Jump to content

OT: St. Louis professional sports discussion (2015)


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 209
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Where did you get this? A 6 member committee recommended the Carson project but I haven't seen an approval.

That is what I saw. The thinking is that if the vote was 5-1, then Kroenke would have to have every single other owner not on that committee to go with his plan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think he's known for a long time he would have to partner with the Chargers to get Inglewood. My main hope at this point is that Spanos sticks to his guns one way or another. Kroenke could still go rogue and try to build his stadium without league approval or even move to Toronto, but Spanos can at least kill approval of the Inglewood project. Allowing the same guy to get two windfalls in the span of 20 years by playing the same two cities off against each other for the same team just seems like a bit much for the other owners to allow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rams to Inglewood alone is off the ballot but it got 21 out of 24 required votes, according to Kilcoyne.

Well that would seem to signal the end, now Spanos just needs to break from the Raiders and join Kroenke or seemingly get left out completely. It just sucks to see Kroenke essentially get his way. This is where the final deal gets cut and Kroenke and Spanos partner up. I think this is where most saw this going, it just took a lot of time to get there. Spanos had no shot partnered up with Davis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well that would seem to signal the end, now Spanos just needs to break from the Raiders and join Kroenke or seemingly get left out completely. It just sucks to see Kroenke essentially get his way. This is where the final deal gets cut and Kroenke and Spanos partner up. I think this is where most saw this going, it just took a lot of time to get there. Spanos had no shot partnered up with Davis.

Reading the tea leaves from California, Northern and Southern, and St. Louis, my prediction for a while has been Rams and Chargers to LA (Inglewood) with the Raiders staying in Oakland and getting a big de facto subsidy from the NFL. There is reportedly strong opposition within the NFL owners to letting the Raiders back to LA (even though the Raiders are said to have the most fans in LA of the 3 teams).

With the NFL LA Opportunities Committee reportedly meeting with Rams, Chargers, and Raiders, the owners are trying to get a settlement, which involves Kroenke and/or the NFL yielding concessions to Spanos (Chargers) and benefits ($$$) to Mark Davis (Raiders).

The bottom line is Kroenke wants to move to LA and has the most money, Spanos is perceived as a good soldier for the NFL, claims to have battled San Diego for 14 years, and Mark Davis, who lives in the enclave of Piedmont, surrounded by the City of Oakland, wants to stay in Oakland.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And if the Raiders are left in Oakland, that means the team with the most POS stadium is the one forced to stay where they are. Say what you want about the EJ Dome, but there have never been standing pools of raw sewage a foot deep in there.

I haven't been to Qualcomm Stadium in years, but have been told it has not been maintained in the best of shape. It was fine when I was there some time ago, a nice stadium. The San Diego fans have supported the Chargers for a long time, in big attendance numbers, and do not deserve this at all.

I have been an Oakland Raiders season ticket holder since the Raiders returned in 1995. The Oakland Coliseum has issues, but is not the dump it is portrayed. Yes, there have been a couple of well publicized sewage issues. But those are rare exceptions, not the rule. Part of the Coliseum sits below the water table. My seats are 20 yard line, 3rd level seats on the Coliseum Bowl side (Raiders' sideline). I get a good view of the action. I have also been a guest in a Coliseum luxury box, which are just fine, along with the Clubs on each side of the field. The Coliseum is good enough for only 10 NFL football games, only 8 of which count.

Oakland was the one city that stood up this time to the NFL Cartel- no taxpayers money for a new stadium. Oakland benefits from fortuitous circumstances this time, while still under the threat of relocation. But the Oakland Raiders belong in Oakland. Most of all, the Raiders' owner is the one of the three who does not want to move.

Kroenke forced Spanos' hand by Kroenke's move on LA. Without LA, Spanos loses his leverage over San Diego. The situation is fluid, but I could still see the Chargers staying in San Diego, as Spanos has been leery of partnering as second fiddle with Kroenke.

