Kroenke Building Stadium No Matter What (relocation thread)

pdf: STATEMENT OF REASONS IN SUPPORT OF THE RAMS’ APPLICATION TO RELOCATE TO LOS ANGELES

http://media.trb.com/media/acrobat/2016-01/23763808665200-05180540.pdf

“The current Rams ownership’s investment in the on-the-field Rams team has
been significant. The Rams have consistently spent to the salary cap in each year
under Stan Kroenke and have significantly increased the coaching and scouting
budgets. These investments have resulted in a 52% improvement in winning
percentage over the five years before Stan Kroenke became the controlling owner. To
build and maintain fan interest, the Rams made the economic commitment to buy all
unsold tickets so that all Rams home games could be televised in years when black out
rules were in effect. Under Stan Kroenke’s ownership, the team was named “St. Louis
Philanthropic Organization of the Year,” the first time a sports team in St. Louis was
bestowed the award and has performed over 12,000 hours of community service in the
St. Louis community.
Despite these investments and engagements, Rams attendance since 2010 has
been well below the League’s average. The combination of low attendance and the
lack of pricing power as indicated by the CSL market study has consistently placed the
Rams in the low fourth quartile in gross ticketing receipts generally between 60% and
70% of the NFL average per game for the regular season.”

To be fair, Stan–the team has sucked. Let’s not pretend it’s a playoff caliber team.

They sucked.

Attendance WILL be down.

Didn’t that happen before the move FROM L.A.?

This is what makes me want to put on the tinfoil hat. Losing before a move is good business when making an argument to move. Low attendance is good.

Stan has taken a scorched earth policy.

This is in “Only in America” territory.

Only in America can you spend public dollars on a stadium for a privately owned football team — a lucrative venture — and be made to feel like your offer is totally unworthy of consideration. And that the NFL team is not supposed to assume risk.

At the same time, you’re supposed to ignore that the other project underway is ENTIRELY privately financed.

As for fan support, that argument was inevitable. Of course, it ignores that the Rams were historically bad before its rise to nearly mediocre … unfortunately, that “52% improvement” took place as SK worked to move the Rams to California. The only reason attendance was way down this year is because people in St. Louis found something else to do than to support a team that is trying to move away.

Now, if the argument is, I can make more money for myself and the NFL in L.A., well, yeah, so could most other NFL teams in the nation. As a group, the owners will approved this move not because it’s the right thing to do, but because SK already is moving forward with the stadium. He’s taking a huge risk with huge reward upside. In STL, he’d be assuming risk with little reward upside … but then again, he could have poured his resources into a great stadium and development project in St. Louis if he wanted to. I know that SK was looking at various local options at some point a few years ago. He was considering building in the St. Louis area. This was during the back-and-forth with St. Louis leaders over stadium upgrades. SK made one real offer to update the Ed, which everybody knew would be rejected, because why spend $700M on that POS? In the meantime, he was working other angles, including the LA area. When SK leaked that the Rams had a site in Inglewood that could be big enough for a stadium, I wonder whether SK was basically announcing his intentions to move, or if he was expecting local leaders to match that plan with something in STL that was publicly subsidized.

Any way you look at it, you have to admit that it’s about impossible to keep a team in your City when locally you have to spend public money, while the out-of-town option is all private money. That’s a very, very hard sell, and somehow the local team playing point on the STL project put together a proposal — very unpopular among a pretty significant portion of people in Missouri, but still a proposal for an upgraded stadium.

And, really, any proposal wouldn’t matter, because the poison pill that will kill any stadium in St. Louis is that the original lease said that St. Louis needed to upgrade its stadium to the top tier of the NFL. Well, no, St. Louis is never, ever going to be able to do that due to the huge stadiums that have been build in recent years, and the financial situation of the City of St. Louis, where the top two issues are crime and poverty.

I think we can see the writing on the wall here. I don’t know how St. Louis gets a new football stadium and keeps the Rams. I say goodbye to them. And, if they’re here next year, attendance will be down again, of course, and they’ll be gone the next year. SK isn’t trying to help grease the skids for any other team to take the St. Louis stadium deal. He’s gonna burn down every chance on his way out, in order to increase his chances of seeking (MORE!) fortune in L.A.

I’m telling you now, if this all plays out the way it looks to me, I just don’t know if I can support the NFL anymore. I’ll see how I feel after the dust settles, but I’m pretty sick about this whole process at this point. Billionaires holding up cities for public assistance … only in America!

