[Elvis]

This might be the harshest one yet:

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ ... 5d79d.html

Hochman: Kroenke is a bully, but other owners have final say

By Benjamin Hochman

He’s a bully. Like the old locker-stuffers and mind-manipulators, scheming Stan Kroenke has taken it to another level, for he’s bullying an entire city of sports fans. He’s throwing insults as punches to the face, mentally trying to break us, with his carefully written, 29-page relocation plan, submitted to the NFL, besmirching St. Louis.

The worst part about his seemingly diabolical plan is this, right here. See, he wants columns and radio shows and tweets expressing how much St. Louis loathes him, about how he can’t turn back now and possibly own a St. Louis NFL team. Why does he want this? So the NFL owners will have to second-guess a decision to vote for the Chargers and Raiders to move to LA, with the owners believing that the Rams owner cannot make it work back in St. Louis.

Rich Owner No. 1: “Man, it sure seems pretty logical to move the two California NFL teams, without hopes of a new stadium, into a palatial new stadium in California’s biggest city.”

Rich Owner No 2: “Maybe, sure, but Stan can’t go back to St. Louis!”

Stan Kroenke is calculated in everything he does. So to prove his point that he must flee St. Louis, he took it out on St. Louis, the same fans who filled the dome for all those happy years — and many who still pay hard-earned money to watch that USFL team he puts out there to play against NFL teams.

In the relocation plan, he had the audacity to say that since he became majority owner, “The current Rams ownership’s investment in the on-the-field Rams team has been significant. These investments have resulted in a 52 percent improvement in winning percentage over the five years before Stan Kroenke became the controlling owner.

“Despite these investments and engagements, Rams attendance since 2010 has been well below the league average.”

I would love to meet the first NFL owner or, really, the first human being who isn’t seeing through this (please insert most-insulating noun that we can still use in the newspaper, thank you). Yeah, they spent money on players and even a coach, but the players stunk and the coach never made the playoffs. So this 52 percent improvement took the Rams from really bad to still-pretty-danged-bad.

Kroenke is basically saying: “I can’t believe these penny-pinchers in St. Louis refused to spend money to watch this current losing team; the previous losing team lost way more often!”

Also in the relocation plan, he said that St. Louis can’t support three teams. You know who said St. Louis couldn’t support three teams in the year 2000, just 15 years ago, when the Rams were actually run well and winning? No one. No one said that. And as Forbes pointed out, the strategic dollar figures he quoted, used to prove St. Louis couldn’t support three teams, were similar to the figures of the city of Pittsburgh. And Pittsburgh seems to be doing OK with its three teams.

To cite the Rams’ potential popularity in Los Angeles, one of the pollsters he used was … a dude on Twitter. Seriously. The relocation plan stated: “A December 2015 poll on ESPN LA showed 51% of fans supporting the return of the Rams, as compared with 32% for the Raiders and 17% for the Chargers. Polling throughout the relocation process has consistently shown the Rams as a single team have more fan support than the Chargers and Raiders combined.”

That “poll” was done by an ESPN LA writer on Twitter. In the aforementioned December 2015, Arash Markazi asked on Twitter: “Which NFL team do you most want to see move to Los Angeles?” He indeed got the 51-32-17 percentage results. How many people responded? It was 2,238. Scientific and in-depth, indeed.

And the line that rattled much of St. Louis was the bold claim that “Any NFL Club that signs on to this proposal in St. Louis will be well on the road to financial ruin, and the League will be harmed.”

Can you elaborate, please? That’s a heck of a proclamation and prediction.

What we know is his team will receive $400 million in public funding (as Alderwoman Sharon Tyus said: “We’re like at the strip club, and the stripper is throwing the money back at us!”). There will be a rebated five-percent amusement tax ,saving the team a few million. And a naming rights deal that would average $8 million annually for two decades. And that excess fans are likely to come to see the new stadium, and with a watchable product, that could compensate for some stadium cost.

Yes, there have been reports that show the fallacies of publicly financed stadiums over the years. Nothing is guaranteed here. But it’s not like the city is offering to build, I don’t know, the current Oakland stadium or San Diego stadium (those toilet bowls where the Raiders and Chargers would thus continue to play if the Rams move to LA).

The past couple of days have been about responding to the bullying, about fighting back with the little power St. Louisans have, sadly, in regard to the fate of their football team.

But in the coming days, we’ll have to regroup and re-evaluate the NFL’s mindset and motives, first out of the New York meetings and then the all-owner Houston meetings, Jan. 12-13.

Kroenke is ruthless — he wants his Rams in LA, and it doesn’t matter who he has to punch to get there.

