^^ I understand that none of us really know what the majority of owners feel at this point (and as one writer astutely put it, many really haven't given the issue much consideration yet), but I wouldn't underestimate the appreciation many owners have of Kroenke's understanding of the LA market (he's been an active member on the relocation committee for years, no?) and capabilities.
I think if there is any concern about whether two teams in LA is actually the best move for the League, the attractiveness of Stan's plan jumps considerably. Have we seen details of the NFL market study of LA?
Edit... Adding, the owners may feel that the best solution is to guarantee a successful LA franchise by creating a monopoly and letting other markets duke it out to get the best deal for the Chargers and Raiders.
Dan Kaplan (WSJ) said he knows there are a lot of owners not in Kroenke's corner and that it's hard to invision a scenario where the owners approve a move with a stadium on the table in St. Louis.
what part of Stan plan benefits other owners that Carson doesnt? how do other owners benefit from Stans residential project or his 6k seat multi use building thats all planned? they dont.
Also the Carson plan would come with 2 relocation fees instead of 1.
this good news bad news thing has been happening for the past 12 months but one thing that's been consistent is Peacocks confidence that if they get done what needs to be done that there will be football here beyond 2015. I think we all know he is a smart guy, if at any point during these 12 months he sensed that things cant be worked out i think his tone would have changed.
^ See my edited comment above yours of whether a 2 team LA makes sense. And just as Peacock is out there talking up the STL plan, so, too, is Kroenke talking up his STL plan; but only one of them is a member of the club. Also, the owners surely would get at least 2 relocation fees if just the Rams move to LA, and potentially three.
^^ Yeah, I agree on that.... if Rams leave I think STL will be a strong contender for Chargers or Raiders if they like what they see of what essentially would be a pre-approved offer.
"Dear Mr. Spanos,
Congratulations! You've been pre-approved for an exclusive offer! But we can only accept one partner, so please act today!"
If Rams move to LA, I think it is pretty likely either the Chargers or Raiders ultimately relocate as well, and possibly both. The LA Rams would be just the first act and ultimately I think the Raiders and Chargers don't have to worry too much about finding a satisfactory solution whether in their home market or elsewhere.
Another point I found interesting this morning when I listened to the podcast of Peacock's KMOX interview yesterday is how Peacock referenced his individual meetings with owners. Paraphrasing here, but he said he's sensitive about sharing publicly exactly what was talked about but that he gets encouragement from everyone. Also interesting that he's now on the board of trustees of the NFL Hall of Fame and will be hosting the annual golf tournament at Old Warson next month. Que Dan Dierdorf, Aeneas Williams, Joe Buck, and the like to keep the positive vibes flowing among the NFL Gentry.
With all that he's done and as much rah-rah-ing as he's doing about football/NFL, I find it hard to believe that he is not at least trying to personally amass ownership (public hint of MLS ownership another clue). With his sports/business background and now with his first hand experience of greasing the stadium skids, not to mention the built in personal PR campaign with fans and regional government alike, he may be the best professional sports owner/front man on paper that there is: local boy, athletic, young, incredibly successful, skilled, connected, etc. etc. He's an STL Kennedy.
Why else would he be stressing the ability to borrow 250 million to qualify as a "team investment" which their research has proven is financeable through the revenues of the new stadium? Sure that could make it more palatable for Stan, or for another owner looking for a new home, but is he hinting that he as apart of local ownership could borrow that money to qualify as "team" money? Seems to me that possible expansion continues creep under the surface here given all of this contradicting information that reads like a Dan Brown novel. Also fits with his constant stream yesterday of "if we fulfill our part.....how do you take football away from STL?"
I could see a scenario where the Rams and Chargers go to LA and the Raiders finally give in and move in with the 49ers in Santa Clara. That would benefit both teams. SF could share expenses (same with OAK) and the OAK stadium issue is solved. I'd have to think this is somewhere on the table if the OAK problem never gets solved in OAK or they move. They absolutely cannot keep playing in the Oakland Coliseum, at least long term. What a dump! Not to mention, Santa Clara is only 55 min from OAK. With Santa Clara in his back pocket (as a last resort) Davis can remain quiet and basically be a follower. He has options outside of Oakland and Carson, Santa Clara, San Antonio, STL ( if Rams move). He has not reason to stress.
While Spanos and Davis breaking their alliance is unlikely ( assuming the money is there to complete Carson), a Kroenke/Spanos alliance is unlikely, since Spanos does not want to go in 2nd, nor does he even want Stan in LA. I'd counter that by saying, if Dean wants to work it out in SD, he will have to face the reality of an LA team at some point. If Dean wants to win Southern CA, he will have to go to LA. No matter what, at some point, some team, will be in LA.
