Kevin Demoff in Dec 2012 season....has anything changed since then?
"Don't listen to the media" when it comes to the lease situation. Fans have never heard anyone from the Rams organization say the team may leave. They wouldn't be doing season ticket holder luncheons, all the community service they do, expanding their preseason coverage, gotten the most expensive coach, etc if they planned on leaving St. Louis.
"Why would we do all this if we planned to leave? There's no logical answer to that question. It's (the paranoia) because this market has been through a divorce before but I promise you when that Super Bowl championship parade goes down Market in 2020, you will all say that you wish you wouldn't have gotten so worked up about that."
We'd still have to build a new stadium in 2029 to get the Jags or an expansion team. That's on top of a relocation fee or an expansion fee somewhere in the billions. It's cheaper to keep her.
St. Louis would also miss out on hosting a world cup game in 2026 and maybe even as early as 2022 as rumored.
And on a personal note I'm a St. Louis Rams fan, the jags or expansion won't do. I'll be out of St. Louis on the first train smoking. St. Louis is so full of potential and promise but the Rams leaving would be too much for me. I voted for Prop A thinking I'd get metrolink expansion, hoped cityarchriver would drop I-70, and now hoping Ferguson forces us to do things differently. I can't continue to be let down. The Rams leaving would just be the latest.
Keep the Rams.
Governor Nixon talks about the Rams situation - he sounds a lot more comfortable than he did coming down to Ferguson but he chooses not to go into detail about talks he's had with Kroenke. At the very least the tone is a lot different than the usual clickbait that dominates this story.
This Demoff interview from July is something I also revisit whenever the trolls get going.
gary kreie wrote:Has any city built a new outdoor stadium designed up front to support both soccer and football? Also, what things would lower the cost of a new stadium -- such as -- an existing pit like the one at Champ (I-270 at I-70). Could a stadium be put there with parking on the surrounding slope such that one could park at about the level of their seat, like the parking lot around Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine. Where is the closest ravine around here?
Here is one of the 12 new stadiums Brazil constructed for the World Cup for $400 million:
With big screen TVs in every home, are luxury skyboxes obsolete? What if we instead went the way of luxury movie theaters and made every seat stuffed and heated with in-seat snack and beverage service. Fewer seats, but make them all luxury. That's what movie theaters are doing to lure folks out of their family rooms. Any other outside the box thoughts for a new outdoor stadium?
CenturyLink Field in Seattle is widely considered to be by far the best venue in both MLS and NFL football.
Right, but it wasn't designed with soccer in mind at the time. It just happens to work for soccer too. But if they had planned for say equal use by a soccer team up front, you might build it differently. Soccer balls are not kicked as high, so overhangs might be lowered, say. No stoppage in play, so more folks to accommodate at halftime, etc.
Jim Thomas was on CBSsports radio, McKernan & Edmonds show, yesterday afternoon. He said that he has heard NOTHING whatsoever, regarding the Rams relocation rumors. He is at Rams Park everyday and it is business as usual. He said that the Rams will go year to year, obviously, after this season and become franchise free agents. That is when the situation should start to get some legs. Whether the Rams get legs and walk out of here, he has no clue. He has heard the increased chatter in the media, but nothing from the NFL. He did reiterate the fact that the NFL controls LA, but admitted the assignment of a point person for the LA market recently, is very significant. You'd think Goodell would comment on it to calm the STL fanbase. Obviously, he is a little busy with the Ray Rice debacle, but this Rams relocation talk has been around a while. I know Goodell commented on it in the past, saying he wants the Rams to work it out here, but a lot has happened since then.
The only thing I was hearing that I thought might be different was something about NFL paying more for an LA stadium that would reduce the owner(s) outlay.... that sports economist Rishe I think is the one who mentioned that. It made it seem like an LA stadium would get a greater NFL contribution than others but I hadn't really seen anything on that elsewhere.
well its not the NFL that would pay, its really the other owners and do they want to put in their money after having to spend some of their own to build the current stadiums? Does the SD Chargers owner really let Stan or anyone else outside Cali just walk in and that his territory?
