St. Louis Magazine co-owner Ray Hartmann is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs Thursdays at 7 p.m. He is also the author of the monthly column Think Again.
via nationalcarrentalfield.com
Please, somebody, tell me I read this wrong. This cannot really be happening.
The National Football League is not actually going to hold “public town hall” meetings in St. Louis, San Diego, and Oakland next week about the future of the league in Los Angeles. The league would never act so cynically as to put the following words in print:
“The purpose of these hearings is to provide an opportunity for fans and others in the community to ask questions and express their views directly to the NFL before any decisions are made about potential relocation of a club or clubs from a current market. Members of Commissioner Goodell’s executive staff will be in attendance to listen to comments and answer questions from the audience.”
No, really. Somebody must have leaked a Saturday Night Live script making fun of the NFL’s torturous process of returning to the Los Angeles market. Maybe the comics decided to parody the process as a mini-series kicked off with a scene showing a guy in a suit (a Goldman Sachs refugee, no less) ducking screams, insults, and eggs from a bunch of sobbing locals wearing their team jerseys.
Even the NFL wouldn’t stoop so low in real life as to put thousands of people in three cities through some after-the-fact, empty charade on the pretense that they’re getting fans' “views.” Would they?
After months and months of ignoring the public—or in St. Louis’ case, conducting an all-out war to avoid public input and processes at all cost—we’re now told that NFL executives want to hear what you, the fan, thinks. Pay no attention to all of those billionaire owners and their armies of lawyers and accountants and architects and economists; the real decision about which team or teams gets to L.A. hinges upon Joe Fan.
If acting disingenuously were a sport, this would be its Super Bowl.
See Also: St. Louis NFL Stadium Plan Could Cost Taxpayers Millions More Than Anticipated
I can see it now. After all these hearings, NFL Vice President Eric Grubman goes on 60 Minutes, weeping, and tells Anderson Cooper, “You know, the stage was all set for Stan Kroenke to move the Rams to Inglewood. He had by far the best stadium deal for us. We were just down to the details of how to deal with the Chargers and Raiders, and then at the Peabody Opera House, a wonderful man named Joe Schmendowski stood up with his small two grandchildren and changed the game.
“Joe was crying. His little grandkids were bawling. They were so sad at the thought of losing their team. And then the youngest one—I think her name was Emma—said something into the microphone that I’ll never forget. She said, “Please, mister, do the right thing. I don’t think Gramps will make it if you let our team move. Please, mister, do the right thing and keep our Rams in St. Louis. Think of our Gramps.”
“And I lost it,” Grubman continued. “Right then, I realized that it would be a terrible mistake to let Kroenke do this terrible thing to Emma and Gramps. And you know what? I went back home, I set up a meeting with Kroenke, and he had the same reaction. He and I cried and prayed together.
“And Stan Kroenke got off his knees, reached his hands upward to the sky, and said ‘I can’t move this team. I can’t do this to Emma and Gramps. I’m staying in St. Louis forever. And I’ll build the gosh-darned thing with my own money. I’m a changed man.'”
And we all lived happily ever after.
This scenario is no more absurd than the notion that fan input has any meaning whatsoever to the NFL near the end of a complex process of relocating to Los Angeles. On a scale of 1 to 100, the viewpoints of local fan bases are a 0 and it's a measure of the NFL's cynicism that it would waste its customers' time—and falsely raise their hope—with these phony "public town halls."
Then again, maybe they'll make an exception for us. After all, the NFL has a long history of loving St. Louis like no other region. Oh sure, they did vote to let owner Bill Bidwill move the Big Red to Phoenix in the '80s, and they did snub St. Louis for two much-smaller markets (Charlotte and Jacksonville) in the 1993 expansion process. And yes, they voted 22–4 against allowing Rams owners Georgia Frontiere to move the team here from L.A. And even after we bribed them with millions in PSL dollars and threatened a lawsuit, they approved her move with the bare minimum of needed votes. And yes, our city sued the league after that. And yes, the Rams have ranked near the bottom of the league in attendance, revenues, and franchise value. And yes, their recent market survey suggested there was little growth potential for an NFL team. And yes, they scolded our stadium backers like tardy schoolchildren just last month for not having offered up corporate welfare at the NFL’s demanded pace.
Don’t pay attention to any of that. They’re coming to St. Louis because they love us and they care about us and they want to consider our input in making this important decision. This isn’t about business. It’s about love.
Just ask them Tuesday.