Dak wrote:

Stan has taken a scorched earth…

I’m telling you now, if this all plays out the way it looks to me, I just don’t know if I can support the NFL anymore. I’ll see how I feel after the dust settles, but I’m pretty sick about this whole process at this point. Billionaires holding up cities for public assistance…”

Yeah, i totally understand that feeling/thought-process.

I dont think i need to tell-ya how much I despise
the ‘Big-Corporate‘ aspect of College-Football,
MLB, Pro-Football, NBA, etc, etc.

Somehow or other, i find a way
to enjoy the game-itself, and tune out all
the hype, corporate-shit, pre-games, post-games,
Commissioner-stuff, ticket-price-crap,
player-salaries, coach-salaries, TV-crap…
….prettymuch ALL of it — except the game,
itself. Its still fun for me, to watch a ‘team’
struggling through ‘adversity’ to reach a goal.
And its fun to see the unexpected plays,
and beauty and strategy and force of the game.

So far, i still enjoy the game itself,
and the internet message-board conversations.

It’s easier to do that as a ‘nomad’ though.
I don’t have to care where they play.

w
v

Agamemnon wrote:

I think kroenke is getting desperate.

Well if you worked for the Anti-Christ
you might feel a little pressure, too.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

Dak wrote:

Stan has taken a scorched earth policy.

Yeah, he completely set fire to St. Louis, not just for the Rams, but he argues that it is a losing business proposition for any team.

I don’t know, of course, what the counterarguments are on the economic issues surrounding the stadium and the city, but he clearly burned every bridge behind him. Wow.

I don’t know what his Plan B is, but it isn’t St. Louis.

I’m wondering if somewhere along the way that SK felt disrespected in this process … like he wasn’t made to feel as important as he most clearly is. Imagine being a billionaire with so many minions at your beck and call. And, here’s a guy who has been sued by business partners on deals. Loyalty and kinship are not important traits for this guy. You don’t toe his line, and he puts the toe to you. (Reverse Yakov: “In Corporate America, line toes you!”)

I really don’t know how L.A. fans like Joe could go through this type of thing and still follow the Rams so closely. If there’s anything that will keep me following, it could be this bunch of fans on this board right here. I can’t say that for sure, because honestly I get busy and I’m very stingy with my time. My time is my time, and I like to spend it on the things I see and appreciate every day. If a team leaves St. Louis, that would be extra work for me to try to follow them. I really like getting a sense of how the team is doing or what direction they’re going, and the radio guys help a lot with that locally. I guess I could follow the L.A. media much easier these days with the Internet, but again, it becomes out of sight, out of mind, for me. To be honest.

And, really, as I get older, sports becomes less and less important to me. I’m not the best fan in the world, although I do still love a good football game. Geez. When was the last time we got to see really good football from the Rams? I followed them because they’re the home team. In L.A., they’re not the home team. I guess there’s the chance that I’ll follow them, but not closely. I don’t have a rooting interest in any other franchise, unless they come here to St. Louis. Which might not ever happen. And, if it does, I don’t know if I can follow that team nearly as closely. This is not a “boo-hoo” moment for me, but rather a coping-with-reality moment. I’ve been accepting that a move was basically an 80-20 proposition for some time, but I really think it’s more of a 99% probability at this point. Whatever. There are much worse things that can happen to you than to lose an NFL franchise (a second time).

joemad wrote:

Ram fans that I’ll never meet in person but read and chat with frequently. It’s fucking beautiful.

Dak wrote:

If there’s anything that will keep me following, it could be this bunch of fans on this board right here.

Great posts guys, I feel a lot of the same things about online community.

In terms of the Rams move, I am a nomad, so, I feel my role is just to listen to those who have a stake in it.

Zooey wrote:

Dak wrote:

I’m wondering if somewhere along the way that SK felt disrespected in this process …

I really don’t know how L.A. fans like Joe could go through this type of thing and still follow the Rams so closely. If there’s anything that will keep me following, it could be this bunch of fans on this board right here. I can’t say that for sure, because honestly I get busy and I’m very stingy with my time.

And, really, as I get older, sports becomes less and less important to me. .. There are much worse things that can happen to you than to lose an NFL franchise (a second time).

