[bluecoconuts]

So each city has a week to fix up everything and be ready to go?

St Louis needs to secure land and sign off on the financing, San Diego needs to sign off of financing and whatever else they need and who knows what Oakland has doodled on a cocktail napkin for the league.

Sounds like the NFL wants an excuse. "We gave them time, they didn't get it done, we can't be waiting and dragging things on."

I wonder what this means for Inglewood's December timeline. Do they break ground anyway or wait a few weeks for an official green light?

[Elvis]

Town hall, presentations, the NFL is checking off boxes too...

[SoCalRam78]

[Elvis]

[RedAlice]

This is the updated video for STL to show at the meeting. It is branded entirely in the green colors of National Car Rental and mainly seems to to show off St. Louis and the stadium. Rams aren't mentioned and you don't even see anything of the Rams until they show the logo on the field and some team logos on people. It's almost like the video is made to show the stadium can be used for any team.

http://fox2now.com/2015/10/29/new-video ... l-stadium/

[Hacksaw]

"The timing would appear to put pressure on the St. Louis Board of Aldermen to move swiftly as it determines whether to help fund the stadium with public money. A financing bill introduced to aldermen on Oct. 30 will go before the St. Louis Board of Aldermen’s Ways and Means committee next week."
This is exactly what French was talking about. You delay and delay a draft for the Aldermen and then ask them to hurry up and make a decision.
It would make me smile a mile if the Aldermen don't make their decision before the 11th.
Ms Greens bill apparently went to a committee who chair is out of the country (is he with Pcock?) so it may not even get heard. What a corrupt bunch of hooligans trying to glom onto our team. It makes no sense that the NFL would back such a sloppy deal.

Keep your collective energy on all this guys. Time to put the hoobie on the StL proposal once and for all.

[TSFH Fan]

It's almost like the video is made to show the stadium can be used for any team.

The Neil deMause commentary is great:
THE NEW CHARGERS AND RAMS STADIUM PROMO VIDEOS ARE MORE ENTERTAINING THAN WATCHING THE CHARGERS AND RAMS
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/t ... s-and-rams

[...]

I can picture the conceptual design meeting now:

Let's start with the concepts that we want the NFL to think of when defining St. Louis, something like "LEGENDARY" and "LOYALTY" and "LEGACY."

Um, you know "legendary" isn't a concept, right, it's an adjective?

I don't care if it's a conjunction, so long as they stop thinking "LOSERS," okay?

We then get a tour of all the exciting spaces that National Car Rental Stadium will have to offer: the seven "premium club venues," the two separate tailgating areas, the "upscale contemporary club spanning from river to field" (which I don't think is proper use of "spanning," but grammar went out the window a while back here), the ... you know, I can't help like feeling something is missing here. I can't put my finger on — oh, right: football! Where San Diego's video shunted off all the actual sports until the end, St. Louis (or really stadium designers HOK) have managed to put together a promo video for a football stadium that features no actual football at all, unless you count the players briefly visible on a TV screen at a stadium club.

Read More: Dumb Football With Mike Tunison, Week 7

Which is as it should be, I guess, since NFL execs have already suggested that the future of going to a football game is watching on TV from a stadium bar. That's fine as far as it goes — football has always been a sport that's better watched on TV, and you can argue that the league is just giving the people what they want, even if what they want is a three-story brewpub that faces away from the field.

Still, it's awfully strange to threaten fan bases with losing their teams if they don't agree to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on new stadiums. San Diego's plan for a Chargers stadium is too much of a mess to even try to quantify — the two sides have mostly settled into insulting each other rather than even trying to discuss financial specifics — but the one in St. Louis is now pretty clear:

• $201 million from the state by extending the hotel taxes that paid for the Edward Jones Dome — the brewpub-deprived stadium that Missouri built for the Rams 20 whole years ago — for another couple of decades.

• At least $50 million in state tax credits.

• $75 million from the city's share of those same hotel taxes.

• $75 million to be raised by having Rams owner Stan Kroenke hand over naming-rights money to the city to pay for stadium costs, which the city would then hand right back by rebating $75 million in future sales and income taxes paid by the team, in hopes that no one in city government will be able to follow the money.

(Grubman's response to this last gambit, incidentally, was to insist that the taxes teams normally pay are "an NFL asset in the way we view the world," and insisting Kroenke should be allowed to keep them and get city subsidies on top of that. Just in case you thought he was going soft after that listening tour.)

All this public cash is being justified as giving Rams fans "state-of-the-art" facilities for watching the game. But if it's really all about finding ways to charge fans to have the same old big-screen TV experience, there's a simpler solution: Maybe the NFL should just leave the old stadiums where they are, and open a chain of NFL-themed sports bars and sell tickets to those. It'd save everyone a lot of time and money — and we'd still always have the sea lions.

[ramfaninsd]

i wonder what and by whom oakland is presenting. the new stadium guy for oakland is mitchell ziets but i don't think his company has a plan yet. they are very experienced at getting stadium deals done.

[RedAlice]

LOL. That's a funny, and accurate, take.


... you know, I can't help like feeling something is missing here. I can't put my finger on — oh, right: football!

the brewpub-deprived stadium

in hopes that no one in city government will be able to follow the money.

[RedAlice]

No link to Jim Woodcock, he is a straight up STL person. Twitter: @WoodySTL

Here is what he says:


The task force will not have further comment beyond this statement. Specifically, Dave Peacock and Bob Blitz are both unavailable between now and the presentation in New York City next week.

· I am happy to attempt to assist you otherwise, but may not be of much help. Your understanding is appreciated.

·The task force will not confirm attendees representing St. Louis until following the New York City meeting.

·The task force will issue a statement approximately one hour after its presentation next Wednesday in New York City.

·Because we are guests of the NFL at its league offices in New York City, and in respect to other cities making their presentation the same day, representatives of the task force will respectfully refrain from comment or conducting interviews in New York City next week – prior to or after the meeting – beyond the post-presentation statement.

· As a result, news media from St. Louis planning to travel to New York City for interviews of the task force will do so at their risk. We are not making any recommendations as to your decision, but do note the task force does not plan to address news media in New York for the reasons stated above.

· The first overall media availability with the task force will likely be in St. Louis either on Thursday, November 12, or Friday, November 13. It is too early to determine details, what that will look like, etc., but we should have information by early next week.

- Jim Woodcock