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ZooeyModeratorSeems like it’ll be the Raiders.
Sure looks like Spanos would be better off
in San DiegoRams and Raiders — room-mates.
Gee, i wonder which one will
be the messy one.w
vI don’t know. Maybe. From the $$ point of view – which apparently is all that matters to anybody – it depends on how much of the revenue stream he gets from either facility. I mean…TV and merchandising are socialized, so the money difference comes from other streams of revenue: parking, advertising in the stadium, and so on. I imagine in LA, Spanos will get a bit more in ticket revenue. Hard to say in advertising, but let’s say he will make a tick more in advertising in LA. All the other stuff is in the details of the negotiation with SK. Parking etc. Problem for Spanos is that he doesn’t have a concrete proposal from San Diego to compare to Stan’s offer.
And I don’t know how nice Stan is going to be. Nobody knows what pressure is put on him from the league. As far as we know, they aren’t telling him he has to share revenue from the stadium naming rights, for example. All we know is that they created an incentive for him to make a deal in order for him to open up the money sluices sooner. If he can hold out for that income until February 2017, there is no reason for him to make much of an offer to the Chargers or Raiders. AFAIK, Stan can find the most expensive lease terms in the league, increase it by 50%, and tell them he owns the parking lot, and so they can have their ticket sales and game day advertising revenue. Everything else is his because he’s paying for all of it. That might not be attractive to Spanos. But it may be a much better deal than that. Who knows?
ZooeyModeratorWhile it seems counter intuitive for the Chargers to move in with the Rams knowing that Mark Davis is ready to pounce on their former market, there are also rumors that there is no shortage of investors who are willing to go in with Spanos to split the megatropolis that is the new stadium in LA. They believe that they are going to be printing money, and if that is the case who cares if you have no real fan base? Vinnie B also believes that if Spanos declines, the Raiders absolutely would move to LA. Thus, the Rams will almost certainly be sharing with someone.
The moratorium on beginning their marketing initiatives is kind of a big deal for the Rams, too. We have heard that they will be heavily into promoting the Rams here in Southern California, but none of that can begin until the second team is situated. So while there is a buzz in Southern California about the NFL returning to LA, until they can really start to promote the team there may be a dead period after the initial excitement. By the way, the web site goes online in an hour to put your name on the waitlist for tix. I am going to be the first person on the list! : )
Isiah 58I don’t understand much of what you said there. I agree that the Rams will be sharing that stadium with either the Chargers or Raiders. A tenant seems inevitable.
I don’t understand “there is no shortage of investors who are willing to go in with Spanos to split the megatropolis that is the new stadium in LA.” AFAIK, ownership of the stadium and the surrounds is not on the table. The 2nd team is going to be a tenant, not a landlord. No? The money printing presses are owned by SK and his Hollywood Park partnership – forgotten its name.
Also – the moratorium is on selling PSLs, suites, and naming rights to the stadium – not on marketing. AFAIK. I haven’t seen anything saying they can’t promote the Rams. I mean – they already have with their public press conference and new logo and the ticket sales that you are signing up for this morning.
ZooeyModeratorThere is KABC 790. They used to be the Dodgers flagship a long time ago, and now they are the Kings flagship. They undoubtedly will have sports talk in their lineup.
January 18, 2016 at 11:45 am in reply to: LA Times starts Rams coverage + LA press conferences #37608ZooeyModeratorAlso being widely discussed is the possibility that if the Chargers move in with the Rams the Raiders will then move to San Diego. One problem: Chargers fans HATE the Raiders and I can’t see any of them converting into Raider fans. Charger fans will drive up to Inglewood to cheer on the L.A. Chargers before they will ever support the San Diego Raiders (which doesn’t sound right at all). True, there are a lot of Raider fans in the L.A. area who would drive down to attend games in San Diego, but…really? 95% of San Diego football fans are Charger fans who, I repeat, HATE the Raiders. I can’t imagine how you can have a “home team” that is utterly despised by the “home fans”.