I don’t think it’s a matter of disrespect with Stan. I don’t think anything is personal with him. It is all business. The man’s entire life has been business deals, making money. That’s what he does. He is one of those guys who is simply a Borg of Business. He is literally a Multi-national Corporation in human form. Corporations aren’t sentimental. St. Louis is simply a market. Los Angeles is a market. For Kroenkeco, Los Angeles is a better place to build Empire than St. Louis is. It is that simple.

And I agree with WV in the sense that his argument is entirely “legal” rather than emotional. There’s no name-calling or anything personal. It is “scorched earth” in the sense that he argues that St. Louis is entirely deficient as a marketplace. He doesn’t stop with just saying, “The dome isn’t 1st tier.” He wants to move. So he pulled out all the stops, and presented the most damning argument he could against St. Louis, and the most favorable argument he could towards his Inglewood project. If he pulled punches anywhere, it was on Carson.

And I fully agree with you on “time,” and on priorities. I have other things to do, too, things that matter. And sports…as much fun as they are…the longer I live, the more I am disappointed. My heart got broken on the scoreboard many times when I was a kid. And I saw my favorite players leave as free agents, and I saw rule changes I didn’t like, and traditions discarded, and the commodification of everything, and the price of paraphernalia and tickets skyrocket, and games get harder to watch on TV, and teams move away from loyal fans, and strikes, and lockouts, and replacement players, and it all just takes a toll. There are far, far more ways to be disappointed in sports than there are ways to find happiness. Only one team wins each year. Everyone else experiences some level of disappointment.

Bu you are certainly right when you say there are worse things that can happen to you.

I follow the Rams even when they are down, but if not for this band of brothers posting here, I wouldn’t spend as much time on them as I do.

You know, I think a lot of fans treat their fandom like a religion, and they cast disdain on “bandwagon” fans, and all that. I just am not wired that way. And I think all the disappointment in my teams, the owners, the management, the league, has just taught me that I should treat my loyalty the same way the owners treat their teams. I mean…Stan (and hosts of other owners before him) has shown he doesn’t care about the fans per se. Owners believe they don’t owe us anything. So I don’t see why we owe them anything. I don’t understand sports as religion. It’s a business arrangement. And if they provide a crappy product, I don’t have to give it my money. I’m NOT paying to watch the games, and I’m not paying $185 for a shirt that cost them $4 to make in China.

When the Rams left LA, I had to decide if I was dropping them as a fan or not. I, like other nomads, decided the zip code of their stadium wasn’t as important to me as the team and the history of it that I grew up with, and internalized. It was important, but not THAT important. To me. But “home” team was never a thing for me, since none of the teams I root for are local. Anyway, I just realized that the Rams are part of me. And I wasn’t going to let them take that from me. That was my decision. I just decided – as much as I didn’t want them to move – that geography was less important to me than other things.

—————————-

Ditto to all that, zooey.

I kinda wish fans would stop doin what they do.
I wish they’d stop paying ridiculous ticket prices.
Just stay the F### Home. And stop paying for all those
ridiculous tv-packages. And stop buying all the corporate
jerseys for a gazillion dollars. Etc.
Stop all the money-madness, and just…follow the team
without giving money to the corp-machine.

But of course thats like saying don’t buy plastic
shit at Walmart — aint gonna happen.

I could go on…. 🙂

Anyway, i enjoy the hell out of this small
group of posting-apes on this small planet,
in this swirling blazing galaxy, in this mysterious
dark void of space.

w
v

Cal wrote:

I think a Rams move to LA might officially cure me of my addiction to this team. I’m a nomad so Stan’s actions don’t piss me off because he’s betraying St Louis. Stan just comes across as a giant hypocritical, asshole. The owner of my team doesn’t need to be a wonderful person, but I’d like his nastiness to at least remain hidden.

From what I understand, the Rams chose to release the report that trashes St Louis and cements my feelings. If true, that’s just mind boggling to me. I also find the part of the report talking about the decline in attendance offensive. How can anybody expect people to spend their money watching this team when they’ve been bad for so long? Haven’t the Rams continued to make money even though they have been a failure for the most part for over a decade?

Stan’s complaint about St Louis being a 2 sport town is not only a bad argument, but it’s also annoying or insulting or something. I’m also especially turned off by Stan’s previous comments that he would do his “damndest” to stay in St. Louis. Maybe his hypocrisy shouldn’t irritate me as much as it does, but it really bothers me.