RIght, the argument is that NFL putting more money into an LA stadium to help make a team happen ultimately will bring more $$ back to everyone. But what I haven't seen is an actual decision to do that, which Rishe seemed to imply had happened.
Can the Rams move if there is a proposed stadium that a 3rd party would rule to be in the top 8 in the league?
Lets say that our "leaders" get their act together and propose a stadium and Stan says no i want to move, can he do that or does the current contract state that it would go to a arbitrator to rule if the new proposed stadium is in the top 8 and therefor Stan/Rams have to accept it?
Good questions. It's unlikely the Dome would be ruled to satisfy the lease given the number of stadiums built after dome which I'd guess to be around a dozen or more.
Although I don't buy that it's not a good place to watch football, losing has a way of making everything seem to suck. Sure a window would be nice, and if it were built today there would be a retractable roof would also be nice. But these have nothing to do with the Rams bringing the suck since 2004.
But I do think it's pretty crummy the way NFL owners bilk money out of taxpayers for a new facility. Especially in Kroenke's case when he could just go build a billion dollar stadium wherever he wants as he's got the money. He wants a new stadium? I want a +.500 record first.
ajwillikers wrote:Although I don't buy that it's not a good place to watch football, losing has a way of making everything seem to suck. Sure a window would be nice, and if it were built today there would be a retractable roof would also be nice. But these have nothing to do with the Rams bringing the suck since 2004.
But I do think it's pretty crummy the way NFL owners bilk money out of taxpayers for a new facility. Especially in Kroenke's case when he could just go build a billion dollar stadium wherever he wants as he's got the money. He wants a new stadium? I want a +.500 record first.
dbInSouthCity wrote:Can the Rams move if there is a proposed stadium that a 3rd party would rule to be in the top 8 in the league?
Lets say that our "leaders" get their act together and propose a stadium and Stan says no i want to move, can he do that or does the current contract state that it would go to a arbitrator to rule if the new proposed stadium is in the top 8 and therefor Stan/Rams have to accept it?
I would think if a new stadium was to be built, then it automatically would be in the top 8 venues of the league. The 'stadium being in the top tier' conversation is now over. So now, the real question (besides site location) is who pays what. If Stan doesn't get what he wants, I'm sure he will leave if the option to leave is there, why wouldn't he?
Well, this guy Steve Mason guy thinks the Rams to LA move is a done deal.... He expects this in "3 years".
He does bring up an interesting point. Tim Leiweke is a major player in this deal. He used to work for Stan. He was part of AEG, trying to get Farmers Field built and now he is leaving Toronto, returning to LA and likely will get involved in getting the NFL back in LA.
Could Leiweke's announcement that he will be stepping down from his Toronto job by summer 2015, coincide with Stan's announcement of the Rams moving back to LA?????
Check out this Howard Balzer article dating back to 2010. This speculation began a while back, when it was thought that Stan might cease control of the Rams. Shockingly and Ironically, Tim Leiweke is from St. Louis and used to run the St. Louis Steamers in the late 70's.
Could be a St. Louis native that brought the Rams here in Georgia and a Columbia and St. Louis Native that take them away???
It is crazy and all speculation, but as Mason from ESPN radio said, domino after domino continue to fall and the puzzle pieces seem to be slowly coming together, for a return of the LA Rams. I would bet on it at this point.
Is it just bad luck for the Rams that the prosecutors waited until the second game of the season to indict Adrian Peterson for child abuse? He beat the Rams last week but will be out vs. the Patriots due to this indictment.
1. In light of the fact that baseball attracts fewer black players than in the past, what will it mean if St. Louis loses both basketball and football, and keeps hockey and baseball. I'm sure some national media will see this as the city not supporting black player teams. But of course the fan choices for best loved players from the Rams and Cards, such as Isaac Bruce, Willie McGee, Ozzie Smith etc., don't fit that narrative at all. The support for the Rams has everything to do with the terrible ten-year coaching, drafting, and playing record of the Rams coinciding with fantastic and decent records posted by the Cards and Blues respectively over the same period, and overlapping the Rams schedule. As a 14 year PSL holder, I don't really want the city to become white teams only. We'd be missing out on a lot of incredible athletic feats. And if the MSL comes to town...
