For some reason the City of St. Louis refuses to live in reality and it’s costing them, literally. St. Louis has already blown $3 million in taxpayer money, money the taxpayers have made clear they have no desire to pay, on a stadium proposal that the Rams have made equally clear they do not want.
No arguments heard in St. Louis stadium funding case: http://t.co/B9Ha0NALWL via @STLtoday
— Jim Thomas (@jthom1) June 5, 2015
After the Edwards Jones Dome sued St. Louis to stop an earlier stadium vote, St. Louis missed the deadline to get a vote on the ballot in August, so now the earliest the city can get a referendum on a new stadium on the ballot is November. That is, unless they request and get a special election, which will cost even more money. All for a team that has one cleat out the door already.
That August date is important because that’s when the NFL is finally making the call on August 11 on football in Los Angeles and who will be allowed to play there and where. The Rams, the Raiders and the Chargers are all part of the negotiations and you won’t find a single person outside of St. Louis that believes, regardless of what the Raiders and Chargers do, the Rams are heading further west. It’s as done a deal as anything in sports right now.
Which leads me to believe there’s something more nefarious going on here with this stadium plan, namely that St. Louis is looking to steal another NFL football team.
“Steal” is a loaded word and I don’t mean it in its basest sense. I could care less where any NFL team plays. To misquote Jerry Seinfeld, I root for the laundry, not the city. St. Louis? Los Angeles? Toronto? San Antonio? It’s all the same to me. The Rams were originally in Cleveland. They move. It happens.
More land deals to clear way for new #NFL stadium: http://t.co/4ZeeLmeNfH "We are making serious progress." #STLNFL pic.twitter.com/Mx4a73WSIP
— KMOX St. Louis News (@kmoxnews) June 3, 2015
What I mean by using “steal” instead of a word like “land” is that “land” or “get” or “acquire” could all mean that St. Louis could be setting itself up as a location for an expansion team. But we don’t need to make that mistake here because the NFL isn’t expanding any time soon. Of all the crazy ideas put forth over the last couple of offseason about extra points, cameras, instant replay, officials and everything else, nobody is talking about adding another team.
No, if St. Louis wants a team, they’ll come hard for somebody else’s. So who will they go after? That’s really the question now.
In the Los Angeles deal, one team, either the Raiders or the Chargers, will be left out. And the truth is the Chargers are already in legitimate talks with San Diego to stay, so they may bow out after August anyway, regardless of what the NFL owners come up with.
The Raiders? Now they are a real possibility. It would be bizarre for the Raiders to move out of California, but it was just as crazy when the Rams did it in 1995. Oakland is really going to have to work hard to keep the Raiders and if the NFL approves the Carson Stadium deal, they’re gone no matter what.
But if the NFL doesn’t and the Raiders are stuck in Oakland everything changes and St. Louis can swoop in and haul in another west coast team.
https://twitter.com/jeremycady/status/604588829543149569
The next obvious choice is the Jacksonville Jaguars. The irony of that is that it was Jacksonville that cost St. Louis an expansion franchise back in 1994, when they pulled whatever FIFA-like trick they did to get a third football team in Florida when it was barely supporting two at the time. The biggest problem for the Jags moving is their lease with Jacksonville, which would cost $100 million to break, but that comes with a caveat.
If Jags owner Shad Khan could break the lease with no penalties if he can prove it lost money in a single year and was below the NFL’s revenue average in two consecutive years. That probably wouldn’t be difficult to do, but Khan is making no moves to signify that’s his plan. He’s working the draft like a pro and signing free agents like he just bought a new copy of Madden. The Jaguars are trying to get better and put a good product on the team. From the outside it looks like Khan is at least giving the fans in Jacksonville every reason he can, especially with his own wallet, to support and keep the team. At this point, it’s up to them.
When Terry Pegula bought the Buffalo Bills, any chance of that franchise moving was gone. The Cardinals and Buccaneers both have new-ish stadiums and can’t move.
Really, for St. Louis that August owner’s meeting is the end, one way or the other. If Inglewood stadium gets approved, and it will, the Rams are gone. If the Carson stadium gets approved, and it might, the Raiders are gone. There’s no team left for St. Louis to grab.
Save your money, St. Louis. Save your dignity. Stop fighting a battle you can’t win and use the extra time to get into the Kansas City Chiefs because they aren’t going anywhere.
