For a few years now, I’ve been warning that all signs pointed to the likelihood that the St. Louis Rams would bolt out of town at the earliest opportunity. This earned me the distinction of having been dubbed the original Chicken Little by esteemed St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Bernie Miklasz.
I like Miklasz and his column and enjoyed the attention, albeit without getting specifically named by him. I’ve also enjoyed the banter with members of the local sports media who, noting my lack of sports credentials (reasonably enough), have rolled their eyes because I didn’t understand the loyalty of Rams owner Stan Kroenke or the realities that the NFL is bullish on St. Louis and cynical about Los Angeles.
But now the story has “evolved” to the point where just about everyone agrees the Rams seem interested in moving to L.A. and that the NFL wants a team or two to play there. So it appears I’m no longer to be discarded as an uninformed village idiot. It turns out, I was a somewhat informed one. For now, no deal is done, at least not one we know about. We’ll probably know nothing definitive until February at the earliest.
That said, the sky appears to be falling. Here are 20 tidbits to ponder as we await the end of the world as we know it in St. Louis.
1. Ranking last in NFL franchise values is not good. According to Forbes, the Rams had a net worth of $930 million in August, a whopping 35 percent below the league average of $1.43 billion. On the other end of the spectrum, the Dallas Cowboys’ net worth is an estimated $3.2 billion, more than triple the Rams’ value. This is probably how Kroenke keeps score in his multibillionaire sports-baron world.
2. The Rams’ value would skyrocket if the team moved to L.A. Some estimates suggest the team’s value would more than double, rising to around the same level as New York franchises, at least $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion. NFL teams share equally in the massive TV revenue pie, but what separates them in value is the variance in corporate support in the form of luxury suites, sponsorships, stadium advertising, and related spending. Los Angeles has well-heeled, ego-driven corporate spenders in spades.
3. Corporate funny money is the mother’s milk of today’s pro sports franchises. In recent decades, St. Louis has morphed from a headquarters town to an outpost. Today’s corporate leaders show nowhere near the same passion for sports spending as their predecessors. It’s a stretch to think this corporate base can support three pro sports teams, especially if one is the St. Louis National Baseball Club, which has an enormous footprint for a market of this size.
4. Kroenke is a free agent. The Rams’ freedom was officially sealed when the team won an arbitration case that allowed it to opt out of its lease at the end of this season. The team now has the best of both worlds: the choice to play year-to-year on one of the cheapest NFL leases or leave at the drop of a helmet for whatever city offers a better long-term deal.
5. Kroenke is not our friend. The man doesn’t live here and personally shuns the local corporate community, despite its efforts to reach out to him. He seldom visits, even to attend his team’s games. He hasn’t publicly spoken since nearly three years ago, when he made a rare appearance to introduce Jeff Fisher as his new coach. Admittedly, he did permit himself a moment of sentimentality, uttering this memorable line: “Contrary to a lot of reports, I haven’t taken a lot of jack out of the market; I have put a lot of jack into the market.” Tissue, please.
6. It would help if Kroenke were our friend. Unlike Kroenke, fellow billionaires Paul Allen and Arthur Blank, who own the Seattle Seahawks and Atlanta Falcons, respectively, are rooted in their communities and widely regarded as civic icons, guardians, and philanthropists. Moving their franchises would be out of the question. They’re not alone. Do you think the Rooney family would move the Pittsburgh Steelers?
7. A real friend might even overlook franchise value. Shuffle to Buffalo, N.Y., where billionaire Terry Pegula recently bought the NFL’s Bills, ranked just one notch above the Rams at No. 31 in value. But Pegula has a wide array of major investments in Buffalo, including the NHL’s Sabres. When announcing the purchase, he broke down in tears, saying, “We all just bought a team. Our team: the Buffalo Bills.” He didn’t mention putting jack in the market—or moving.
8. It probably wasn’t an impulse buy when Kroenke purchased enough land for an NFL stadium in L.A. last year. There’s no guarantee his purchase of 60 acres of prime real estate will ultimately be used for that purpose. But he has made no such acquisition in St. Louis. He owns a nice place in Malibu, California, and a few years ago, he unsuccessfully bid big bucks on the Los Angeles Dodgers. He seems to like L.A. See also points 1 through 7.