That kind of strikes me as obvious now that he says it. I never thought of that.
ZooeyModeratorHate all of this.
I don’t understand how the Raiders could go to San Diego if the stadium sucks just as much as the oakland stadium, than why would they move there?
Because San Diego is at least moving whereas the city of Oakland is doing nothing. There is a willingness to build a new stadium in San Diego. There is something on the ballot. IIRC, the problem for Spanos was location. He wanted a stadium in the heart of the city, and San Diego is proposing something near where the Padres play which, I gather, is more peripheral to the city. I dunno, though, because all I know about the San Diego situation is what I picked up by reading about the Rams’ situation.
As for the Raiders, they have the worst situation there is in the NFL, and no money of their own to address it. But they don’t have any concrete prospects to consider yet, just generalities. They kind of have to wait until Spanos makes his decision before their choices clarify.
ZooeyModeratorThe networks want an AFC team in LA.
I don’t think it’s an “if” question, but a “when” question.
ZooeyModeratorThis new Konk-adium project. The one
where all the pictures and do-dads
impressed the owners and convinced them
to screw ole Spanos — well, I’ve seen the Pictures.And nowhere do i see a big curved Horn.
Just seems like they coulda incorporated
a big ole Horn,
spinning off the roof or a big ole horn sculpture.
Ya know.If yer gonna spend a hundred billion dollars,
you’d think there’d be a horn.George Lucas woulda had a horn.
w
vI believe he left it behind, up the ass of St. Louis.
ZooeyModeratorApparently there is some incentive for Stan by having a second team–with advertisers or some such thing, can’t remember what I read.
It has to do with PSL sales. I forget the details but they’re findable.
From and article in the LA Times by Sam Farmer:
To encourage the Rams to make a deal with a second team, the resolution barred the Rams from selling personal seat licenses, suites or naming rights until February 2017 unless another NFL team joins them before then.
The advantage, of course, of selling PSLs and naming rights immediately is that Stan can write the checks for building the stadium with other people’s money. Without that, he is going to have to get loans or liquidate his own stuff for the first year of construction.
ZooeyModeratorWell, i’m not sure i understand humans.
Why would humans ‘want’ to live in LA ?
The smog? The traffic? The murder rate?
The earth quakes?w
v
“New York is something awful, something monstrous.
I like to walk the streets, lost, but I recognize that New York is the world’s greatest lie. New York is Senegal with machines.”
Federico G LorcaWhat?
No matter where you are in LA, you are within a mile of a drive through burger place, a shopping mall, and a cineplex. And drive time is less than an hour.
ZooeyModeratorhe’s better off staying in san diego just to keep another team from moving in. he’ll then have the san diego market as well as part of the orange county market. he’d be dumb to move in with stan.
I tend to agree that having the Raiders take over San Diego is worse for him than having the Raiders in LA. It would be all uphill in LA to get a fan base. In fact, some of the LA residents who have remained Raiders fans would probably stick with the Raiders, especially if they move to San Diego.
But he needs a deal before he locks himself into San Diego, and that could be tough to pull off. I bet he is going to buy himself time to try to do just that, and he won’t move to LA for 2016.
ZooeyModeratorIt’ll end up going down to the wire,
i would think.Frankly, I think I like the Seahawks
more than the Panthers.Wouldnt mind seeing Ariz vs Seattle.
w
vOnly if that wire is a garrote.
I was kind of hoping to see AZ against Seattle, but that isn’t happening, so I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the evisceration of the Seahawks.
ZooeyModeratorYeah, Spanos knew he would be the Clippers or Mets or Jets if he shared LA with the Rams. That was the whole point of hooking up with another team and trying to keep the Rams out. It isn’t that he liked the Carson project better; it’s that he didn’t want the Rams in LA at all.