Like most others, I already have demands on my time–3 small children in my case–that make following the team challenging at times. Now I feel like the enjoyment I get from the Rams will be further tainted by Kroenke. I feel like I’ll have a hard time divorcing the LA Rams from Stan the lying asshat.

=——————————-

Well the Rams, like most major pro-teams,
have a line of billionaire-asshats that have owned
them. Read about Carroll Rosenbloom sometime, if
you wanna read about a total asshat. Do i need
to even mention Georgia and all the Nixonian,
unethical crap she pulled. And now we got
Mr corporate-sociopath-Kronky.

Its much like the Game of Thrones.

Through it all though, despite the
Owners, there’s also been…Merlin, and Jack Y,
and Snow, and SJax…and Massey.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

Out of curiosity.

Where did you obtain that link/document?

Because the link is now dead.

I find that interesting. I don’t know what it means. But I find it interesting.

Oh, uh…nothing, you know…heh heh… say how about those Rams!

Anyway.

I found it on the PD board. 2 or 3 different guys separately posted a link to that. I have no idea where they got it…I guess I could find out.

.

Fascinating. Its like a mini-series.
Like Shogun or somethin.

w
v

wv wrote:

Zooey wrote:

Dak wrote:

I’m wondering if somewhere along the way that SK felt disrespected in this process …

I really don’t know how L.A. fans like Joe could go through this type of thing and still follow the Rams so closely. If there’s anything that will keep me following, it could be this bunch of fans on this board right here. I can’t say that for sure, because honestly I get busy and I’m very stingy with my time.

And, really, as I get older, sports becomes less and less important to me. .. There are much worse things that can happen to you than to lose an NFL franchise (a second time).

I don’t think it’s a matter of disrespect with Stan. I don’t think anything is personal with him. It is all business. The man’s entire life has been business deals, making money. That’s what he does. He is one of those guys who is simply a Borg of Business. He is literally a Multi-national Corporation in human form. Corporations aren’t sentimental. St. Louis is simply a market. Los Angeles is a market. For Kroenkeco, Los Angeles is a better place to build Empire than St. Louis is. It is that simple.

And I agree with WV in the sense that his argument is entirely “legal” rather than emotional. There’s no name-calling or anything personal. It is “scorched earth” in the sense that he argues that St. Louis is entirely deficient as a marketplace. He doesn’t stop with just saying, “The dome isn’t 1st tier.” He wants to move. So he pulled out all the stops, and presented the most damning argument he could against St. Louis, and the most favorable argument he could towards his Inglewood project. If he pulled punches anywhere, it was on Carson.

And I fully agree with you on “time,” and on priorities. I have other things to do, too, things that matter. And sports…as much fun as they are…the longer I live, the more I am disappointed. My heart got broken on the scoreboard many times when I was a kid. And I saw my favorite players leave as free agents, and I saw rule changes I didn’t like, and traditions discarded, and the commodification of everything, and the price of paraphernalia and tickets skyrocket, and games get harder to watch on TV, and teams move away from loyal fans, and strikes, and lockouts, and replacement players, and it all just takes a toll. There are far, far more ways to be disappointed in sports than there are ways to find happiness. Only one team wins each year. Everyone else experiences some level of disappointment.

Bu you are certainly right when you say there are worse things that can happen to you.

I follow the Rams even when they are down, but if not for this band of brothers posting here, I wouldn’t spend as much time on them as I do.

You know, I think a lot of fans treat their fandom like a religion, and they cast disdain on “bandwagon” fans, and all that. I just am not wired that way. And I think all the disappointment in my teams, the owners, the management, the league, has just taught me that I should treat my loyalty the same way the owners treat their teams. I mean…Stan (and hosts of other owners before him) has shown he doesn’t care about the fans per se. Owners believe they don’t owe us anything. So I don’t see why we owe them anything. I don’t understand sports as religion. It’s a business arrangement. And if they provide a crappy product, I don’t have to give it my money. I’m NOT paying to watch the games, and I’m not paying $185 for a shirt that cost them $4 to make in China.

When the Rams left LA, I had to decide if I was dropping them as a fan or not. I, like other nomads, decided the zip code of their stadium wasn’t as important to me as the team and the history of it that I grew up with, and internalized. It was important, but not THAT important. To me. But “home” team was never a thing for me, since none of the teams I root for are local. Anyway, I just realized that the Rams are part of me. And I wasn’t going to let them take that from me. That was my decision. I just decided – as much as I didn’t want them to move – that geography was less important to me than other things.

