Zooey wrote:

I dunno about the law, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it just got tossed out as “frivolous,” and never saw a courtroom.

Most likely, yes.

I mean, have you
ever heard of anyone suing over a team-move
and winning anything?

The Lawyers for the plaintiffs
will milk it and make some money
and get a lot of pub in St.Louis though.

Who knows though. It would be fun
to see a transcript of a deposition
of Stan Kronky. That would be very
inter esting. Doubt if it gets
that far though.

w
v

zn wrote:

Relocating sports teams should pay back public funds, McCaskill says

David Hunn

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/relocating-sports-teams-should-pay-back-public-funds-mccaskill-says/article_3e3d185b-708e-58ea-82a9-cbb98183784c.html

ST. LOUIS • Sen. Claire McCaskill, exasperated by the imminent relocation of the St. Louis Rams, has begun drafting a bill to claw back public dollars from professional sports teams that prematurely leave their hometowns.

McCaskill, a Democrat, said Sen. Roy Blunt has expressed interest in cosponsoring the bill.

Blunt, the state’s Republican senator, could not immediately be reached for comment. He told reporters earlier in the day that “not every problem is a federal problem.” Still, he said he was “certainly open” to talking about other ideas.

McCaskill has been pressuring the National Football League over the past year to keep the Rams in St. Louis. She spoke with Commissioner Roger Goodell the night before Tuesday’s NFL owners vote.

“St. Louis stepped up, in good faith,” she told the Post-Dispatch on Wednesday. She called plans to spend $400 million in local and state tax dollars on a $1.1 billion St. Louis riverfront stadium a “massive” public investment, and the region’s second, following construction of the Edward Jones Dome itself.

But the NFL instead approved Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s request to move the Rams back to Los Angeles.

“I’m confident at this point that the NFL used excuses to turn down our stadium project,” she said.

“There’s no question in my mind that, years ago, Stan Kroenke made up his mind he was going to L.A.”

He worked methodically, and, at some points “maniacally,” to get there, she said. Kroenke’s relocation proposal to the league, which called St. Louis a “struggling” city, incapable of supporting three professional sports teams, “purposely burned the bridge with St. Louis,” she continued. He knew it would infuriate St. Louis fans.

“The notion that we can’t support an NFL team is laughable,” McCaskill said, “just laughable.”

She called the NFL’s process a “very smelly onion,” and the years spent planning the new St. Louis stadium a waste.

“It appears to me this was a useless exercise,” she said.

Senators have a history in demanding accountability from the NFL. When the Bidwill family was threatening to move the St. Louis Cardinals football team to Phoenix, for instance, Missouri Senators Jack Danforth and Thomas Eagleton pushed a bill to mandate league relocation procedures. The bill made it out of committee, but before it could get a vote on the floor, the NFL adopted its own set of relocation guidelines, using very similar language, McCaskill noted.

Her office is in the early stages of drafting legislation. Staffers said the goal is to make sure communities are treated fairly if a sports team that benefits from public funds — such as playing in a publicly financed stadium — decides to move to another community.

McCaskill said she’s not being vindictive. “I have a chance to make sure no other community will get treated like St. Louis,” she said. “The heart of the NFL isn’t just in the mega media markets.”

Others are already examining more exactly how Kroenke won NFL approval to leave Missouri, she said. “There’s a lot of things we have to take a look at,” she said.

McCaskill hinted that regional leaders may be considering a suit against the NFL. If the NFL didn’t comply with its own relocation guidelines, her staff later clarified, it is possible anti-trust laws were violated.

If so, McCaskill said, “I think that’s a real problem for the NFL, legally.”

A new team in St. Louis, of course, would ease the sting, McCaskill said.

There is some hope, she suggested, that the Oakland Raiders might move to St. Louis. Owner Mark Davis has said several times he’s looking elsewhere.

The quirky owner stopped briefly to talk to the Post-Dispatch on Wednesday morning in Houston, site of Tuesday’s owners meeting. He confirmed he was interested in other cities.

But St. Louis? “Absolutely not,” he said.

—————————————

“…A new team in St. Louis, of course, would ease the sting, McCaskill said.
There is some hope, she suggested, that the Oakland Raiders might move to St. Louis. Owner Mark Davis has said several times he’s looking elsewhere….”

So, the politician is all concerned about the Fans, blah blah blah —
but if the Oakland fans get screwed who cares. I see.

w
v

http://www.rams-news.com/jack-youngblood-talks-rams-moving-los-angles-more-video/

sdram wrote:

wv wrote:

Well, I agree totally: fuck the Corporate-nfl.
Fuck the Billionaire-club.