So now he is in a tough spot. He doesn’t want the Raiders in San Diego, but he doesn’t want the Raiders in LA, either. He’s screwed. He now has to decide if he is better off as the unwanted kid brother in Stanland, and possibly losing a good chunk of his San Diego fan base to the San Diego Raiders, or paint himself in a corner in San Diego while yielding ALL of LA to other teams. He has one year to either get a signed and sealed deal with San Diego, or he is really, really screwed. He has to figure that whatever market he leaves open is going to be filled by the Raiders. Unless he’s lucky.
But the Raiders currently have nothing brewing in Oakland, and I’m pretty sure the Cowboys and Texans both have fans in San Antonio and all of western Texas that they don’t really want to hand over to the Raiders. The Raiders would have to apply for relocation to San Antonio, and they might get approval, and they might not. They probably would, but there is no certainty. It’s much easier for the Raiders to move to LA, and they already have a fan base there, and it wouldn’t require giving up as big a chunk of equity in the team as moving to San Antonio likely would.
So I think Spano has to choose between LA and SD with the assumption that the Raiders take the other spot.
It sucks to be Spanos right now.
ZooeyModeratorWell they need a qb, and either Mannion is that guy or they need to get one.
That’s the reality. And it’s a bit frightening. Because Mannion may not be that guy. And even if he is, he may not be ready next year.
ZooeyModeratorYeah I do think this has been in the plans for a long time. And knowing what he knew may even have played into Fisher’s decision to come to the Rams for all we know. Of course he’ll never say that but I do wonder.
Fisher has roots in LA.
We knew at the time of the interview that the conversation took place. The only thing we didn’t know for sure was what was said i.e. was Fisher willing to go through that again, or did SK promise they weren’t moving. Well, pretty obviously, Fisher knew Kroenke’s intention, and Kroenke knew Fisher was on board. So, yeah, Fisher is not only safe this year, he is safe probably up to the opening of the new stadium. At least.
Now. We need somebody with connections in the real estate business to find out if Jenkins, Johnson, McLeod et al are shopping for houses in the LA area.
Cuz I’m gonna guess that now is a real good time to pack up and resettle for everybody.
Welcome to LA. The first thing you are going to experience is Sticker Shock.
January 17, 2016 at 12:42 pm in reply to: 12 former Rams to coach Stub Hubb Collegiate bowl Jan 23rd. #37535ZooeyModeratorLarry Brooks? Haven’t heard that name in
while.w
vMost underrated DT in league history. John Hannah called him the best DT he ever faced.
Yeah. Well, practically every single player on that defense was a pro bowler.
Lessee if I can do a lineup from memory:
Jack Youngblood
Merlin Olsen
Larry Brooks
Fred Dryer
Isiah Robertson
Jack Reynolds
Jim Youngblood/Carl Ekern ???
Rod Perry
Pat Thomas
Bill Simpson
Dave ElmendorfThere was Brudzinski and Cromwell, too, but I’m not sure who all was on the roster at the same time.
Anyway. Boy. Those were some good defensive years. Tough to stand out when you’re surrounded by teammates like that.
ZooeyModeratorGrits, Grits, Grits. I heard you’ve been banned from so many places, I was beginning to worry you had been banned from the 21st century altogether.
QB, DE, and (gawd help me), a TE.
Now, where the heck is RFL? We haven’t heard from him in all this.
ZooeyModeratorNot much on the internet from that time.
Well, that’s a lot more than I was able to find. The only thing I found was a sentence in an unverifiable website that said that the NFL was worried that the first St. Louis ownership group would possibly sue this second group. I’d say this article substantiates the claim you heard. Looks like they didn’t get the deal done in time for the NFL, and they went with more secure bids elsewhere.
ZooeyModeratorAll of which I take as saying they basically ignored their own relocation guidelines and more or less just jerked St. Louis around on the stadium stuff.
Certainly. Yes. Exactly.