—————————-

Ditto to all that, zooey.

I kinda wish fans would stop doin what they do.
I wish they’d stop paying ridiculous ticket prices.
Just stay the F### Home. And stop paying for all those
ridiculous tv-packages. And stop buying all the corporate
jerseys for a gazillion dollars. Etc.
Stop all the money-madness, and just…follow the team
without giving money to the corp-machine.

But of course thats like saying don’t buy plastic
shit at Walmart — aint gonna happen.

I could go on….

Anyway, i enjoy the hell out of this small
group of posting-apes on this small planet,
in this swirling blazing galaxy, in this mysterious
dark void of space.

w
v

yeah. i’ve felt that way for a long time.

i do pay for sunday ticket. i know. but i try to give them as little of my money as i possibly can. only my time and dedication…

and a subscription for sunday ticket.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 11 months ago by InvaderRam.

St. Louis stadium plan inadequate, NFL won’t step in to block Rams move, report says

David Hunn

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/nfl-won-t-block-rams-efforts-to-move-commissioner-s/article_88e558e6-610d-5061-a366-ab26cdad1dbf.html

ST. LOUIS • The proposed riverfront stadium plan here is inadequate, and will not require the National Football League to block the St. Louis Rams from moving to Los Angeles, Commissioner Roger Goodell said Saturday in a report to team owners.

Goodell concludes that city leaders in all three of the communities hoping to keep their teams — Oakland, San Diego and St. Louis — have missed their opportunity, said a person who has read the report and spoke to the Post-Dispatch on condition of anonymity.

The report, sent Saturday morning to all 32 team owners, does not approve a Rams move to Los Angeles, the source said; NFL owners still have to vote on team relocation.

But it suggests that all three teams have satisfied the NFL’s relocation guidelines, opening a clear path for the owners to choose the Rams — the only team that could have been barred this year by a hometown effort. Oakland has not submitted a formal proposal, and San Diego’s plan is contingent on a public vote this summer.

The report is also a signal that NFL executives expect owners to vote on relocation at a league meeting Tuesday and Wednesday in Houston.

Saturday evening, an NFL spokesman confirmed that Goodell had sent the report, and that the action is prescribed in the league’s relocation guidelines, but said the NFL had no further comment.

Dave Peacock, co-chairman of the state task force planning the $1.1 billion riverfront stadium in St. Louis, said that he had heard the news, but hadn’t seen the report, and wouldn’t comment. “I’d be responding to a rumor,” he said.

A statement sent by the task force later Saturday evening said that members do not expect to see the report, “as that would be a matter between the league office and team owners.”

“We do hope the NFL will communicate with all home markets as to their status prior to any decisions next week,” the task force statement continued, “particularly here in St. Louis, where so many people have dedicated themselves over the past 14 months to producing a strong and certain stadium proposal for the NFL and our hometown Rams.”

The task force said it remained confident that its proposal would “speak extremely well on behalf of St. Louis as the NFL deliberates next week.”

Goodell’s report, according to the person who had read it, is 48 pages and examines what the NFL sees as the facts of each hometown’s proposal to build a new stadium and keep their teams.

Goodell says in the report that city leaders in each town agree that their current stadiums don’t work. And each city had “ample opportunity, but did not develop proposals sufficient to ensure retention of their teams,” the source said, citing the report.

In St. Louis’ case, Goodell says the task force’s riverfront stadium plan is uncertain. The Missouri Legislature could block payment of bonds necessary to build the facility, the report notes. And the task force asked for $300 million in league stadium funding, $100 million “in excess of the maximum provided under current policy,” the source said, again citing the report.

Goodell said in the report that the Rams have the right to relocate, as a contingent of their lease with the Edward Jones Dome, the source said. The Dome authority, a public body, failed to meet requirements of the lease, the source said, and defaulted.

In addition, Goodell’s report declares that both Los Angeles plans — Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s Inglewood stadium, and the Raiders’ and Chargers’ joint venture in Carson — are “first class stadiums,” the source said. Both can host two teams; both are ready for development now.

And NFL market research supports the conclusion that the L.A. area is capable of supporting two teams, the source continued.

Goodell also notes in the report, the source said, that the league hasn’t approved a franchise relocation in nearly two decades, and continues to place a “high value” on team stability.