9. St. Louis no longer has a suitable stadium. For now, L.A. has the same problem. But 20 years ago, we had what was considered a state-of-the-art facility—which L.A. didn’t—and now it’s obsolete. The bigger question is which city has the resources to fill a stadium’s suites and advertising moments.
10. Building a billion-dollar stadium is extremely difficult when one has hardly any money. The local sports media has recently found some excitement in rumors that local officials are exploring the idea of an open-air stadium near downtown. But that was celebrated without even a hint of where the requisite hundreds of millions of dollars might come from. I haven’t any idea. From taxpayers? Really? Come on.
11. The L.A. stadium problem isn’t quite the same as ours. It’s pretty much a given that NFL teams have to put a fair amount of their own money into new stadiums, if for no other reason than to trigger the league’s loan programs to access a couple hundred million dollars more. If you are Kroenke, in which market would you prefer to invest your “jack”? See the reference to franchise values—or to Kroenke’s land purchase.
12. NFL owners are probably finished using Los Angeles for leverage. For two decades, the NFL enjoyed extracting stadium deals by using the vacant L.A. market as a negotiating hammer. In 2012, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell delivered an offer to Minnesota legislators that they couldn’t refuse when it appeared the state might waver on coughing up millions for a new stadium. But now, with tight budgets and angry taxpayers, those days seem to have run their course.
13. The Rams played in L.A. for longer than the Rams and Big Red played here combined. Contrary to what one might read in St. Louis, there’s quite a residual fan base from the team’s 49-year run in L.A. That matters.
14. It’s hard to claim the moral high ground by proclaiming your love for a team that you stole from another city. Normally, one of the strongest arguments against moving a franchise is to remind the league of its promise to show loyalty to existing markets. But just two decades removed from luring another city’s team with a quarter of a billion dollars? And suing the league in the process? And having a bitter ex–St. Louis owner vote against you twice on the subject? Not so much.
15. It’s hard to make your case as a vital NFL city when you’re near the bottom of the league in attendance for several years running. This is unfair, of course, to Rams fans, in light of the team’s awful decade of incompetence. But that wouldn’t keep the Rams from using poor attendance as a rationalization for moving. Remember, these NFL owners receive their cut of the gargantuan TV pie whether their teams go 16–0 or 0–16. As the saying goes, “Winning isn’t everything. Making money is the only thing.”
16. The Rams have been wonderful corporate citizens, but don’t let that fool you. Executive vice president of football operations and chief operating officer Kevin Demoff has been exemplary (in contrast to his boss) in working tirelessly for good causes in the community. And he hasn’t uttered a discouraging word about the team’s future here. But this very organization also played hardball to opt out of the stadium lease. And showing the NFL that you’ve done everything possible to make a team work in your “home” city is a prerequisite for leaving it.
17. Don’t forget that the NFL is a cartel. These people may compete on the field, but as monopolists, they are partners. And in their lust to transfer public wealth to private hands in the form of lucrative stadium deals and the like, they are brothers. At the end of the day, if replacing St. Louis with L.A. would add millions in new revenue and TV and digital audiences to their collective national business, they’re playing on the same team.
18. Existing local leaders shouldn’t be blamed for this mess. Some in the local sports press tend to lash out at local officials—be they politicians or convention-and-tourism officials—as if they should have some magical solution to the problems posed by the 17 points above. They don’t. I’m hardly an apologist for these people, but there’s very little they can do.
19. Don’t waste time venting about past leadership, either. Many of the key players who negotiated for St. Louis to bring the Rams here were wonderful people who have passed away. It can be argued that they got crushed in those negotiations, but they did their best, and St. Louis did get a Super Bowl out of the deal. I’m sure they wouldn’t have dreamed that the Rams might leave at the 20-year mark. They didn’t have a crystal ball.
20. If the sky falls, wipe off the pieces and move on. Losing another NFL team would be really unpleasant for St. Louis, but in the big picture, much worse things have happened. Losing the team would have minor economic consequence, at worst. If I’m wrong and the Rams stay forever, I’d be delighted. If not, realize it was out of our hands. And get over it.
SLM co-owner is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs Thursdays at 7 p.m.