I remember the discussion of relocation guidelines coming up a year ago. I don’t think there were many voices who thought those guidelines would be binding. Pretty much everyone thought the NFL would do whatever it wanted regardless.
ZooeyModeratorI heard this on the radio. kroenke was the reason St. Louis didn’t get an expansion team. He wouldn’t pay the guy who had the stadium lease what he wanted. StL stalls and the Jags are born. I am not sure who was right. But that was bad on somebody. All I remembered was StL blew it.
That’s interesting.
That could be true only if Kroenke had exclusive rights to own the expansion team, or exclusive rights to negotiate the stadium lease. And I can’t see either one of those things being factual.
So I am going to say No Sale on that one. I don’t believe it.
You are not obliged to believe anything.
Well. I’m PREPARED to believe it. But it doesn’t make sense as it stands. Can you explain how Kroenke was the person upon whom depended expansion in St. Louis? Did he win some kind of exclusive bid to own the expansion team?
ZooeyModeratorI think people who are hoping to see SK damaged by financial overreach are deluding themselves. This development is going to be thousands of money-generating units that it will be staggering. I bet that if the Rams play in front of a half-empty stadium every week, Stan will still be in the black. There are residential units, business suites, Hotel suites, retail and restaurant suites, a theatre, and goodness knows, all writing rent/lease checks to SK every month for the rest of eternity. Plus Super Bowls, Final Fours, Olympics, World Cup, geezus the cash will flow like a river in the rainy season. The fortunes of the Rams are almost irrelevant. This is an Empire.
ZooeyModeratorand have a less reliable recollection that the stadium committee received updates sometime after that.
I am sorry to be in a (minor) controversy where I can’t hold up my end. I can’t bring myself, right now, to dissect the details. But, at least what I was trying to say was, I read somewhere that the material the committee received was not shared in the owners meeting—only Goodell’s reaction to that material was…
What I do stand by is the idea that making this all about product growth is not inevitable, that’s a choice. The league chose to live with a paradox in which the 2 teams that need updated venues got left out (though that’s murkier with the Chargers) and the 1 team whose community was actively doing something got to move. They chose “produce growth” over community. And I don’t think that choice is defensible as “inevitable.” I mean yeah sure this current group of owners think that way, but, that’s not a law of physics. It IS possible to view the whole thing differently, and see community as mattering more.
Well, what I know is that there was a smaller meeting the week before the owners’ meeting when we saw that document of the Rams’ argument for moving. I don’t remember who all was there. I think Davis, Spanos, Kroenke, Goodell, and one of the committees, but I don’t remember which one. LA relocation committee, I suppose.
The interesting thing about that was that a couple of days after that meeting – and SK was taking some heat for torching St. Louis – Goodell came out and said the St. Louis plan was not sufficient. At the time, and certainly in retrospect, that appeared to be that. And furthermore, I think it was the Rams’ proposal that made it clear that SK never had been going rogue. Remember in the early days, we were wondering just how much of this SK was doing on his own i.e. without league’s knowledge or approval, but it is evident the league was aware of his intentions all along, and kept abreast of the purchase of the property, and all the political negotiations with Inglewood.
I remember first seeing the stadium proposal – which was followed hastily by the Carson proposal – and saying back then that there was no way the league was going to try to stop SK. His project was just Too Fucking Sexy. And he had all the financing to do it, so no hassles with bonds etc., and he soon got the political/environmental clearance. I just couldn’t see how SK would have done that without communicating to Goodell and other owners, and I couldn’t believe they would turn down an NFL campus. I mean…Carson was just a stadium. A nice stadium, but that’s all it was. That’s all St. Louis was.