2. Would the NFL want to be seen pulling out of metros like St. Louis which is 18% African American, for whiter towns such as LA (7% African American), San Antonio (6.2%), or Portland (2.9%), at the same time the NFL player demographics show 67% of the NFL players are Black? Or is it all about following the money, so the widening wealth gap between whites and blacks in America drives them in that direction. Maybe it is time for the Commissioner and at least a couple of owners to become more representative of the American population and NFL Player demographics if they want to continue to enjoy anti-trust exemptions.
^ I see what your saying, but I wouldn't really consider San Antonio and Los Angeles "whiter" towns. The Latino population of both of those places is at least 50%. Not to mention Los Angeles has an extremely large Asian population and is still a metro of about 1,000,000 African Americans, about twice as many as St. Louis. Now Portland, yes that is definitely one of the most whitest major cities in America, along with Minneapolis, Seattle, Salt Lake, even Pittburgh is pretty white compared to St. Louis.
I was comparing the proportion of Black players in the NFL (67%) to the proportion of Blacks in the cities they are considering to move to. (7% or less) St. Louis is about 18% Black, and Oakland is about 28% Black.
gary kreie wrote:I was comparing the proportion of Black players in the NFL (67%) to the proportion of Blacks in the cities they are considering to move to. (7% or less) St. Louis is about 18% Black, and Oakland is about 28% Black.
You're comparing the Black population of Metro St. Louis to the Black population of the city of Oakland, which is apples and oranges. The city of Oakland is 28% Black, but the city of St. Louis is easily 45%+ Black. A combined St. Louis City and County would be Blacker than Oakland and the St. Louis Metropolitan area is considerably more Black than the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, but the San Francisco area is considerably more diverse than St. Louis, with huge Asian and Latino populations.
gary kreie wrote:I was comparing the proportion of Black players in the NFL (67%) to the proportion of Blacks in the cities they are considering to move to. (7% or less) St. Louis is about 18% Black, and Oakland is about 28% Black.
You're comparing the Black population of Metro St. Louis to the Black population of the city of Oakland, which is apples and oranges. The city of Oakland is 28% Black, but the city of St. Louis is easily 45%+ Black. A combined St. Louis City and County would be Blacker than Oakland and the St. Louis Metropolitan area is considerably more Black than the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, but the San Francisco area is considerably more diverse than St. Louis, with huge Asian and Latino populations.
Good point about Oakland. I didn't know how to separate their fan base area demographics from the 49ers in the bay metro area. Again, I am focusing on the Black minority only. Asians and Latino minorities do not make up 67% of the NFL.
The Lieweke stuff is interesting. It would be the perfect icing on the cake for the national media to have two native Missourians escort the Rams out of STL.
I don't get their timing, however. If it's going to be early 2015 that they'd like to flee then how does that give them time to prove financial hardship and/or exhausting all options in the region? If it's closer to the 3 year estimate of this latest joker, why would they wait that long if they want to go anyway?
Sidenote: Dome looking pretty good to the NFL and Tampa fans this afternoon.
The idea that Stan has decided to move already is a bit crazy. I have no doubt that he wants to stay here provided he gets a stadium and a fair deal in his eyes. There is no way he wants to pay a $1billion relocation fee and $1 billion for his own stadium and he doesn't want to rent from someone else. That's a lot of revenue to give up. Here he would have to spend maybe 250-400$ and get his own stadium and save $1.5billion.
^ I agree, the evidence that Stan is planning on moving is dubious at best. Count me in the camp that thinks the Rams are going to stay. I'm a firm believer that city officials and the citizenry will bend over backwards to make sure the Rams stay in town. I say we get a new stadium by 2020. After Ferguson, the thought of us losing a NFL team would give the impression that St. Louis is in free fall (something civic leadership is working hard no to do).
