[Elvis]

Kroenke wasn't bluffing.

The Task Force Failed.

Now it's up to Dean Spanos to save St. Louis.

Not a great spot to be in if you're St. Louis...

[AltiTude Ram]

Well, at least it's a Baseball town.

It's amazing the things some of us have been telling them for years is proven correct.

Stan wanted to move.

The Top Tier clause would be the deciding factor.

They aren't building a Wal-Mart.

You almost have to feel sorry for those that are still hanging onto their last hope....

Swing and miss!

[SoCalRam78]

At the end of the day it always came down to this for me:

Stan had the first tier clause and won the arbitration. He's also the wealthiest owner and a real estate tycoon who wanted to take his team to LA. Took someone of his stature to finally seal the deal on LA and the NFL.

Plus, he was planning this since 2010. I always thought he'd take the Rams to LA after bidding for the Dodgers. Had he won the bid, he'd be building a stadium on the Chavez Ravine parking lot right now.

Everything else the last year or two has been a distraction.

[BuiltRamTough]

Bye bye DTV.

[sloramfan]

yeah...by by dtv

go rams

slo

[sloramfan]

on a sad note...

it's sad the deacon didn't live long enough to see the glorious return of the los angeles rams..

looking up at my previous post and seeing the avi made me think about that big wonderful smile on that would be on his face as this news becomes official..

you know he'd be a sought after interview on this topic..

damn, i'm starting to tear up just thinking about that..

go rams

slo

[ramsman34]

Ya, Directv must not be real happy with a team(s) going into the LA Market. Gonna lose a ton o' $$

[den-the-coach]

Ya, Directv must not be real happy with a team(s) going into the LA Market. Gonna lose a ton o' $$

Considering they are the third largest Corporation in Southern, CA they will well could make it up in naming rights of the City of Champions Stadium, however, IMO, they won't win the bid.

[TomSlick]

We have Dish Network, KTLA is part of our package. I assume they can't televise any LA RAM games, but can I presume there will be a "Coach's Show" or some other RAM type programming? I remember back in the 70s, Chuck Knox had the "Coach's Show" on TV. Whenever we visited my grandparents in Santa Barbara, I took full advantage of watching as much RAM stuff as possible.

[Elvis]

Hochman ripping me off:

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ ... 86a05.html

Hochman: Rams' fate might rest on one man

The future of the NFL in St. Louis could come down to Dean Spanos.

This week, we’ll learn how powerful the San Diego Chargers owner really is. Moreover, we’ll learn about this Spanos integrity we hear so much about.

I worry that his integrity will be overshadowed by the power of others.

See, right now, he’s committed to Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis, as the business bedfellows look to move their teams to Carson, Calif. The more I text with football people, and the more I read about NFL relocation, the more I wonder if people with more power (a united front of owners, or perhaps Commissioner Roger Goodell himself), will force Spanos into a marriage with Rams owner Stan Kroenke. This very well could be the strongest potential LA alliance.

We’ll find out Tuesday and Wednesday, at the special owners’ meetings in Houston.

What’s funny is, it appears that neither guy wants to go into business with the other. They have, it seems, a past. But for the good of Goodell and the NFL, a united Spanos and Kroenke could bring owners to LA much easier than if each fended for himself (or, in Spanos’ case, did so with the Raiders).

Kroenke’s Inglewood, Calif., project could take on two teams, and is perhaps a superior project to the Chargers and Raiders’ one in Carson. Some in the NFL desire a compromise of the Rams moving to LA but only with the Chargers, who are worth more than the Raiders and provide at least the appearance of more-stable and fruitful ownership. The Rams’ ownership is wildly wealthy and seems vehement about not just moving to LA, but making it clear it won’t stay in St. Louis.

Yes, sure, it seems simple that the NFL could solve its California problem by moving two California teams without hope of new stadiums into California’s biggest city. But the fear for St. Louisans is that the league’s owners will say: “How can we turn down a man worth $7.6 billion who wants to make the NFL in LA work?”

It’s understandable, and in line with the integrity stuff, that San Diego’s Spanos would not want to join forces with the Rams. Again, Spanos is miffed at Kroenke, and a Jim Thomas report in this newspaper broke it all down a few months ago. And there’s the natural worry about fan overlap between the Chargers and Rams in LA.

Of course, another option in all of this is Spanos’ Chargers playing in St. Louis. Or even Davis’ Raiders. It is hard to believe the NFL will move just one team (the Rams) to LA. But if the Chargers or Raiders join forces with Kroenke, would the other owner succumb to this: “I cannot get a new stadium in my current market, so I might as well move to St. Louis, where I can get a new stadium, a new lease, and a new lease on life.”

And if it somehow ends up being the Raiders and Rams in LA, like the old days, Spanos would have to at least consider fleeing San Diego and crowded Southern California area, starting fresh.

Journalists across the country are speculating on realistic results from Houston. There seem to be 20 reasons Carson makes more sense, 20 Inglewood makes more sense, and 20 more curveball third options, be it expansion or London or arranged owner marriages. And it’s frightening to even suggest, but what if they just table this whole LA stuff for another year?

So who will be the biggest power-players and power-swayers in Houston? It is unclear, to be sure. Most likely, neither stadium project will get 24 votes in the first voting. Incidentally, there have been some murmurs about Goodell trying to make the ballot secret, not revealing which owners voted for which project. The lack of accountability there is astounding. Here’s hoping if the Rams are to move to LA, we’ll at least know which owners made it happen.

So there’s a potential power sway in Houston, and the flexibility of the votes revives memories from January 1995. Back then, the owners voted 23-6 (and one owner abstaining) to move the Rams from LA to St. Louis, just a month after only three owners voted in favor of a Rams move.

Of course, it was Kroenke who was pivotal in the Rams’ relocation in 1995, and he’ll be vital in the possible Rams relocation in 2016.

Which brings us to each other. St. Louisans. The Rams’ fans. There’s been a crisis in confidence the past week, as Kroenke’s relocation proposal scorched the city’s psyche. And there’s been this ongoing debate, and a prove-it mindset, about whether St. Louis can support three teams. Some see St. Louis as a sullen, has-been of a city, with a few good corporations amid a malaise of sedentary leadership and business. Others see some of that, sure, but also see, as I do, the promise. Whether it’s the tech start-ups or the passionate sports community or next generation of innovative St. Louisans, said promise isn’t sedentary.

And so, as the NFL and its owners, notably Kroenke and Spanos, determine our NFL future this week, this image from the past weekend comes to mind.

Maybe this guy is our mascot, or at least, a symbol of how we feel.

He was a bearded bartender, fierce tattoos inked on his arms. And he wore black T-Shirt, with words upon it that screamed: ST. LOUIS VS. EVERYONE.