So the only question that ever made me back off my certainty that the Rams would move to LA was, “Is there enough ‘soul’ among the owners to turn this project down?” The issue was twofold. One of personality preference and relationships with Spanos, and the other was the stadium effort that Peacock put together. But I never thought Peacock’s proposal was going to be strong enough because it was just a stadium, and it required money from Kroenke and the NFL. Kroenke is rich enough to pay cash for his own Lamborghini, and St. Louis is offering him a BMW that he is going to have to partially pay for. I just always thought that was a non-starter. Kroenke can afford the Lamborghini, and has already done the shopping. He isn’t going to be attracted to the BMW that he has to pay a big down-payment on, and then pay a lease on for the next 20 years. (It’s interesting that a third issue, that of the greater NEED for a stadium solution, never really got much traction).
So we heard that SK wasn’t liked, and that Spanos IS liked, and that was always just stated as a fact, and I think everybody went along with that because SK doesn’t talk to the media, and the public drank that up willingly, but I never saw a single thing that actually substantiated that claim. The reporters don’t like him because he doesn’t talk to them. The fans don’t like him because he doesn’t talk to the reporters, or to Peacock, and so on. But there really was only rumor that his co-owners didn’t like him. That was fed a bit by LaConfora (whose reporting I grew to be skeptical of over time) who reported several times that the Carson project was favored by the owners. That made no sense. He didn’t report that the NFL thought the Raiders and Chargers had a bigger need, and that there was talk of respect for the St. Louis community. That was never there. Instead, the reports were that the owners preferred the Carson site and stadium proposal. Which really made no sense whatsoever, unless one interpreted that as “we like Spanos a lot better than Stan, but we can’t say that out loud.”
In any event, I never thought – even if all that was true about the popularity contest – that it would matter. Neither proposal had a clear 75%, so it seemed inevitably that it was going to come down to something else. And the only thing that it COULD come down to was “Community Loyalty and Owners’ Needs” on the one hand versus “Shovel-ready Versailles.”
So. Yeah. They chose product growth over community. It didn’t have to be that way. But in retrospect, I don’t know why I doubted momentarily a few weeks ago that they would choose community. I think the only thing that nourished the possibility that they would choose community was this erroneous assumption that Kroenke was doing this as a maverick, and telling the NFL about it the same time it we found out through the media. But they knew all along what Kroenke was doing, told him to go ahead and explore that option, and the way it played out was more-or-less inevitable given that Kroenke’s development plan held MUCH greater appeal than the other plans. Had Spanos/Davis been able to put together a rival project to Inglewood, it might have turned out differently. But it wasn’t going to turn out differently without someone else coming up with a Megaplex Football Vatican.
ZooeyModeratorAFAIK all the plans were shown to the owners on more than one occasion. All three made presentations at the October meeting for sure. Then the meeting this week started with the Raiders, Rams, and Chargers making their pitches. So I don’t know what the hell zn is talking about there.
You could be right. I just know I was echoing something I read. This may turn out to be a semantics thing, I don’t know. I will say this. I deliberately did not keep up with the details on the move controversies. Usually when I address an issue, I really research it, or at least I look things up. On this, though, I have only picked up bits and pieces. Out there, on different boards, the relocation wars involved a lot of back and forth over minutia, the way board wars do, and I just could not read those. I am not really in a position to make detailed judgments about what is being said. So at the moment I am not able to debate it the way I can on issues where I deliberately read widely to be informed. Maybe that will change, maybe it won’t. Either way, what you say as a rejoinder to that one statement by me makes sense.
Okay, then. I thought you knew something I don’t, but it seems I followed this story more closely than you did, and I distinctly remember stadium presentations to all of the owners in October, and have a less reliable recollection that the stadium committee received updates sometime after that.
ZooeyModeratorI heard this on the radio. kroenke was the reason St. Louis didn’t get an expansion team. He wouldn’t pay the guy who had the stadium lease what he wanted. StL stalls and the Jags are born. I am not sure who was right. But that was bad on somebody. All I remembered was StL blew it.
That’s interesting.
That could be true only if Kroenke had exclusive rights to own the expansion team, or exclusive rights to negotiate the stadium lease. And I can’t see either one of those things being factual.