DB, while I did hear that some owners like Carson and some Inglewood, we've yet to hear which owners prefer STL. That is the big question that may be answered from Oct-Jan.
STL has to depend on Carson supporters, not STL supporters, for votes. If Spanos alliances are strong, we in STL have strong support. Right now, if strictly looking at STL support, we have SD, OAK, Seattle (McLaughlin), JAX (Lamping), MAYBE: Kraft (he said STL deserves a team if we finalize the stadium deal), Bidwell (STL native, may have sentimental vote), other Midwest cities that can empathize with us, Indy, Cincy, Nashville, KC. Of course all of this 'support' will only be there, if Carson can offer similar revenues to line their own pockets, as Inglewood. In the end, it is not about emotion. That is checked at the door. It is all about dollar signs, hence the reason Stan is stabbing STL and his home state in the back. I'm just glad people are starting to realize that and quit starting there 'Rams will never move' thread with 'this is why ENOS STANLEY KROENKE FROM MISSOURI, will never move the team. That is laughable!
Last thing, I have to compliment the boys from 920 AM. Did a great job and did not pull any punches with Eric Grubman. They got about as much out of him as they could, all things considered. They even got EG a little fired up. Great job!
While he speculates San Diego is going to have to be more generous with its subsidy, ultimately he believes only one team will be approved for a move. And we know who that would be. And his column pooh-poohs the idea that San Diego and we could expect a tough lease as NFL wants all the revenue.... I do fear the loss of the amusement tax revenue, which would be a big hit to the contribution that NFL activity would bring to meeting our financial conmmitment.
On KMOX yesterday, Dave Peacock wouldn't say if he has talked to the Carson stadium folks, saying he prefers to keep private conversations private. So since Stan has publicly offered to help San Diego and Oakland in order undermine Carson, it seems like it would be fair for Peacock to team up with the Carson plan and present a joint solution to the NFL. Unfortunately Grubman added a new condition saying the team that stays in their home market has to approve of the new stadium. When told that means anyone can move just by saying they don't approve local plans, Grubman re-spoke saying "a" team, not "the" team has to approve of the plans, whatever that means.
It's going to be hard to get these men to not vote for the shiniest object they see.
Gary, Grubman also addressed that same issue. Vaughn or McKernan, asked him, 'so your saying, if an owner doesn't want to be in a market, all he has to do is say the stadium offered in the home market is not adequate or good enough?' (paraphrasing). Grubman said, not the case, the decision on whether a home market stadium (St. Louis for example) is good enough or workable for the franchise (Rams), comes from the other 31owners, not the owner trying to move. Therefore, in this case, Stan cannot reject the St. Louis Stadium, saying he does not like it or it is not good enough. That is up to the owners to decide.
gary kreie wrote:On KMOX yesterday, Dave Peacock wouldn't say if he has talked to the Carson stadium folks, saying he prefers to keep private conversations private. So since Stan has publicly offered to help San Diego and Oakland in order undermine Carson, it seems like it would be fair for Peacock to team up with the Carson plan and present a joint solution to the NFL. Unfortunately Grubman added a new condition saying the team that stays in their home market has to approve of the new stadium. When told that means anyone can move just by saying they don't approve local plans, Grubman re-spoke saying "a" team, not "the" team has to approve of the plans, whatever that means.
It's going to be hard to get these men to not vote for the shiniest object they see.
I stand corrected on this. I listened to the actual audio interview, and Grubman did indeed say "a" team both times, not "the", (the transcript was wrong) and he meant that if an owner doesn't like a stadium, he has to convince 24 other owners they could not make money there to compete effectively with the new home market stadium. He went on to talk about cases where the owner wanted to move to another state, but the league stepped in an brokered a stadium deal in their original market. So not as dire as I read into it the first time.
^^DB,
Dean Spanos should forget about San Diego and get to LA as soon as possible (which is what he is likely doing). His 20 year dream of owning the So-Cal market, is about to end, one way or the other. Somebody, if not him, is going to get there and eat up 25-30% of his fanbase. He likely keeps a huge fanbase in SD, while gaining LA, if he wins in Carson. With the Raiders, their fans love them and everybody else hates them. Much less of a threat than the Rams. Hopefully, Dave Peacock and Carmen Policy can team up after each other's presentation in OCT, to hammer home to the owners that Carson/STL solves all 3 problems, which is way better than only solving 1 and creating another. If Inglewood wins, St. Louis has no team. Inglewood creates a hole here and leaves 2 teams in the worst stadiums in the NFL. I think Carson is more desirable if the owners believe Spanos has zero shot to get a stadium in SD and Davis will never go to Santa Clara or elsewhere. In that case, STL gets a boost. If I were Spanos and Davis, I'd hammer that home, true or not.
