Burwell: Efforts under way to keep Rams here
• By BRYAN BURWELL
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/bryan-burwell/burwell-efforts-under-way-to-keep-rams-here/article_f46291bd-4bf0-5654-9e0a-195da8fd2df2.html
With all the noise coming out of Los Angeles recently, and the deafening silence emanating from St. Louis, cold-sweat paranoia is the natural response for local NFL lovers who already have been burned once by an owner with a hardcore case of wanderlust.
So on Monday night inside the Edward Jones Dome as the Rams feted the Super Bowl champion “Greatest Show on Turf” team of 15 seasons ago, those fans took the opportunity during the halftime festivities of the Rams’ 31-17 loss to San Francisco to boo owner Stan Kroenke. That’s because he has so far refused to tell us anything about his intentions regarding the franchise’s future in St. Louis.
You see, pro sports owners are a lot like politicians. Rare is the one who doesn’t get razzed when his name is mentioned in front of a fired-up sports crowd. Most of the time they deserve it. Sometimes they don’t.
When it comes to the Rams’ uncertain future in St. Louis, there has been plenty of blame (and boos) to spread around between the silent owner and local politicians who are supposed to be putting some new stadium deal on the table to keep the Rams in town but so far have been as invisible as the reclusive Kroenke.
Clearly what has a lot of local NFL fans spooked are repeated vague media reports and political boasting coming out of LA in recent weeks that suggest the NFL wants two teams there within 12 to 24 months.
Naturally, everyone has the Rams on the short list — mainly because their lease with the Dome expires in January.
Over the past few weeks, I have heard informed local rumblings that tend to mute some of this Rams relocation chatter. In conversations with influential sources who are intimately familiar with the Rams’ stadium situation, they tell an entirely different story from the ones coming out of Los Angeles.
• While Kroenke might be reclusive publicly, he has not been a recluse with the men trying to put together a deal in St. Louis. Rams officials and local negotiators have had a constant dialogue all along, the sources say.
• The silence from local negotiators does not mean they haven’t been working feverishly to put a deal together. According to these sources, that silence could be broken with the completion of next month’s midterm elections. What local negotiators have been working on, and could be prepared to publicly discuss within the next month or so, is a proposal for an open-air stadium along the St. Louis riverfront between the new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge and the Lumiere Place Casino and Hotels.
• While a retractable-roofed stadium isn’t out of the question, the open-air stadium proposal seems to be the one that local deal makers think makes the most sense both financially and politically.
No one is naïve enough to rule out that Kroenke could have his eyes on relocating to Los Angeles. The recent sale of the National Basketball Association’s Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion has made a lot of NFL owners wonder what a pro football franchise in Los Angeles would be worth.
If the Rams are worth $930 million in St. Louis (according to the latest Forbes magazine franchise valuations), what would they be worth in LA?
But there are so many hurdles that still need to be removed to make sense of the idea of Kroenke moving the Rams.
First, the NFL wants to own or co-own the Los Angeles stadium. Kroenke wants to own the dirt where his new stadium is going to be built.
Second, if the deal the LA city council is pushing with financial giant AEG goes through, it would require an NFL owner parting with a significant percentage of his team to move into that proposed downtown stadium. Again, this is something Kroenke has no intention of doing.
That leaves only one reasonable possibility, and that is acquiring more land surrounding the 60 acres he already owns adjacent to the Forum, in Inglewood, Calif.
So this means local deal makers realize they have a ticking clock working as they wheel and deal to put something substantial in front of Kroenke over the course of the next few months.
This is the first time I have heard concrete conversations about what the city and state are trying to do. Up until now, it has been a lot of ambitious gossip and wishful long-range thinking. But now, finally, there seems to be legitimate work being done to secure a long-term NFL future for St. Louis.
What I’m being told is that there is a serious movement locally now to ensure that an impressive NFL stadium will be built in the shadows of the Dome and that city and state officials will not rest until there is a team taking up permanent resident in that new edifice.
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