So I am going to say No Sale on that one. I don’t believe it.
ZooeyModeratorI heard this on the radio. kroenke was the reason St. Louis didn’t get an expansion team. He wouldn’t pay the guy who had the stadium lease what he wanted. StL stalls and the Jags are born. I am not sure who was right. But that was bad on somebody. All I remembered was StL blew it.
That’s interesting.
That could be true only if Kroenke had exclusive rights to own the expansion team, or exclusive rights to negotiate the stadium lease. And I can’t see either one of those things being factual.
So I am going to say No Sale on that one. I don’t believe it.
ZooeyModeratorwhy would the owners never even ask to look at the carson and st louis plans? not disagreeing or anything. i find it odd that they would just take goodell’s word on that.
I saw that zn said that, and I don’t know what he is talking about. I thought that was an odd thing to say, but I was too busy at the time to write a post and question it, and I forgot about it later.
AFAIK all the plans were shown to the owners on more than one occasion. All three made presentations at the October meeting for sure. Then the meeting this week started with the Raiders, Rams, and Chargers making their pitches. So I don’t know what the hell zn is talking about there.
ZooeyModeratorThey are interviewing “passing game co-ordinators” ?
I wonder if that will lead to any changes
in the passing approach.w
vI like Boras and the offense did seem to respond to him somewhat. But part of me wonders why give the OC position to someone who needs a passing game coordinator? Maybe they should hire an experienced coordinator with an established track record and let Boras apprentice at his side.
Does not seem to bode well, does it? I mean…what OC needs help with the passing game? That means Boras is in charge of giving the ball to Gurley? WTF? I could do that.
ZooeyModeratorI became a Rams fan in the name of proving that St. Louis was a good football town.
You know what? I was right.–Mike
Yeah. You are right. St. Louis deserves better.
I am sorry for all this.
I never spoke up in all the years, and since this is my last chance, I want to tell you that I always looked forward to your reports. Your insight was brilliant, and I loved your use of language and writing style. I will greatly miss you.
Thank you for making the Rams ride as entertaining as it was.
January 15, 2016 at 6:20 am in reply to: The last time the NFL left St. Louis compared to now #37344ZooeyModeratorWell, Dak, I am greatly sorry for your despair, if that’s the right word. I’ve been reading the distress of St. Louis fans this week, and feeling the pain of your pain. We all saw this possibility coming, and now suddenly, here we are. I’ve been more or less silent since the decision because I just know there isn’t really anything that I can say about it. For my own selfish reasons, I wish I had some kind of perspective I could offer that you would find useful, you in particular because we have been through some transformative times together, and I consider you an important friend with commonalities outside the NFL that matter more than the NFL connection. I will miss your presence, and hope you do find yourself on the other board at least, even if you can’t find any interest in the Rams fan part of it.
ZooeyModeratorSpanos and Davis got shafted big time, too.
I don’t see how they got shafted. They lost.
Kroenke is the one who made LA happen. For 35 years, various factions have tried to build a stadium in LA and have undermined each other politically, and failed to get it done. Kroenke did it. Without public money. Just went in with his billions, bought the land, and did it himself. It was the fact that Kroenke had the first REAL plan to build a stadium in LA that made Spanos get off his ass and desperately do something. That dude had as much time as Kroenke had to get his shit together, and he didn’t do it. Those guys didn’t get screwed. They just failed in their business maneuver.
ZooeyModeratorThey will struggle to support one team–much less two.
Really, Spanos had kind of locked himself into LA. He had no choice but to put his head down and go crawling to SK.
I sort of agree.
I think he could still make something happen in San Diego. There is a willingness down there to do something, and a ballot coming up. Problem is now, if he works with San Diego, the Raiders can go there.
What’s worse? Living in Kroenke’s spare bedroom, or staying in San Diego and having your bowl-cut, red-headed cousin live in the spare bedroom?
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