I've argued time and time again, that if STL is not a viable NFL market, then you can take at least a 3rd of the markets off the list as viable markets. We are the 19th largest market out of 32 teams. Indy, Cincy, KC, etc, all have smaller markets and less large corporations (especially Fortune 500). St. Louis is just fine as an NFL market. Then again, the NFL can say and do whatever they want, so reality is not necessarily what drives decisions. As Grubman stated over an over, much of this process is subjective.
gary kreie wrote:On KMOX yesterday, Dave Peacock wouldn't say if he has talked to the Carson stadium folks, saying he prefers to keep private conversations private. So since Stan has publicly offered to help San Diego and Oakland in order undermine Carson, it seems like it would be fair for Peacock to team up with the Carson plan and present a joint solution to the NFL. Unfortunately Grubman added a new condition saying the team that stays in their home market has to approve of the new stadium. When told that means anyone can move just by saying they don't approve local plans, Grubman re-spoke saying "a" team, not "the" team has to approve of the plans, whatever that means.
It's going to be hard to get these men to not vote for the shiniest object they see.
Like I said yesterday, kick 'em out. That way they won't have a pot to relieve themselves in.
Seriously, that's the only way this mess gets resolved.
I'm concerned about two things that Eric Grubman said in the interview that must have come from Stan's presentation.
1. Grubman said the Rams have been trying to resolve this for 10 years. And he said the Chargers have been trying for 11. So he basically equated Stan's suffering with the Spanos struggles. This is nonsense. 10 years ago the Dome was only 10 years young. The Rams and CVC had just completed negotiations for dome upgrades back then that included new video screens and turf among other things. How did Stan get Eric to believe he has wanted a virtually new stadium from St Louis since 2005 but we refused? There is no parallel here with the San Diego ancient stadium.
2. Grubman reiterated that old idea that St. Louis had its one and only chance with the lease arbitration on the dome. So now it doesn't matter what we offer the NFL -- we blew it already. He is now ignoring the relocation guidelines that deal with what a market is offering, not a single existing building commission. As everyone in St. Louis knows, the Rams proposal was just a step by them to get out of the lease. They knew it made no sense to make $700 million in ridiculous changes to that 20 year old structure. And arbitration was a joke. The Rams wanted to move on entire side of the stadium along with seating further from the field. They argued this was an improvement. The arbitration panel bought it because the Rams argued that moving fans further from the field is a top-tier characteristic, since Dallas did it. Just last year, Kevin Demoff told us PSL holders that all this talk about moving to LA was part of the process of getting a new stadium here in St. Louis. That modifying the dome was not the right solution. St. Louis really needed an all-new stadium, Kevin said, and he personally preferred an open air stadium. Now we hear that one of the reasons Peacock is so far ahead of Oakland and San Diego is because the mayor and others saw that we needed a backup plan when people saw that Kroenke was not paying attention during dome negotiations and didn't seem the least bit interested in getting his $700 million dollar dome upgrade. He obviously had mapped out this move to LA plan years ago -- probably before he grabbed the franchise from Khan on the last possible day.
Grubman is now saying that the relocation rules are subjective, and it just comes down to however the 24 owners want to vote. Forget the relocation rules. Rules are just for players. Translation -- St. Louis can't do anything now to stop Stan -- our only option would have been to make the stupid dome changes so we could try to enforce the lease for just 10 more years before the team could leave. Somebody needs to straighten Grubman and the owners out about the true history of events in St. Louis.
Looks like the financing is falling in place. The NFL would be a fool not to take $400m in public money. We're gonna have football here for another generation
^If the NFL had integrity, that wouldn't matter. They couldn't make Stan take the deal, but they could tell him he should and he's not moving as a result.
They don't have integrity however, so all options are on the table.
But our financing depends on hundreds of millions from Kronke. What if he simply refuses to invest a dime in St. Louis?
Eric Grubman, IMO, would not guarantee that Stan won't go rogue. He said that if he did, he would not have the support of the NFL and would not receive any benefits from the League. He said that after he was asked if there could be 2 stadiums in LA. That is how I took it. Regarding Stan refusing to pay his piece of the deal, Grubman contradicted himself and made it sound as if Stan would likely work with his home market if the membership chooses Carson, bringing up examples of how Kraft worked it out in New England. Also, he reiterated the fact that the Rams have been involved with the Task Force from day 1. Then he again paints a different picture, when saying that the Rams won in arbitration, which is a fact, but he almost makes it sound as if Stan has exhausted all options to work it out in his home market. (I find that to be a load of BS). I do not know how to take Grubman's comments. I did get a negative vibe, but on the other hand, you hear Dave Peacock speak and feel better about things.