I was still at SLU when St. Louis divorced itself from Bidwill's Football Cardinals. I was young then, as some would say out here, green behind the ears. But I did not agree with the way St. Louis turned on its own team, irrespective of how bad the Big Red were then. The Bidwillian Big Red were incompetent, but never boring. St. Louis made the judgment that it would not win with Bidwill. The rest is history. Now the Big Red, run by Bidwill's son, a SLU graduate, are one of the best teams in the NFL.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

St. Louis still has one more championship than the Cardinals franchise has had over its entire history, so I don't feel too bad about the idea that we couldn't win with Bidwill. But I will agree that we probably should have made a better effort to keep the Cardinals when we had a chance, given the way the leadership eventually bent over for the Rams.

I've never been to the Oakland Coliseum, but I've been to the EJ Dome. And while it's outdated, it is very hard for me to buy the idea that it is somehow in worse shape than a stadium that opened the same year as Busch II and hasn't been substantially updated since the year the EJ Dome opened. That's before even getting into the issues with the water table, sewage pools, and tarp.

At the end of the day the Rams can leave, but they can't blame St. Louis or its fans with a straight face. Not only did the Governor and BoA try to push through a very politically unpopular proposal to keep them here, but they have drawn a better average attendance over the past decade than the LA Rams did from 1984-1994, in spite of a worse product on the field. Tough to ask for too much more out of a city than that, I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is no question the Edward Jones Dome is a superior venue to the Oakland Coliseum. I've been to both, and there is no question there.

The Coliseum was upgraded for football in 1996 after the Raiders returned, with the construction of the new East Side, known as Mt. Davis, which includes luxury boxes and the East Side Club. The Bowl side has also been upgraded since original construction, including luxury boxes, which include Al Davis' box, and the West Side Club. However, Mt. Davis ruined the Coliseum as a Baseball venue for the A's, eliminating the pastoral outfield views of the East Bay Hills, and replacing that view with a monstrosity.

The issue is Kroenke wanted to move, is the 2nd richest owner in the NFL, and Mark Davis deep down wants to stay in Oakland, his home turf.

Some time ago, Mark Purdy, a well respected sports columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, was asked on KNBR in San Francisco which team he thought would wind up in LA. His response was that from following the NFL since the late '70's, the one with the most money gets what he wants ... The one with the most money in this case is Enos Stanley Kroenke.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

(If Kroenke moves the Rams to Los Angeles) May he lose money — or at least profit less than he would by staying in St. Louis (and putting a good team on the field)! Amen.

He just doubled his teams worth by moving to Los Angeles. Its all about the money and Stan is going to make a lot of money with this move regardless of what kind of product he puts on the field. While I feel bad for all of you guys in St Louis, I can't say I am not looking forward to getting my season tickets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FWIW, I feel sorry for St. Louis.

We would be fine if we had a top flight college basketball team. The NFL has a completely inferior product to D1 basketball and always has. The potential in this town that SLU is not capitalizing on is a damned shame. Even when we blow we get 5k in the arena. A good team could pack in 20k easily if we wanted. Will Pestello give a damn? Thats the only sports story i care about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

He just doubled his teams worth by moving to Los Angeles. Its all about the money and Stan is going to make a lot of money with this move regardless of what kind of product he puts on the field. While I feel bad for all of you guys in St Louis, I can't say I am not looking forward to getting my season tickets.

People say this all the time but he's supposedly going to build a stadium and retail center that costs $2.6 billion and he's going to pay a relocation fee of $550mm. That's $3.1b of money spent to "double" his team value from $1.5b to $3.0b. I'm sure there is more to it but the math isn't automatic that he just significantly increased his net worth.

Here's hoping he's made a major miscalculation and he continues to put a crap product on the field and after the newness factor wears off he is playing in front of a half empty stadium and getting few visitors to his entertainment district. Those bills could add up fast. He'll never go broke but as long as he continues to own some of the least successful teams possible (Rams, Avalanche, Nuggets all basically suck) I'll be happy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...