But how much does the league really care about feelings? My guess is not much, and we’ll find out. By all that I mean the Oakland and San Diego situations are dire, so choosing those teams to move to LA would solve those two problems. And then the Rams would have to go back to St. Louis, either to a new stadium or year-to-year at the dome, while Kroenke would continue to look to move. But will the voting owners be so fearful about the frayed relationship in St. Louis, that it would make them overlook the logic of the Carson project?

It all makes me wonder if there’s another outcome we’re overlooking, be it involving expansion teams, or a Chargers-Rams forced marriage, or Kroenke building his own stadium here, in the city that hates him so, while hiring the best PR firm a billion can buy.

[BuiltRamTough]

More hate towards Kroenke..

http://www.ksdk.com/videos/sports/nfl/2 ... /78366650/

[den-the-coach]

One thing smart business people know is not to take things personal when making business decisions or negotiating. I have a feeling Kroenke doesn't take things personal.

Great Post and in the end that is all the matters. The Gateway City has lost many corporations and population those are stone cold hard core facts. I want found amusing listening to one of Bernie's Podcasts is he talked about how many small business were doing well and that should account for something, but small business usually don't purchase the suites on a consistent basis and in the end when you compare both venues there is no comparison.

In fairness the St. Louis fans have not had great football for the long haul, however, neither has Cleveland, Detroit or Buffalo for that matter and their fan support is far better. I understand the emotion, however, being on the east coast one would surmise that I would want them to stay I mean the 1:00 pm games are nice start times to watch, but this team to me will be always the Los Angeles Rams and we now have an owner that has the ability to market our franchise on a national stage.

The Rams will eventually have to start winning on a consistent basis to be a player in the City of Angeles, but I truly believe when the relocation is granted it will propel this franchise in the upper echelon on the National Football league right after Jeff Fisher is let go in 2017 and David Shaw is hired as the Head Coach of the Los Angeles Rams.

[The Ripper]

The one point that they have that gets me is that the Rams have been working since 2002 to solve the stadium issues and actually it goes back further. The STL crowd is saying that's ridiculous because the Dome was only 7 years old but they fail to remember that the Dome was not designed for football and it was never even a 3rd tier stadium. The Rams were promised a number of improvements initially that were supposed to be completed in the first few year but in fact took years more.

[dieterbrock]

If St Louis fans filled the stadium this year like they did in San Diego and Oakland, these cries of unfairness would hold more weight.
Buffalo hasn't been in the playoffs since the inception of the GSOT, and they have no problems filling the seats. Heck when there was an ownership change and fear of the team moving, the fans gathered and said don't take our team.

[moklerman]

Has anyone ever uttered that it's unfair for someone to do what all parties agreed to?

[RedAlice]

Does anyone have the link to:

1. The article Bernie wrote in 1995 when the Rams came to StL and he was pretty much like: you lost, you can shove it LA?

2. Gov Nixon statement from 1995 stating that an owner can move his own team and he would take legal action if needed?

Both have been around here at various times.

[Stranger]

Does anyone have the link to:

1. The article Bernie wrote in 1995 when the Rams came to StL and he was pretty much like: you lost, you can shove it LA?

2. Gov Nixon statement from 1995 stating that an owner can move his own team and he would take legal action if needed?

Both have been around here at various times.

I've seen both of these posted here in recent weeks.

[Elvis]

The search box works pretty good.

Here's the source for the Nixon quote: http://www.csmonitor.com/1995/0320/20081.html

Here's our thread on the Bernie article: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1121

[Elvis]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt ... xI.twitter

Slay to Goodell: 'I cannot ever remember meeting Stan Kroenke.'

by David Hunn

ST. LOUIS • Publicly admonishing Stan Kroenke was not enough for local officials.

Last night, Mayor Francis Slay overnight-mailed a letter to National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“In reviewing the St. Louis Ram’s submission for relocation, I was struck by multiple inaccuracies and misrepresentations of St. Louis and our community’s relationship with the Rams,” Slay wrote. “A number of them require my response.”

The most “disturbing,” he said, was “the notion that the Rams put forth consistent efforts to negotiate a solution to their stadium situation dating back to 2002.”

“I have been Mayor of St. Louis since then and I — to this day — cannot ever remember meeting Stan Kroenke,” Slay continued, “much less engaging with him in any conversations about the future of NFL football in St. Louis.”

Slay, however, said he’d welcome such a conversation. He has a “strong” relationship with Cardinals and Blues owners, he said in the letter. And he’d like the same with Kroenke.

“I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter in more detail,” Slay’s letter concluded. “While I remain extremely unhappy at the portrayal of St. Louis in the Rams relocation submission, I am hopeful — if not confident — that the NFL will do the right thing.”

Slay is not the only one communicating with the NFL. The task force spearheading efforts to build a new stadium here is also planning to send a detailed response to Kroenke’s relocation “statement of reasons.”

On Thursday, the NFL confirmed receipt of Slay's letter, but did not immediately add further comment.