But i hope Michael rejoins the
conversation again. He would
be missed.

w
v

I agree. The fans like Mike Franke and all of the Ram and football fans I read/met/conversed with from St Louis made the Rams leaving LA in 1994/1995 palatable for me. but, they all need to deal with this tragic event in their own way. Mike invested a lot of himself each season in the Rams. Interacting with the Rams fans from St Louis was the best thing about the Rams moving to St Louis. I was heart broken and disgusted when the LA to St Louis move happened as I’m sure many of the St Louis fans are today. The fans have little or no control over the level of greed that truly defines the NFL and all pro sports. There is little or no loyalty by any of them – owners, coaches, and players to anything other than profit.

Yup. That’s basically what Carey Davis said in a podcast
on espn.

w
v

I’ll be seeing it next week,
probably.

w
v

Dak wrote:

That was worth a listen. Money over Loyalty.

Yes.

Or Loyalty TO money.

As fans, maybe its good to
be disillusioned sometimes. Ya know.
To get a good look behind the curtain.
It helps us figure out what exactly
we are loyal TO. The horns?, The Players?,
The League? The Owner? The Coach? Organization? The ‘city’?
(what does it mean to be loyal to a ‘city’ ?)

I dunno.

Does St.Louis build a stadium now anyway?
w
v

The Andrew Brandt audio is good.
http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=14560893&s=espn

Pay attention to the part that starts about 1 minute 20 seconds into it.
Brandt says Jerry Jones and the “money guys” Ie, Snyder, Jeff Lurie, Woody Johnson, etc — “took over the room”.

The committee that had vote 5 to 1, otoh,
had guys like Rooney on it.

w
v

• This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by wv.

Agamemnon wrote:

He’s why they moved.

A lot of people don’t
know that.

w
v

Herzog wrote:

…I can’t speak.

I’m not sure at which point I fell in love with this team. I wish I hadn’t.

Well, lemme just ask…
How many games did you actually attend though Herzog?
Wasn’t your fan-experience basically
TV, Internet, Message-Boards ?

You still have that, just like zn, and
Nittany and PaRam, and Snowman, etc, etc.

Agree with you totally on the Kronky thing,
though. Yup. He screwed lotsa fans. Same as Georgia.
That aint the “Rams” though — thats Kronky.
And Georgia.

w
v

I would ‘think’ (just guessing) that the move
will be good for the Rams ‘psychologically’.
I mean they have this decade-long streak
of losing and mediocrity.

What better way to begin a New chapter
than by…beginning a new chapter. Ya know.
New look, new location, new culture, new vibe.
Just seems like if i were a coach,
I’d say the move was a ‘positive’ thing.

Otoh, the ole Rams were often criticized
for not being able to go east and play
in the cold weather. The thought
was that they got a little ‘soft’
in Hollywood. California never seemed
to hurt the 49ers though. So…we’ll see.

w
v

As far as NFL alignment goes, the Rams’ move makes make great geographical sense. The NFC West will now presumable be comprised of Seattle, San Francisco, Arizona and the Los Angeles Rams, a perfect top-to-bottom West Coast (and slightly inland) group. If the Chargers move, the AFC West would consist of Oakland (for now), Denver, Kansas City and the Los Angeles Chargers. The franchises, they are a-changin’.
—————————-

“Los Angeles Chargers” — for some reason, I hadn’t
thought about the fact the Chargers would not be
called the San Diego Chargers anymore.

LA Rams and LA Chargers.

How weird.

So for two or three years it will be
the old Coliseum ?
Not a great home-field advantage.
The sound wont be intimidating.
Natural grass though.

w
v

• This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by wv.

zn wrote:

The real pertinent issue, for me, is all the St. Louis fans we will lose in the process. So I won’t be sitting there in the chat room feeling warm and glowy because they are in LA. Instead, I will be noticing and lamenting the missing members of our own community. Those guys mean far more to me than sunny home games in winter.

—————————

Sure. True. But to state the obvious,
the St.Louis fans are perfectly welcome on
the Nomad-Train, with so many of us,
Non-locals.

Nomad life is good. No parking hassles.
No need to pay Kronky’s ticket-prices.
No need to sit behind a guy with a
giant watermelon on his head,
reading Shakespeare.(probably zooey)

Also, I am not sure the LA thing will be
bad for the team. They went to a Super Bowl
in 79 and had plenty of near-misses in LA.
So they can do fine, even with all the
surrounding fan-distractions.

Anywayz….strange times. kinda surreal.
Kronky fires St.Louis instead of Fisher.
It’ll take some time to process all this.

w
v

Somewhere,
Grits is smiling.

w
v