far from perfect. I was guilty of failing to make a proper early assessment on the threat of a potential Rams move. (That was based on stuff that Kroenke and Goodell had told me prior to that. But bottom line, I made a bad read early.)

These days I wait until I have something concrete to offer. But I am fascinated by the media circus. And annoyed by it at times. I will pay rapt attention to what a few reporters write, especially the always reliable Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times. But for the most part, most of this junk belongs in the trash pile.

-B

dweebe · PostJun 11, 2015#20182015-06-11T15:59+00:00

Mound City wrote:
blzhrpmd2 wrote:What little respect I had left for Demoff and Kroenke is just about gone. How that little man can face STL fans this season is beyond me. I realize we put ourselves in this position with the lease, but if the NFL thinks that they are trying to work anything out here, they are delusional. Rams willing to financially help out the Raiders and Chargers? Are you freaking kidding me?
http://interact.stltoday.com/forums/vie ... #p15010430

BernieM wrote:I didn't read the piece but I did enjoy reading this thread and your comments. Some insightful opinions. Thank you.

To echo something my friend T Bone said ...

Apparently the Rams exec who is floating this trial balloon to the guy at the LA Daily News is the same guy that told me -- two days before the Super Bowl in New York -- that Kroenke's land purchase in Inglewood was made to shake up St. Louis by propping up Kroenke's land grab as leverage ... you know, create a stir and a scare and get something rolling on a new STL stadium to make The Kronk happy.

Of course by then I already knew Dave Peacock was in the early stages of putting together the STL plan that we know so well today ... so this "leverage" spin from the exec made no sense to me ... because Peacock was in fact at work, behind the scenes, to come up with a solution to satisfy The Kronk. The exec obviously was unaware of what I knew.

Of course it was a lie. As we now know with certainty, Kroenke wasn't going for leverage. His goal was to get the team back to LA after helping Frontiere rip the same franchise out of LA in 1995. (Gotta appreciate the irony). And the land grab was step one.

So why was this floated to me under false pretenses? So I would write a column saying OH MY GOD BUILD A STADIUM NOW!!! And then, when nothing happened The Kronk and his exec could go to work on the NFL and point to the column (among other things) and say -- "See, even the town's senior sports columnist tried to get STL to take action and nothing happened. This just shows we have no realistic hope of getting a new stadium there."

That's why I think this Vinny stuff is so hilarious ... Most likely the same exec, floating another trial balloon. That's my theory anyway.

Anyway, none of this really matters. Just another interesting story from my career I think it's funny more than anything.

I try to keep my distance to avoid getting sucked in. I am far from perfect. I was guilty of failing to make a proper early assessment on the threat of a potential Rams move. (That was based on stuff that Kroenke and Goodell had told me prior to that. But bottom line, I made a bad read early.)

These days I wait until I have something concrete to offer. But I am fascinated by the media circus. And annoyed by it at times. I will pay rapt attention to what a few reporters write, especially the always reliable Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times. But for the most part, most of this junk belongs in the trash pile.

-B

Sounds like Bernie has thrown in the towel.

Mound City · PostJun 11, 2015#20192015-06-11T16:11+00:00

Interesting. My takeaway was rather sounds like Bernie is not interested in speculation, and believes Vincent Bonsignore is being misled by the same person who tried to mislead Bernie previously.

St.Louis1764 · PostJun 12, 2015#20202015-06-12T03:38+00:00

Lob monster is a cancer to Saint.Louis & honestly i'm beginning to believe the NFL has everything to do with this or is in on this. Kahn gets outbid by lob monster but yet Kahn is allowed to purchase the Jaguars. This just all seems like the NFL's doing & Goodell is a lie as he's playing Saint.Louis further along with this inevitable bologna that if we pour millions of our money into a new stadium then we can keep this team i'm just not buying it. We're simply being cheated for no reason. I just don't get the hatred towards Saint.Louis.
I would rather fight to keep the Blues & Cardinals at least the owners are committed to here are good people who respect the citizens of this fine community.
Lob monster on the other is one ugly selfish person he can go we don't need him.

moorlander · PostJun 12, 2015#20212015-06-12T13:51+00:00

When the Raiders and Chargers are awarded the LA market and the Rams are forced to stay in StL it's gonna be real awkward for Stan K. Will he be the most hated owner in sports?

gary kreie · PostJun 12, 2015#20222015-06-12T15:23+00:00

He was invisible before all this started, so I don't think it will be hard for him to return to invisibility. He will just go work on some other sport project somewhere. Or he can say this was his plan all along, to get a new stadium in St Louis. Works for me.

jstriebel · PostJun 12, 2015#20232015-06-12T15:32+00:00

^I just hope if it goes that route that media like Bernie don't let him off the hook like that. Unfortunately I can just see it now. (And not necessarily Bernie, but some of the media):

"Say what you will about Kroenke, but he got the city to step up and build the stadium they needed when it looked like nothing would happen. For the second time in just over two decades, Stanley Enos Kroenke has saved football in St. Louis."

Would anybody be shocked if our media flip-flopped to that?

Mound City · PostJun 12, 2015#20242015-06-12T18:35+00:00

jstriebel wrote:^I just hope if it goes that route that media like Bernie don't let him off the hook like that. Unfortunately I can just see it now. (And not necessarily Bernie, but some of the media):

"Say what you will about Kroenke, but he got the city to step up and build the stadium they needed when it looked like nothing would happen. For the second time in just over two decades, Stanley Enos Kroenke has saved football in St. Louis."

Would anybody be shocked if our media flip-flopped to that?

I'd honestly be shocked if anyone ran with the narrative that he "saved football in St. Louis" this time around, but I could very easily see the media just moving on and not really caring much one way or the other about Stan.

And frankly, I wouldn't care, either.

I'd still have my Rams, and I'd have a beautiful new stadium to go watch them.

jstriebel · PostJun 13, 2015#20252015-06-13T03:03+00:00

The City has filed a counterclaim against the Dome authority alleging not only that their ordinance requiring a vote is valid, but also that the Dome doesn't have the authority to build the stadium because the state law says the Dome's authority exists only on an adjacent site to the convention center.

There's an interesting theory in the comments. If the judge rules the cities ordinance invalid AND rules against the counterclaim about the adjacent land, then a legal precedent would be set that could potentially decided the case that's at the state level too.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... af4dc.html

City vs Rams Lawsuit

Choose Display Mode